After FATF removed Pakistan from its grey list, Islamabad immediately rekindled the Kashmir issue and went almost berserk on world forums and in the British House of Lords. It parrots the narrative without deviation and receives negligible attention from the audience. The US has sanctioned a hefty sum for the so-called services to F-16. As in the past, Washington neither cares to know where Pakistan spends that money nor does Pakistan feel any compulsion to show where the money is spent.
Pakistan and the US have many undisclosed secrets between them which, if probed by a serious researcher, will show why the US wants to keep Pakistan by its side despite the humiliation heaped on her by Imran Khan during the last days of his tenure as prime minister. The Pakistani public has been subjecting the US to abuses and provocations.
The real relationship is not between the civilian governments but between the armies or to be precise between the Pentagon and GHQ. Their camaraderie is strong and cannot be broken easily.
It was the Pakistan Army which disclosed the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden to the Pentagon. To throw the dust into the eyes of the world, the Islamabad regime accused a Pakistani doctor of having leaked the address of Osama to an American spy. Pakistan managed to make Pakistanis believe that it was not the army that had anything to do with the disclosure of Osama but that a private citizen was the source of leakage.
The truth is that the Pakistan Army was facing stiff resistance from the TTP and this organization was in direct contact with al-Qaeda through the instrumentality of the Taliban of Afghanistan. TTP had made the Pak Army’s movements in Waziristan almost impossible. That is why Pakistan had to work out the azab military plan to wipe out the TTP. The real reason for the conflict between the Pakistan regime and the TTP volunteers is the Durand Line. While the Taliban and the activists of TTP have a complete understanding of their counter plans of pinning down Pakistan ground forces, Islamabad has been insisting on the acceptance of the Durand Line drawn by the British rulers in 1893.
Several skirmishes along the line have taken place between the Pakistani and Taliban border guards. Pakistanis have found that they cannot handle the Taliban fighters; therefore they left the field and just let things go as they were.
The US is still thinking a wishful thing. It hopes to mend the fence with TTP by asking for a role of the Taliban of Afghanistan. Pakistan believes that its covert support to the Taliban in their struggle against the US and NATO forces entitles them to behave with the Taliban like a master behaving with his servant. Pakistan was under the impression that her long desire for strategic space westward had been granted and now she would handle the destiny of Afghans.
It will take Pakistanis a long time to understand that Afghans are a historical nation fiercely independent and capable of protecting their independence against even the superpowers. But Pakistan’s Punjabi rulers have developed a mindset of landlords, bureaucrats and army generals, and now having found space westward they started identically behaving with the Afghans. Sooner than later, the Taliban demonstrated that they were Afghans – Taliban or no Taliban.
The people of PoK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) have been demonstrating for quite some time demanding that they be liberated from the yoke of Pakistan. Anti-Pakistan movements are active in Gilgit and Baltistan. The people of those areas are demanding why and how Pakistan ceded more than five thousand kilometres of Gilgit to China and why China is retaining it while it claims that it does not covet the territories of its neighbours. Who gave the Pakistani rulers the right to give away a vast chunk of land in Aksai Chin to China?
Anti-Pakistan demonstrations by PoK diaspora in European countries and UK have been demonstrated massively at Geneva in front of the UN Office, in London, before Pakistani embassies in many European countries. How can the UN ignore these demonstrations, the visuals and videos of demonstrators and then listen to the canard and lies spread by Pakistani diplomats at the UN General Assembly and other international forums?
Yes, Kashmir is a dispute and it needs to be resolved. The dispute is that Pakistan attacked Kashmir in October 1947 through proxies viz, the tribesmen of NWFP, who were abetted, sponsored, armed and transported by Pakistan in an illegal adventure in Kashmir. Indian troops beat them back and under pressure from the international community a ceasefire was agreed upon by both sides pending the final settlement of Kashmir. Pakistan has not honoured the 1948 Security Council Resolution asking Pakistan to vacate aggression in Kashmir and prepare for a plebiscite. Pakistan never vacated PoK but rather reinforced her forces and thus rejected the plebiscite. India waited for implementation of the clauses of the 1948 Resolution and when Pakistan failed to do so, India proceeded with the democratic dispensation in its part of Kashmir and the Indian Parliament resolved in 1994 to take back the part of Kashmir still in illegal occupation of Pakistan plus the Gilgit-Baltistan and Aksai Chin areas ceded by Pakistan to China.
This is the dispute. Now that Pakistan has no will to decide the dispute, India reserves the right to retrieve its legal territories of PoK and Gilgit and Baltistan. That is why the Indian Defence Minister has warned several times that India will take it back. Even the Home Minister categorically stated the same thing when on 5 August he introduced the J&K Reorganization Bill.
Pakistan in tandem with China has become a party to the CPEC which passes through the portion of J&K State (Indian Territory) under illegal occupation of Pakistan. Pakistan cannot enjoy the benefits of CPEC by allowing connectivity through a disputed stretch of land. It is against international law. China must be fully aware that it was not no man’s land that has been passed over to them by Pakistan. China must also understand that as they are threatened by the Baloch nationalists for looting their natural resources, similarly, the day is not far away when the people of Gilgit Baltistan and also those in PoK will follow the example of the Baloch. India has an option and she will be justified in helping the Baloch to liberate their land from an oppressive regime controlled by the ethnic Punjabis of Pakistan. India must help forge a close connection between the disgruntled elements and nationalist aspirants in both regions of Pakistan.