The ostracisation of Pakistan should be the prime objective of not just our foreign policy, but also of all concerned Indians. We should strive make present Pakistan something alike Apartheid South Africa.
What to do with Pakistan? This question keeps haunting our national leaders and opinion makers, especially at times when its egregiousness manifests itself in a sanguinary manner, as it did when a jihadist blew apart over 40 men of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir. The answer is simple: ostracise Pakistan. But neither politicians nor thought leaders want to get out of their comfort zones.
There are two tribes: Left-liberals and saffron romantics. The former have been lecturing us for ages that there is no alternative to talks with Islamabad—“uninterrupted and uninterruptible” dialogue, in the words of senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar. You can’t choose your neighbours, folks, so grin and bear it! Find solace in old sad songs like Hum ne jafaa na sikhi/Un ko wafa na aai (I couldn’t learn cruelty or faithlessness, my beloved didn’t know fidelity).
Besides, Pakistanis, whatever the RSS-wallahs may say, are decent people, dominated by mad mullahs, bad America, and a self-serving Army. So bad for them. They look like us, behave like us, and make good kebabs and biryani. Pakistanis may support and harbour Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed, we should talk to them; they may send jihadists to attack our Parliament, murder our citizens, slaughter our soldiers, and bomb our cities, we should talk to them. Whatever they may do, we should talk to them.
Against the bleeding-heart liberals are pitted the raucous, sanctimonious nationalists who spew fire against Pakistan all the time. But they are as woolly-headed as Left-liberals are. The incessant skirmishes between the two tribes have practically banished reason, commonsense, and prudence.
To be fair to saffron romantics, we have to say that Left-liberals have caused more damage than they have. Any talk about fighting the jihadists and taking on Pakistan is invariably dubbed by our intellectuals as jingoistic rhetoric and dangerous war-mongering. But the point is that India can fight Pakistan without firing a shot (that is how, by the way, that the Soviet Union was defeated).
All wars, after all, are not fought on borders; many are fought in the public domain using intellectual integrity as armour, solid erudition as armaments, cogent arguments as missiles, and international media blitzkrieg to demolish the enemy.
The ostracisation of Pakistan should be the prime objective of not just our foreign policy, but also of all concerned Indians. We should strive make present Pakistan something alike Apartheid South Africa. The need of the hour is a relentless and aggressive exposure of Islamabad’s support to jihadists of all hues at the international level.
Operation ostracise-Pakistan, like charity, should begin at home. We can’t expect Washington to declare Pakistan a terrorist state just because we want it that way, especially when we ourselves haven’t ended our ties with Islamabad. So, the first thing to do is end all relations with Pakistan—diplomatic, economic, cultural, etc.
Second, we have to intensify the warfare. We must ask all multinational companies to choose between India and Pakistan. Few, if any, will prefer Pakistan over India, for the former is a sinking ship and the latter a much bigger, stronger emerging economy.
Third, Washington doesn’t needle Islamabad beyond a point, for it needs Pakistanis in Afghanistan. The US wants Indian boots on the ground in Afghanistan. But our Nehruvian foreign office won’t let that happen.
A couple of points need to be grasped in this context. Concerted action against any evil is seldom without collateral damage. When the British banned slave trade, and enforced the ban, in the first half of the 19th century, those who suffered were not just slavers but also others. The trade had created an entire ecosystem with its powerful patrons; the ban did hurt powerful vested interests entrenched in the system.
Similarly, liberalisation in India in 1991 hit several interests, including those whose primary vocation was lobbying. But it galvanised the economy, helping India emerge as a power on the world stage. Closer home, the phasing out of killer Blueline buses in Delhi a few years ago led to the loss of employment to thousands of people, but the move was welcomed by all and eventually led to better public transport.
Therefore, the ostracisation of Pakistan is not only possible but also desirable. It is time that we began such a campaign in right earnest as soon as possible.
But, unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen. For the entire political class is comfortable with the status quo. Why try anything new when the routine “strong condemnation” of “dastardly” attacks does its job? Our political masters are absolutely blasé on this issue. Notice that it took 23 years and the death of 41 CRPF personnel to move them to abrogate the most favoured nation or MFN status to Pakistan. This despite the fact that Islamabad never reciprocated over MFN; it didn’t give us that status even though it was its international obligation.
In other words, the answer to the question “what to do with Pakistan?” is not difficult. Provided anybody is interested.