Million March: Bilawal Bhutto’s desperate attempt to revive his party backfires

Bilawal Bhutto

Kashmir is always a nice fallback issue for politicians of all hues in Pakistan especially if they are not doing too well at home. So it was no surprise to see the non-starter Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto trying to pull out this hoary old chestnut on Sunday in London. In what was billed as the ‘Million March’, Mr Bhutto tried to rouse a crowd of people by raving about India’s ‘human rights violations’ in Jammu & Kashmir. But the drama did not go according to script as the crowd pelted him with eggs and tomatoes. In September, in a desperate attempt to revive the PPP, the young Bhutto vowed to reclaim every inch of Kashmir. Not to be left behind, former army chief and president Pervez Musharraf also came out boasting of the Pakistani army’s capabilities of attacking India. In a country where its all-powerful army’s raison d’être is its enmity towards India, ‘India-bashing’ is the best way for politicians to remain relevant. The recent sabre-rattling by these discredited politicians must be seen in this light.
From 1947, Pakistan has repeatedly tried to raise the ‘Kashmir issue’ and fought three wars over Kashmir. The anger against Mr Bhutto could also have been a result of political rivalries within Pakistan. But the moot point is that Islamabad refuses to accept reality. Instead, it has turned a blind eye to the terror factories operating in PoK and the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service, is aiding and abetting terror groups, like the LeT and JeM, etc, to spread terror in India. Its repeated attempts to internationalise the ‘Kashmir issue’ have failed, with the United Nations and many countries stressing that India and Pakistan must resolve the issue at a bilateral level.
Pakistan must conduct itself with dignity if it wants to earn the respect of other nations. Its leaders would do well to talk about the real issues affecting the country, like its economy and security. Jammu & Kashmir will hold assembly elections in the next two months and it is expected that the people of the state will repose faith in India’s democratic system as was done in 2008. Pakistan has wasted more than six decades of its existence trying to foment unrest in the Valley. Meanwhile the terror groups it has nurtured have come back to bite it. The Kashmir issue is one of diminishing returns as hapless Bilawal’s experience showed.

Bergdahl deal: Obama wins in the US, lets down the world

The Bergdahl's with President Obama

Over the weekend the United States struck a deal with the Taliban for the release of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who was held a prisoner of war (POW) since 2009. While the return of a POW is always a joyous occasion, has Washington set a bad precedent? Also, has it paid a heavy price? The answer to both is yes. For Bergdahl’s release five senior Taliban militants have been released from the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. This includes Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa, a former Taliban interior minister and Abdul Haq Wasiq, who was the deputy chief of intelligence for the Taliban. The swap deal, without doubt, will embolden terrorist groups and will make it hard for Kabul to tackle the menace. On Monday, an Indian air worker was kidnapped from a school in Herat, Afghanistan. A few days ago the Indian consulate in Heart was attacked in which four terrorists were killed. The White House hopes that this deal will help it open a channel with the Taliban. It also hopes that the five men are unlikely to be as dangerous as they were. Only the naïve can buy this argument after about 30% of the total released Gitmo detainees have returned to terror activities.

Kandahar 1999

After the IC-814 hijacking in Kandahar in 1999, India released three terrorists — Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar — for the safe passage of more than 170 passengers. All three went on to commit deadly acts of terror — Azhar found the Jaish-e-Muhammed, which was behind the 2001 Parliament attack; Sheikh was involved in beheading Daniel Pearl; and Zargar has been training terrorists in camps in PoK. At the best of times deals with terrorists leave the negotiating government a Hobson’s choice. But this deal, especially when there are reports that Bergdahl was ‘delusional’ about the US mission in Afghanistan and that he ‘walked away from his unit’ raises disturbing questions.
It’s an irony that the US, while leaving Afghanistan, struck a deal with the Taliban — the same group it vouched to overthrow 13 years ago. President Barack Obama has managed to ‘leave no man behind’ and is thus a hero in the US. But as the leader of a global superpower he has let down countries in the region, India one among them.

Intelligence and a lack of it

What should have been a feather in the cap of the police force has now become a crown of thorns. On the face of it the Delhi police seemed to have nabbed a terrorist and with this averted a possible attack. But the jubilation of preventing a fidayeen attack on the Capital with the arrest of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Liaquat Shah alias Kaka Khan in Gorakhpur, near the India-Nepal border, by the Delhi police was short-lived when it was reported that the Jammu and Kashmir police were informed about Shah's arrival and were waiting for him. Shah, according to the J&K police, was on his way to surrender before the Kupwara district police under J&K's 2010 surrender-cum-rehabilitation policy. The policy is a major effort by the state to woo Kashmiris who crossed over to Pakistan but now want to return and lead a normal life.
While it is positive news that the Centre has, following a request from J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah to Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to probe the matter, the claims and counter-claims by the Delhi police and the J&K police raise a lot of questions, none of which reflect well on our 'preparedness' to counter a terrorist attack. The 26/11 attacks exposed the pitiable state of our intelligence-sharing mechanisms. Since then, a lot has been said about coordination and sharing of information among various intelligence and investigative agencies. The Shah arrest reveals that while the J&K police and the ministry of home affairs were informed about his return, and thus on the same page, the Delhi police, which was acting on information from its 'sources', was not in the loop. 'Let not the right hand know what the left is doing' is an ideal which may work in some fields but it is fatal as a dictum for intelligence and security agencies entrusted with the protection of the nation from threats, both from inside and out.
However, all is not lost. The Centre is considering reviewing its existing policy towards militants who surrender, to work on a 'larger policy framework' and to fill in the gaps. Shah's arrest and the publicity it has gathered are definitely not what scores of such militants, who return to Kashmir after abandoning their past ways, want. After being a militant for years the crossing-over is not easy: it's a daunting task to gain the confidence of the government. The greater threat comes from their earlier masters who generally do not take kindly to such changes of mind. Given that our government has a less than foolproof record of protecting ex-militants, the most prominent being the killing of Mohammad Yosuf, better known as Kuka Parrey, who was heading the counter-insurgency movement in Kashmir, it can hardly afford any more goof-ups like the one it seems to have made with Shah.
(This appeared as an edit in the Hindustan Times)