Arifa Noor, a Pakistani Journalist has written a brave article ‘The Unspoken Reality’ in Pakistani Newspaper ‘Dawn’. She categorically mentioned that Pakistan has really no option in the wake of India’s full integration of J and K through scrapping special privileges of Article 370 and reorganising the state into two Union Territories. If you go through posts by other Pakistani authors and Journalists, they are indulging in rhetoric asking the civilian government and Pakistani Army to take necessary retaliatory measures. But don’t they know what Pakistan’s condition is? Let me briefly explain the position of Pakistan now, as per my understanding.
The moment India tabled Article 370 in the Rajya Sabha, on 5th August 2019, Pakistan immediately rejected India’s act and talked to the international community, almost screaming that India was changing the status of the disputed area which was on the UN charter. But what happened?
Saudi Arabia commented diplomatically, expressing concern and wishing a peaceful solution through bilateral dialogue. But then it’s Oil farm Saudi Aramco made the partnership with Reliance making India’s largest FDI. UAE not only said that ‘abrogation of article 370 is India’s internal matter’ but also it is gearing to award UAE’s highest civilian award ‘Order of Zayed’ to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 23rd-24th August 2019 when PM Modi would be visiting UAE.
Bahrain Considers Narendra Modi’s visit to its country on 24th-25th August 2019 as Historic. That means the gulf Countries didn’t side with Pakistani Premier Imran Khan despite his rhetoric ‘Two Nation theory’ and claim of ‘Muslim Suppression’ in Kashmir while calling India racist. The isolation from Muslim countries, especially powerful gulf countries, showed Pakistan where it stands at the moment. That’s why Pakistan blames the Arab Countries’ business interest in India for their support to India.
Regarding the rest of the world, Russia and the USA have expressed that it’s an internal matter for India. The UK clarified that it didn’t support Pakistan on closed-door UNSC deliberations. The US and France too maintained neutrality while rejecting China’s proposed statement that ‘India’s unilateral action on Article 370 is destabilising.
In fact, sources also said that India took down China-Pakistan 14-1 in the UNSC close door meeting which also isolated China at the UN level for supporting Pakistan. That’s probably why China stopped commenting on this affair while just parroting that India and Pakistan should practise restrain.
Pakistan has other issues. In his article ‘The Afghan Peace process-Challenges, Opportunities and Prospects’, Alias Wardak writes in detail for Afghanistan Times, about how Pakistan wants to control matters in Afghanistan through the ‘Taliban’.
On the other hand, the US senator Lindsey Graham has warned Donald Trump not to trust the Taliban in the on-going peace talks. Then the suicidal attack took place in Kabul killing 63 and injuring more than 180 people. Although ISIS took responsibility for the attack, Afghanis believe that it’s the handy work of the Taliban backed by Pakistan arguing that suicide bombing is invented and followed by the Taliban and not ISIS.
All these issues could bring more difficulties for Pakistan during the upcoming FATF, (Financial Action Task Force in terror funding) October 2019 meeting where Pakistan might also be blacklisted.
Imran Khan completed one year of office on August 18th, 2019 but people are angry because of the worsening condition in the country. Separatism is at the highest level in almost all provinces such as Sind, POK, Gilgit Baltistan, Baluchistan and even Pashtuns. Pakistan is literally imploding. Pakistan’s financial condition is almost bankrupt and things will be difficult if FATF blacklists Pakistan.
What Option Does Pakistan Have At Present?
I would like to return to Arifa Noor’s article ‘The Unspoken Reality’ where she advised Pakistan society to deliberate on the Musharraf-Vajpayee plan on Kashmir. While it might not possible to exactly follow the four-point formula, at least the LOC can be converted into an international border.
Arifa very well presented the case of how the international community prefers status-quo. In fact, I too described the international community’s ‘status-quo’ mindset in my previous article published on this platform. I feel if proposed by Pakistan, then India would also agree to make the LOC an international border.
The reasons are very simple because the cost of maintaining the LOC is very high. Not only economically but also human cost-wise. Do we have to see how many more soldiers need to die? India has a strong government and hopefully, they can convince the Indian people and other political parties on this matter. But can Pakistan convince its army? The moment Kashmir is resolved, in my opinion, Pakistan’s Army will lose its stature. Many say countries have their army but the Pakistani Army has a country.
Thus, I don’t think a resolution regarding Kashmir is likely soon. Although, I am afraid that Imran Khan’s dream run may end very soon, because someone has to be a scapegoat for Pakistan’s failure and precedence says, that it’s always the head of a civilian government.