India-Pakistan Tie: Inexcusable Irrationalness Of Believing Pakistan’s Commitment To Peace






The spiritual voyage of the Pakistani President, Asif Zardari, to India recently, which also had a Pakistani political presence enmeshed in it, epitomizes yet another measure in the tempestuous diplomatic history between India and Pakistan. In his journey to the respected Mohammedan shrine in Rajasthan’s Ajmer, known as Ajmer Sharif Dargah (ASD), Zardari had company in the form of his young son, Bilawal Bhutto, who is, at the tender age of 23, the occupant of the post of chairmanship of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), despite having exiguous active political experience. But possessing the Bhutto surname and having the Late Benazir Bhutto as your mother unburdens Bilawal from the requirement of hands-on political experience in Pakistan’s stormy, sectarian and toxic politics in order to become the chairman of the PPP. Zardari arrived in India with the prominent Pakistani Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, who is quite adept at offering the Indian political media access to him. Zardari sought connection with divinity on arriving at the ASD, which was, by then, surrounded by a high hill of security presence. Zardari’s fairly substantial grant of $5 million to the ASD, seemingly for the welfare of the ASD, was a gesture that must have been heartwarming for the ASD’s management.











There was a get-together in the Indian Prime Ministerial residence between the Indian PM, Manmohan Singh, and Zardari while the latter was en-route to Ajmer. As has become customary during such visits, the statements by the two leaders and the two nations’ delegations were symbolized by insipid and docile declarations of tranquil intentions. The two leaders pronounced that they had congeniality in their minds and hearts for the Indian and Pakistani populace. While such proclamations of warless intentions are indeed welcome from the Pakistani State’s head, one needs to refrain from forgetting that such idyllic pronouncements have been uttered in the recent history by Indian and Pakistani leaders.
There has, however, been no extermination in the Pakistani Islamist terrorist infrastructure despite these rosy and blissful statements of peace emanating from the Pakistani governments and political parties in the recent past. In fact, the numerical and infrastructural strength of Pakistani Islamic terrorism has only strengthened in the last few years, with a miscellany of depraved Mohammedan terrorist outfits sprouting on Pakistani soil. Bloodthirsty Islamic terrorist outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahedeen, which are conventional and renowned, have been joined by other Islamic fundamentalist outfits such as Sipah-e-Sahaba (SeS) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). Each of these monstrous terrorist outfits is characterized by virulent inimicalness towards India, towards non-Muslims in India and towards secularism in India. The aspiration of these Sunni terrorist outfits is to ground an Islamic Sultanate/Caliphate in India with the decapitation of non-Islamic religions in India. The lethality and depravity of these Sunni terrorist outfits are so copious that they have limitless vituperativeness for Shiite Muslims’ ideological structure as well. The Pakistani Sunni terrorist outfits regard the Shiites as unworthy heretical Muslims, who deserve the kismet of subjugation and extinction. The long-standing and grisly history of the massacres of the Shiites in Pakistan has been caused by Sunni militant outfits such as SeS and LeJ. Afghani Shiites too have not been spared by these Pakistani Sunni terror groups. The LeJ is strongly believed to have been involved in the terrorist assaults on Afghani Shiites on December 6 2011, when three macabre terrorist atrocities demolished Afghani urban areas simultaneously on the auspicious Shiite Ashura, which terminated 63-80 Shiite pilgrims. The frequent murders and pulping of Pakistani Shiites, more so during the Shiite sacred ceremonies in Pakistan, is a testament to the sectarian murderousness of these Sunni terrorist outfits’ philosophy. These Pakistani terrorist organizations are there intact and are mushrooming, with charitable arms sprouting of these terrorist outfits (Jamaat-ud-Dawa). The robust popular presence at the rallies of the Pakistani Islamic extremist leaders in different Pakistani cities demonstrates their healthy base. India can’t ignore this gruesome and insidious reality in the name of peace. India can’t let ignorant, self-destructive and illogical emotionalism dictate the course of her relationship with Pakistan. India has paid a ghastly price in the past for such romanticism with Pakistan.











The perilously ultraconservative Islamists in Pakistan, with political ambitions, are led by the likes of Hafeez Saeed, against whom the Indian government and the convicted terrorist, David Headley, have presented intense evidence in relation to the insidious role of Saeed in the mastership of the Islamic terrorist atrocities in Mumbai in November 2008. The Pakistani Mohammedan ultraconservatism is recognized for its straightforward and tacit compassionateness for the additional Pakistani terrorist outfits like the Pakistani Taliban. The Pakistani ultraconservatives have even declared their antipathy for the likes of the former Pakistani autocrat, General Musharraf, for his ‘strategic proximity’ to the West in the ‘global conflict against Islamist terrorism.’ Musharraf is despised by the Pakistani Taliban and other acidic Sunni (Punjabi) terrorist outfits for various reasons, one being that he is a Mohajir i.e. an Urdu-speaking immigrant with Indian birth, who then migrated to Pakistan in the aftermath of the horrific British Indian partition. Of course, Musharraf’s dexterous positioning of Pakistan in alliance with the West in the ‘war on terror’ generated vitriol for him in the minds of these Pakistani terrorist outfits.  Musharraf did cooperate, to a certain extent, with the West by handing over certain sinister anti Western terrorists to the Western authorities. These terrorists were related to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. No meaningful action was taken by him, however, to oust and cripple primarily anti Indian terrorist outfits on Pakistani soil. Also, the substantiation that is emerging gradually demonstrates that the global Islamic terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, could have been dwelling in Pakistan from as early as 2005-2006 itself, at a moment when Musharraf was in power. Musharraf, being the dictator and the lord of the Pakistani army, ostensibly failed to notice the presence of this terrorist monster on Pakistani soil. The Pakistani espionage and intelligence community also failed to detect bin Laden hiding on Pakistani territory. It is difficult to swallow this proposition for many observers. Musharraf and his government repetitively assured the international community that bin Laden was not present on the Pakistani earth. But that was the case in May 2011, when bin Laden was liquidated on Pakistani soil by an outrageously gallant operation implemented by the American special military forces, much to the dismay of Pakistan. The operation to extinguish Laden was a surreptitious one.











The infrastructural robustness and the terrorist ideological verve of these Pakistani Islamist terrorist groups are largely unstained and unbroken, notwithstanding the outlawing of some of these terrorist groups periodically by the Pakistani government. The outlawing is so passive and ineffective that these outlawed terrorist groups regroup and rename themselves and their aims to make themselves more palatable to the global community. These Pakistani terrorist outfits reincarnate themselves as outfits of philanthropy.  Pakistan can then conveniently express its incapacity to crack and illegalize these ‘charitable outfits.’ Essentially, these ‘charitable outfits’ have the same demoniacal aspiration as their terrorist founders.  One needs to look at the ‘transformation’ of the proscribed Laskhar-e-Toiba into a ‘philanthropic outfit’, which has meant that the Lashkar has circumvented the proscription on it by adorning the guise of a ‘charitable outfit’, which it may very well be, but its terroristic intentions and infrastructure, as well as finances for funding terror, still are healthy. Lashkar, LeJ and Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami were involved in the many unsuccessful endeavors to bump off Musharraf, which led majorly to their toothless banning in the first place. Of course, these terrorist groups have indulged in bloodthirsty bellicosity against Western interests as well, such as the vehicular bombing in June 2002 near the American Consulate in Karachi. The banning The LeJ is also accused of participation in the loathsome homicide of the former Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, in December 2007.











The menace of these extremist Pakistani outfits hasn’t faded away, with many of their members forging ultraorthodox political alliances, whose mammoth congregations have been attended by the functionaries of Imran Khan’s emerging political party, Tehreek-e-Insaaf. Imran Khan has promoted himself as the bringer of a better future for the Pakistani populace. He is, apparently, a stainless candidate unlike Zardari and some of the other conventional Pakistani politicians, who have been encircled by allegations of subornment and nepotism. Imran Khan does represent a new political fragrance for the Pakistani electorate as he is untested administratively and, hence, bereft of the grubbiness of allegations of corruption. But his standpoints on Afghanistan, on the Taliban, on the Pakistani political ultraconservatives, on the Pakistani terrorist outfits, on the international military presence in Afghanistan, etc. are fundamentally worrisome for Indian interests and strategic wellbeing. Imran Khan advocates a dialogue with the Pakistani and Afghani Taliban to procreate orderliness in Afghanistan.  Talking to these terrorist outfits, which have not hesitated to murder prominent Afghan messengers of peace such as Burhanuddin Rabbani, is a catastrophic idea, which will eliminate whatever democracy and tolerance that exists in Afghanistan today under the presence of the ISAF.  Talking to the devilish Talibani outfit will mean compromising with them if success has to be accomplished during the talks. That means that the Talibani demand for political power in Kabul will have to be accommodated. The cultural, religious, sectarian and gender bigotry practiced by the Taliban will come to the fore more openly if the Taliban acquires political potency. The objective behind the justifiable liberation of Afghanistan by the ISAF in 2001 was the extermination of the poisonous infrastructure of the Taliban. To accord the Taliban political power in any form would be to infringe the core principles upon which the invasion of Afghanistan was implemented in October 2001 by the Bush administration in the aftermath of the 9/11 carnage on American soil that was thickly assisted by the Al-Qaeda leadership safeguarded on Afghan earth by the then governing Taliban. The Talibani penetration of political potency in Kabul, as a part of any ‘peace pact’ arranged by the Pakistanis and even by the reluctant Americans, would be devastating for the stabilizing Western influence in Afghanistan. The Talibani access to the Afghan governmental corridors would be a blow that incapacitates Indian influence in Afghanistan, which has been beneficial for Afghan infrastructural development since 2011. The Taliban entrance into the Afghan government would mean an increased likelihood of sanctuaries being provided in Afghanistan for Taliban terrorists, who are opposed to the West and to India (non-Islamic India/Hinduism). An Afghanistan without the ISAF, even under a national coalitional administration consisting of the Taliban, will be forced to depend on Pakistani tutelage. Pakistan can take advantage of its meaningful connections with segments of the Taliban (terrorist Haqqani network) to exert considerable pressure on Afghanistan after 2014, 2014 being the year of the intended disengagement of American troops from Afghan soil. Pakistan will then block any Indian attempt to gain a toehold in Afghani matters such as Indian investment in the Afghani economy, Indian training for the Afghani military, etc. 








Pakistan will subdue Afghani strategic independence to such an extent that India will be regarded as a pariah in an Afghanistan that is devoid of the ISAF and that is, subsequently, under the coercive counseling of the Pakistani State (ISI, Pakistani military). An Afghanistan, which has a central coalitional government with the Taliban as one coalitional component, will be a nation fractured by political unsteadiness, administrative procrastination and obdurate interministerial divergences. In the event of a coalitional government in collaboration with the Taliban, a few ministries will have to be handed over to the Talibani hands. Such a government will be forever under incapacitating political paralyses of different degrees. The Taliban, on acceding to the democratic political process in Afghanistan as part of a ‘serenity accord,’ may ensure the temporary deactivation of their armed cadres to gain international succor. However, after the ISAF withdrawal from Afghan soil in 2014, the Taliban, even if it is a part of the political process in Afghanistan then, can effortlessly reactivate the militariness of its cadres as there will be, at best, an inconsequential global military presence in Afghanistan after 2014. Reactivation of its armed cadres will not be difficult for the Talibani political wing then.  After the ISAF disengagement from Afghanistan in 2014, the whole geopolitical and geostrategic scenario vis-à-vis Afghanistan will alter. Pakistan, through malicious means such as its endorsement of the deadly Haqqani network, will become the major foreign player in Afghanistan and the weary West may relent.  This means that anti-Indian Islamic terrorist factories could reopen in Afghanistan after 2014 and function more freely. Islamic terrorists could be pushed from Afghanistan to Pakistan, their border being unmanageably unlawful and unruly. These terrorists could then infiltrate Indian Kashmir from Pakistani soil i.e. vintage crossborder terrorism.  Anti Western terrorists could house themselves in Afghanistan after 2014 with the guarantee of receiving safe havens from the Afghan government, which has the political Taliban as its part. If the moderate pro-Indian Afghani parliamentarians protest against Talibani dictatorialness, then the Taliban could disengage from the Afghani political process and threaten to instill anarchical bloodshed on the streets. Will the West intercede militarily then to terminate the Taliban threat? Another full-fledged Western military intercession is highly improbable considering the Western tiredness on account of the current Afghan conflict. Pakistan will be the only country that will then trumpet to the world that it has the power to stabilize Afghanistan and kill the prospective anarchy there. 









This will mean, at least, that Pakistan will ‘arrange’ a very strong Talibani presence in the national Afghan government, which will represent the sidelining of other relatively broadminded Afghan political parties, with strategic conviviality towards India. Pakistan, in order to assert itself in Afghanistan, will desire and come up with a heavily Talibani Afghan government. This will typify the termination of the meaningfulness of the Indian diplomatic presence in Afghanistan as the Taliban will not aspire to do any business with India. Pakistan will be the gleeful victor. Pakistan shares a border with Afghanistan and India doesn’t. India currently doesn’t have a military existence on Afghan soil. It will be difficult for India to penetrate Afghanistan militarily after 2014 if the Talibani virulence for India manifolds. India will be a tragic loser.











This is the reality that Imran Khan desires, despite knowing the thick connections between Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other Pakistani Islamic terrorist groups. Negotiations with the Taliban represent a core strategy of Imran Khan to heighten the Pakistani influence in Afghanistan after 2014 and to decapitate Indian influence there after 2014. Imran Khan aspires to see the ouster of a constructive Indian presence in Afghanistan. His sugarcoated talks about Indo-Pak peace being one of his primary goals must not make India position blind trust in him. His alliances with the Pakistani political ultraconservatives, who have zero respect for India, his advocacy of discussions with Pakistani extremist groups to create orderliness in Pakistan and in the lawless Waziristan, his disparagement of the stableness that the Western military presence and the Indian diplomatic presence have brought to Afghanistan, etc. embody his political personality, which is unpalatable and indigestible for the idea of peace in South Asia. He has not spoken at length about the measures that he would take to dissect the Islamic terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan. He probably never will speak at length on this matter since he doesn’t intend to do anything of this sort. India, at this stage, can derive no comfort from the electioneering and sloganeering of Imran Khan and his allies.











Any Indian government, which negotiates with Pakistan when no tangible action has been adopted by Pakistan to incarcerate the terrorist, Hafeez Saeed, is a dishonorable government. Any Indian government or think tank or media house, which even contemplates negotiations with Pakistan for the ‘resolution’ of Siachen/Sir Creek/J&K disputes, is a hopelessly unrealistic and inexcusably idealistic entity. This vision of talking to Pakistan is unpardonably utopian as the Islamic terrorist industry in Pakistan has mushroomed in the last 15 years.  There have been liquidations of prominent Pakistani politicians such as the Pakistani Punjab’s former Governor, Salman Taseer, and the former Pakistani Federal Minister, Shahbaaz Bhatti. These wanton liquidations were the handiwork of the Pakistani Islamic terrorists. The ISI and the Pakistani military have demonstrated no concrete sign to India and to the global community of their full breakaway from these macabre terrorist groups. No convictions of the detained Pakistanis have occurred in Pakistan in order to provide justice to the casualties of the 26/11 Islamic terrorist barbarities in Mumbai. The ISI and the Pakistani military will be the final deciders of the Pakistani relationship with India, not the democratically chosen feeble Pakistani government.











There have been mammoth instances of Pakistan fomenting ghoulish Islamic terrorism in India, with some help from some indigenous Indians. Temporarily, the Indian government is outraged and appalled and desists from having conversations with Pakistan. But then, with the passage of time, everything is forgotten and India is conversing with Pakistan again and issuing homilies in support of Indo-Pak tranquility. Indian PM Manmohan Singh emits commendations of the ‘Pakistani intentions of peacefulness.’ But the Islamic terrorists are there on that country’s soil planning their next atrocity on India, the laboratory of Islamic terroristic experimentation. It should an Indian governmental principle that India will not negotiate with a Pakistani government that doesn’t deliver an onslaught on Pakistani Islamic terror. Sagacious and realistic diplomacy doesn’t mean that India should continue to have unfettered dialogue with the Pakistanis even if anti Indian Islamic dragons in Pakistan continue to envenom themselves untouched. Talking to this Pakistani government and even mulling over any ‘peace deal’ with them is an affront to the thousands of casualties of Islamic terrorism in India. These Indian casualties, who have been exterminated by Islamic terror in crowded trains, buses, marketplaces and outside temples, deserve an Indian government that doesn’t compromise with a Pakistani administration that doesn’t whip Islamic terror on its soil.










The bottom line is that Pakistan will continue to adhere to the policy of making India bleed gradually. This policy was embraced by the Pakistani State after the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh by India during the Indo-Pak battle of 1971. Pakistan will continue to rear the Islamic terrorist infrastructure that can knife and slaughter India. This Pakistani policy is likely to continue at least till Pakistan attains its prime goal of annexing J&K. The question is, should India let that happen for the sake of ‘peace’ with Pakistan? For any kind of ‘durable’ peace and for a wholesome ‘resolution’ of Indo-Pak ‘disputes’, as stressed by Pakistan, India will have to make territorial and administrative concessions on Kashmir to Pakistan. India will have to make some territorial concession to Pakistan on the strategically important Siachen Glacier. Then only, Pakistan will be satisfied and there may be ‘peace.’  Should India make these concessions and thereby scorn the sacrifices of its military personnel in J&K, who have sacrificed their lives to continue J&K’s association with India? Should India make the Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh minorities in Kashmir additionally vulnerable by making concessions on Kashmir to Pakistan? What about the miserableness of the condition of the dispossessed Kashmiri Hindus, millions of whom are not in their Kashmiri hometowns and are, instead, in piteous refugee camps and in other parts of India? Should India lose the strategic advantage it has currently by demilitarizing Siachen in the absence of any foolproof guarantee from the 







Pakistani military that it will not try to reoccupy Siachen clandestinely?  Can Pakistani ‘tranquil’ intentions be trusted by India in the presence of such terrorist sectarianism in Pakistan, in the presence of copious anti-Indian Islamic terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan (and in Pak-possessed Kashmir)? Illogical sentimentality with Pakistan will make India appear to be a friend of foolhardiness and idiocy. Indian military potency and an indefatigable resolve to place Islamist terror in an unrecoverable comatose condition will be India’s savior, not comical emotionalism. A nation that indulges in comical emotionalism on security matters will be ridiculed by the world. India can start off by executing some of the convicted terrorists in India jails, who are with the death penalty.