:: Editorial

Paranoia apparent in Pak responses

Oct.28 : India has always been concerned with the political and financial stability of Pakistan. Improbable as it may seem to those outside the subcontinent, irrespective of political parties it has been the standard formulation of the ruling establishment in this country that a stable atmosphere in Pakistan is in India’s interest, not to say of the interest of the Pakistani people themselves. The reason is quite simple. When life in Pakistan is unsettled, that country’s military establishment — which is its decision-making elite in every sense — tends to behave in an erratic manner toward India, and is known to attempt to whip up a nationalist fervour in order to paper over internal cracks or cover up acute domestic deficiencies. The Kargil conflict was initiated by Islamabad at a time of acute financial crisis in Pakistan. The 1971 war had as its backdrop the mahabharat that was being played out in that country’s internal politics involving the Pakistan People’s Party and the Awami League, a state of affairs that would end in secession, and preceding that cause an influx of millions into India from the erstwhile East Pakistan. If anything, the situation in Pakistan today is one of acute social and political nervousness bordering on paranoia, coupled with a rapidly deteriorating security outlook. Perhaps it is fair to say that at no time before has Pakistan suffered from the simultaneous occurrence of a grave security threat of an existential nature and financial inertia relieved only by benefactors’ infusions from overseas. Credible media reports speak of preparations by people wanting to temporarily migrate in order to get out of harm’s way on account of the war in the North-West Frontier Province and areas contiguous to it. In the event, this country has been compelled to issue an advisory to Indians to postpone travel to Pakistan unless they absolutely must, and avoid making even pilgrimages.

Unfortunately, the political establishment in that country has taken exception to notes of caution sounded by India. In what can only be called a knee-jerk reaction, the foreign ministry in Islamabad was swift to take umbrage at the expression of the Indian hope by the foreign secretary that the Pakistani nuclear establishment should be firewalled from jihadist depradations. Pakistan’s interior minister Rahman Mailk has now gone a step further. In a quixotic response to absolutely nothing in particular, he has lashed out at New Delhi for being behind the Pakistani Taliban movement that has pitted itself against the Pakistan military. A more extraordinary suggestion cannot be imagined. From blaming India for its internal woes in Balochistan, a high official has chosen to accuse this country of cohabiting with the Taliban. Mr Malik, in some ways, calls to mind the village schoolmaster in Oliver Goldsmith’s Deserted Village who "though vanquished, (he) could argue still". If Pakistan cannot get out of the mindset of blaming others for its internal loss of equilibrium, it is unlikely to take any meaningful steps to deal with the enormous problems that confront it.