Indo Pak

Can India and Pakistan
ever talk peace?
Table of contents
Peace with Pakistan: The impossible dream?

We are fools: 6 things we need to realise about Pakistan
04
Beyond LoC violations, India is losing the Great Game to Pak
06
Cowardice is not the way to secure peace with Pakistan
08
Dear India: If you want peace, speak to Pakistan Military
11
LoC violation: Liberals are ignoring the reality of Pakistan
13
Does Manmohan want to be seen as Paks appeaser-in-chief?
16
The LoC violation

From Pak FM to India PM: Who said what on LoC violation
19
LoC conflict: How to deal with a rogue state like Pakistan
22
LoC violation: Why the US wants India and Pakistan to cool it
24
Army chief plays dove more than hawk on LoC violations
26
No more business as usual: Govt translates PMs words into action
28
LoC violation: Should Pak artistes and players pay the price?
29
Hina Rabbani Khar lashes out at India war mongering
30
Mr Khurshid, what exactly is proportionate response?
31
Pakistan's inner turmoil

Pakistan turmoil deepens as Supreme court orders PMs arrest
34
Pakistan continues its 65-year-old record of forcing out PMs
36
How can Tahir-Ul-Qadri mobilise numbers without Pak Army support?
38
Pak PM Ashraf lobbies with political leaders against Qadri
39
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Peace with Pakistan:

The impossible dream?
We are fools: 6 things

we need to realise about
Pakistan
There can be no peace with Pakistan till the nature of
the Pakistani state changes. Why is it that we never
seem to realise this despite repeated setbacks?
R Jagannathan, Jan 9, 2013
terror, fake currency, et al. Peacetimes will be
akistans brazen violation of the line of
used to prepare for war covert or overt.
control (LOC)in Kashmir yesterday, and
the even more provocative act of mutilating one of the bodies of the two Indian soldiers
killed, is intended to send several messages.
Some of it may be related to Pakistans internal
political dynamics including the coming elections and the likely change in the Chief of Army
Staff but the core message is to peaceniks in
India, including the Prime Minister.
The message is simple: no matter what peace

overtures we make, the Pakistani state will be
in a permanent state of war till it achieves all its
political and military objectives (Kashmir, Khalistan, etc). And it will use fair means and foul
The problem, though, is with us. When somebody is shouting from the rooftops I hate you,
how is it that we dont get the message, and still
talk peace? We keep talking about confidencebuilding measures, when Pakistan has done absolutely nothing to build any kind of confidence
in us about its peaceful intentions.
when it is all one-sided. Our jaw-jaw is not an

answer to Pakistans not-so-covert war-war attitude. After 1971, Pakistan has realised that it
cant win a conventional war with us, but it is
preparing for war by every other means possible.
Signals about a shift in Pakistans attitudes were
Jaw-jaw may be better than war-war, but jawjaw without strategic purpose makes no sense
available even during Interior Minister Rehman
Maliks visit to Delhi last month, where he made
Pakistans hostile intentions clear by trying to
equate the 26/11 terror attacks with the Babri
demolition, and suggested that Kargil martyr
Saurabh Kalia whose bodied was handed over
in a mutilated form by the Pakistanis may
have been the victim of inclement weather.
That we have now been handed another mutilated body by Pakistan less than a month after
Maliks insensitive comments shows that we are
the fools. We seem to need repeated clouting on
the head with a blunt instrument to wake up to
the reality that is Pakistan an enemy state.
Here are six things we should never forget about
Pakistan.
One, Pakistans reason for existence is antiIndia. Unlike India, whose reason for existence
is the idea of India (secularism, peace, prosperity, etc), the Pakistani state lives only for the
sake of enmity to India. This means the idea of
Pakistan is bankrupt beyond enmity to India.
Till the Pakistanis state and people choose
to define themselves positively, there is going to
be no peace.
Two, if the idea of Pakistan is non-existent, and
the idea of India is what enrages Pakistan, it
means two things: the Pakistani state will always prepare for war, and the peaceful pauses
are merely meant to give them breathing spaces
to recuperate and build their war apparatus
against us.
Three, there is no point differentiating between
the Pakistani state and its people, which our
romantic Aman ki Aasha peace-mongers keep
drilling into us. The point of this distinction
between state and people is meaningless since

it is the Indian state that is trying to talk peace
with the Pakistani state. It is not negotiating
with the Pakistani people directly.
Four, if the idea of India has to win over the
non-idea of Pakistan, we have to let them stew
in their own juice till the illogic and foolishness
of creating a state based on Islam and enmity
to India is apparent to all thinking Pakistanis
and the ordinary people. They have to abandon
the idea themselves. As things stand, the people
could easily fall prey to the violent ideologies of

the Pakistani Taliban and we have to be
prepared for the fallout. We should always be
ready for Pakistani perfidy and this means not
accepting any peace overtures at face value even
if we decide to talk to them for the sake of world
opinion.
Five, India must thus always keep the powder
dry because Pakistan has always been preparing
for a 1,000-year war. They know that our people
have the tendency to forgive and forget Pakistani perfidies a little too quickly. This is why we
have never learnt the lessons of 1948, 1965, 1971
and 1999 and 2008 (26/11). Pakistan is counting on the Indian (largely Hindu?) tendency to
forget the past and move on even though they
themselves will never forget. This is the greatest
danger India faces today our unwillingness to
confront the truth about what our enemy is like.
Six, the Pakistanis understand only strength.
We have to build our strengths against Pakistan economically, militarily, and in terms of
our terror-fighting capabilities. Till 1971, they
underestimated our military strength. Now they
underestimate our secularism and economic
and strengths. But underpinning it all will be

our ability to make Pakistan to pay a price for
misadventures. This is what we need to focus on
making them pay.
Two markers will let us know if Pakistan has
changed. And these are: the Pakistanis change
their constitution to take Islam out of it. If
Pakistan becomes truly secular, there is hope
for peace. Second, the role of the army is clearly
made subordinate to that of the civilian authority in Pakistan. If this happens, we can again
begin taking the risk of talking peace with them.
There are other markers sending the 26/11
plotters to the gallows, etc but giving MFN
status (most favoured nation) status to India or
making visas easier are not true markers of a
desire for real peace. These are deliberate ploys
to lull us to believe that they are thinking peace
when they are not. In fact, Pakistan will use
freer visas to push more terrorism here.
This is what we should expect from the Pakistani state.
Beyond LoC violations,

India is losing the Great Game to
Pak
Pakistans efforts to internationalise the Kashmir
dispute, which had received a setback in recent
years, are back on course.
Venky Vembu, Jan 15, 2013
hen artillery guns are booming across

the Line of Control, its hard to hear
what is said sotto voce in far-off
Delhi. But one of the more tantalising revelations made almost in passing by Army chief Gen
Bikram Singh at his press conference on Monday to address the current round of ceasefire
violations and cross-border transgressions by
Pakistan makes for very disquieting reading.
Gen Singh disclosed that the beheading of

Lance Naik Hemraj Singh by elements in the
Pakistani Army, which has ratcheted up the
tension rather more than the firing across the
Line of Control, wasnt the first such incident
in recent years. There had, he conceded, been
at least two similar incidents in recent years.
Both those episodes were deliberately played
down, even by the Army brass, evidently under
political pressure from the Manmohan Singh
government, which was working overtime to
restore bilateral relations with Pakistan and
didnt want the sordid story of Indian soldiers
martyrdom to disturb the mystical trance of the
peacenik brigade.
That an elected government would literally
sweep the beheaded bodies of Indian soldiers

under the red carpet it rolls out for Pakistani
leaders says much about the perils of Indias
peace-at-any-cost strategy vis-a-vis its accursed
neighbour to the northwest. If an elected Indian
government would dishonour the lives of Indian
soldiers in this fashion, it isnt surprising at all
that Pakistans jihad-crazed Army (and its proxy
army of terrorists) subject our soldiers to ritual
sacrifice whenever they are overcome by bloodlust.
As Id noted earlier (here), in the context of the
savage torture and mutilation of Capt Saurabh
Kalia during the Kargil war, the Pakistani Army
castrated an entire nation when it sent back
his mangled body and claimed, as Pakistans
Interior Minister did fatuously on Indian soil
recently, that Capt Kalia may have been a victim
of inclement weather in the high Himalayas.
India. The exit of the US Army from the region
will also free up Pakistan-sponsored jihadists,
who are now on active duty on the Pak-Afghan
border, who can then be redeployed in Kashmir,
which Pakistan still covets. The Great Game is
in full play again.
The latest violations of the ceasefire along the
Line of Control and the beheading also point to
the fact that Pakistans efforts to internationalise the Kashmir dispute (such as it is), which
had received a setback in recent years, are back
on course. To ignore the very real threat of a
revival of Pakistan-sponsored jihadi terrorism
in Kashmir is the height of folly.
A yearning for peace isnt, of course, folly in

itself. But what the incorrigible peaceniks and
the candle-light brigade in India overlook routinely is the geostrategic and regional context in
which such savage transgressions occur, and the
unrepentant hate-filled mindset that still bestirs
the jihadists in Pakistan and their handlers in
khaki.
The latest incidents have come about at a time
of great political churn within Pakistan, where
the Army is looking to re-establish its foothold
in politics by using the million-man march by
Canadian-Pakistani Sufi cleric Tahir ul-Qadri
as a Trojan horse. They also coincide with the
timing of the US announcement of a drawdown
of its troops in Afghanistan, where the Pakistani Army and the ISI are looking to establish
a beachhead for the Taliban, with whom they
share a symbiotic relationship that targets
a lawyer) reflected hubris and bravado of a high
order. Their message, channelled in bellicose
tones: dont forget that Pakistan is a nuclear nation; and, unless Kashmir is handed over to Pakistan, such incidents as beheadings and jihadi
violence will only continue. If that isnt a threat,
one doesnt know what is.
This is the mindset we are up against, notes
Sood. If this is the mindset of an educated
ruling class, then what peace dividends are we
looking for? Our great desire to periodically sue
for peace and exhibit our magnanimity is surely
misplaced.
It is in this context that Gen Bikram Singhs rev-
Much has been made of the fact that the response to the latest tensions along the Line
of Control has been rather more measured in
Pakistan than in India. Indian commentators
routinely point to the shrillness of the debate on
Indian television airwaves as compared to the
sobriety that marks the discussion in Pakistan.
Quite apart from the fact that the outrage is naturally louder on the Indian side since the brutal
beheading was visited upon an Indian soldier,
it isnt necessarily true that the discourse on the
Pakistani side is particularly more measured.
As former RAW secretary Vikram Sood points
out (here), on a recent panel discussion, the
sentiments of Pakistani commentators (who included a former diplomat, a retired Admiral and
elation about earlier instances of beheading of

Indian soldiers by the Pakistani Army acquires
significance. If our yearning for peace blinds us
to the repeated ritual abuse of Indian soldiers,
such bilateral bonhomie comes at too high a
price and reduces us to sitting ducks for the
next such transgression.
As former diplomat Kanwal Sibal observes
(here), India has publicly acknowledged its
helplessness by stating many times at the highest levels that it has no option but to continue
the dialogue with Pakistan. We have shown to
Pakistan in recent years that we can absorb serious provocations without retaliating. And since
we did not break diplomatic relations even after
the November 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai,
it may seem a bit of an overreaction to do so
now.
In other words, in order for the government not
to conceded to a failure of its Pakistan policy, it
will feel constrained to go further down the road
in search of peace, with no reciprocal commitments from the other side. Yet, reasons Sibal,
it is still not too late to retrieve some of the

ground that India has lost.
We should cease saying that we have no option but to negotiate with Pakistan; we should
change our discourse that both countries are
victims of terrorism, as we are not responsible
for terrorism in Pakistan. We must forbid visits
by Hurriyat leaders to Pakistan and insist that
Pakistani leaders will not meet Hurriyat leaders
in Delhi. We should postpone for the present
any exchange of visits and delay the convening
of the next round of the composite dialogue. We
should not encourage sporting exchanges.
These policy recommendations come not from
a right-wing nut, but from a diplomat who has
an inside-out view of the tortuous course of
diplomacy vis-a-vis Pakistan. For that reason,
they are somewhat harder for the government
to dismiss out of hand. Yet, as the Manmohan
Singh government has exemplified repeatedly
over the years, there are none so deaf as those
that will not hear.
Cowardice is not the

way
to secure peace with
Pakistan
The choice before India in dealing with Pakistan is

neither war nor peace: it is a tense form of peace
that will become real peace only when
Pakistan changes internally.
t serves nobodys purpose not Indias, not

Pakistans, nor the rest of the worlds to
allow the recent negative vibes over horrific
incidents on the Line of Control (LoC) to degenerate into open hostilities or war. But it serves
even less purpose to pretend that peace with
Pakistan can be achieved by one-sided concessions, or what passes for policy on the Indian
side.
The real choice before India in the wake of Pakistans continuing bad faith is not war or peace,
as our weak-willed peaceniks and phony intelligentsia presume. Our only realistic option is a
tense form of peace that can be held together by
our own internal preparedness for any eventuality. We cannot count on Pakistan to do its bit to
engender trust in us about their intentions, and
history provides ample proof of this.
This calls for India to put a long-term strategic plan in place the main elements of which
include a strong defence capability, a strong
counter-intelligence capability, the ability to
destabilise Pakistan for our own purposes, and
the ability to make precision strikes at terror
targets inside Pakistan that would also include
plausible deniability on Indias part.
Without these elements, no peace policy can
work, for they will be seen by Pakistan as being
age trade and more people-to-people contacts.
But even this policy will fail if we do not understand what Pakistan will use these concessions
for. The Pakistani army and the jehadis will use
these open conduits to push hostility covertly.
For example, once huge trade volumes result,
what is to stop Pakistan from using a corrupt
border bureaucracy to push guns or dangerous
material into India directly through the trade
route instead of clandestime means? For that
matter, what is to stop Pakistan from pushing
jehadis through the freer visa regime? Do we
have the capability to monitor who comes and
goes, when we have a track record of letting
thousands of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis to
overstay here without any machinery to check
this influx? Decades after the Assam agitation,
we have not pushed even a handful of illegal
Bangladeshis out. Pakistanis will melt away just
as easily in India with freer visas.
The reason is simple: Pakistan knows what it
wants from India and is willing to stake everything it has to get it. We dont know what we
want from Pakistan, beyond a vague hope that
they will leave us alone. That they wont allow.
As MJ Akbar wrote the other day in The Times
of India, Pakistan has a clear India policy (and
this policy is decided by the army), but Indias
has none towards Pakistan. A mushy approach
to peace does not amount to a hard-headed
strategic policy of engaging Pakistan that will
really promote peace in the neighbourhood.
Let us acknowledge that there is real mistrust
between Pakistan and India, but we are more
willing to forget it than them. This is why we
the result of our weakness and they would not

be wrong on that score. Failure to secure ourselves is cowardice of the highest order masquerading as peace-seeking.
The peaceniks argue that pushing trade and easier people-to-people relationships will improve
the constituency for peace inside Pakistan, and
there is some truth in that. We should encour-
are repeatedly surprised by their perfidies. After

each Pakistani outrage, we blustered for a while
and then gave up.
As Akbar notes: There were 57 cross-border
violations by Pakistan in 2010, 60 in 2011 and
117 in 2012. Delhis response has been a private,
and sometimes public, campaign to reduce our
forces on the border. If it takes two sides to go
to war, it also takes a partnership for peace.
Manmohan Singh has the look of a lonely man
abandoned by the partner of his dreams.
For real peace to break out, several things have
to change internally in Pakistan (read here), but

there is nothing we can do about it beyond preparing ourselves for the next act of perfidy from
Pakistan and plan for some form of retribution
and resilience.
layed Pakistan still hasnt granted India most

favoured nation status, as it promised to do by
the end of 2012. But that is what bigger partners do; and thats the price of securing our
neighbourhood. (Italics mine).
To be sure, this writer is dead against the kind

of jingoism being bandied about in some primetime TV channels. These channels, in fact, play
right into Pakistans hands by strengthening
jehadi forces like Hafiz Saeed and his cohorts.
Sharma even thinks that Manmohan Singhs

big achievement is the Sharm el Sheikh agreement with Pakistan, which was widely seen as
a sellout. He believes that the Congress party
humiliated Singh for allowing the Pakistanis to
insert a line indicating that we may be fomenting trouble in Balochistan.
However, consider what Mihir Sharma considers a strategy for peace in Business Standard:
making more one-sided concessions. India
must push the agenda of increased openness
and interdependence for its own reasons and in
its own interests. This will, tiresomely often, require of us the high road. It will involve ignoring frequent provocation from one or another
of the many interests in Pakistan who see rapprochement with India as dangerous whether
the bearded prophets of Indias dismemberment
or the Scotch-swilling empire-builders in the
cantonments. It will involve making concessions when returns seem non-existent or dewith Mumbai, it could get away with anything.
It has.
So the route to peace is to keep giving in to Pakistans belligerence?
Now consider Akbars riposte to this: Islamabad took the measure of Delhi in 2009 at Sharm
el Sheikh, when, despite the international
outrage over Mumbai (i.e. 26/11) and evidence
of Pakistans involvement, it was Singh who
made extraordinary concessions to put together
a joint statement. The text was not shown to Indias National Security Adviser, MK Narayanan,
who went ashen when he read the contents a little before it was released to media. Narayanans
silence was purchased with a ghostly residence
in Kolkata, also known as the Raj Bhavan. Pakistans Army concluded that if it could get away
Using the United States to nudge the Pakistan
establishment towards peacemaking? Failed.
Turning our back on that border completely?
Failed.
What is missing in the above paragraph is one
more line: One-sided concessions and repeated
peace overtures to Pakistan: Failed, too.
To those who truly believe in peace, I offer this
simple logic to understand why we can only
achieve a tense form of peace guaranteed by our
own toughmindedness.
We have to ask ourselves: What does Pakistan
want from us, and are we really willing to give
it?
Sharmas logic for continuing with turn-the-othercheek policies is this: First, no other policy
has worked. Outright belligerence? Failed.
Pakistan wants two things: validating its core

ideology of founding a state based on Islam;
and Kashmir, by hook or by crook. The least of
Pakistans demands in this area would be either
the prising of the whole of Kashmir from us, or
at least the Kashmir Valley. For this it is willing
to be our permanent enemy, even if it means

impoverishing its own masses. So if it cannot
win a war, it will want to keep bleeding us by

sending us jehadis, feeding arms and ammunition to other violent forces in India (the Maoists), by sending in counterfeit Indian currency,
and by ganging up with China or whoever it
considers as sufficiently inimical to India.
Is India willing to give up Kashmir for peace? Is
it willing to sacrifice the logic of secularism for
peace? If it is, we might as well accept the Sangh
logic and declare India a Hindu state, since the
only reasoning on which a Muslim-majority
state like Jammu & Kashmir can be given to
Pakistan is through the acceptance of this sectarian idea.
And it wont end there: after Kashmir, we will
have parts of Assam where there is a significant Bengali influx seeking similar remedies.
Or even Nagaland or Mizoram or even Kerala.
An Indian loss on Kashmir will stoke the very
forces that work against our secularism. They
will become unstoppable if Pakistan gets it way
on Kashmir, even partially. Remember how
Pakistan turned jehadi after the loss of Bangladesh? A similar fate awaits us if we use spurious
logic to acquiesce in Pakistans blackmail.
The only way out is for India to prepare for
100 years of Pakistani belligerence and perfidy.
It wont be peace, or war, but something inbetween till something fundamental changes
inside Pakistan. A bottom-up push towards
secularism of a people tired of war and jehadi
forces.
We cant change them. They have to do the job
themselves. We can help them best by being implacable in pursuing peace by being internally
strong economically, politically and militarily
and in many other ways.
The paradox of life is: only the strong get peace.
The weak will always invite war. Our peaceniks
are inadvertently inviting the worst form of
Pakistani behaviour by serving up cowardice as
the road to peace.
Dear India: If you want peace,
speak to Pakistan
Military
The military is Pakistan or what defines Pakistan
and that is exactly where Indias problem lies.
G Pramod Kumar, Jan 16, 2013
very time a Dr Muhammad Tahir ulQadri or an Imran Khan manages to

rally a few thousand hopeless and unemployed people in Pakistan, we in India have a
predictable sense of optimism: perhaps they are
the ones we can count on; after all the pursuit of
peace with Pakistan is our perpetual responsibility since the presence of a rogue neighbour is
deeply unpleasant.
People like Quadri and Imran Khan sound

moderate, look and speak least intimidating,
and take the tinderbox-radicals head on; but
what is hiding behind their moderate political
and religious face is the Pakistan military or the
Military Inc. as researcher-author Dr. Ayesha
Siddiqua called them a few years go.
Both the seemingly moderate leaders detest
the existing political establishment and want
it to go, but when it comes to the military, they
vouch for its centrality in Pakistans existence.
For them, as well as for the rest of the people, it
is the only functioning institution in their country.
The military is Pakistan or what defines Pakistan and that is exactly where Indias problem
lies. Whether it is the virtuous cycle of peacehostility-peace and multiple tracks of diplomacy, all attempts stop at the door of this mighty
institution. If India wants to be friends with
Pakistan, it has be to friends with Pakistans
military. That is the breakthrough India must
look for.
Its not without reasons that Pakistanis adore
the military. A PEW study found last year that
79 per cent of Pakistanis (the sample respondents) trusted their military. Quadri may add the
judiciary as the other functioning institution,
but in a country that is perpetually imploding,
its probably just an extra straw for a hopeless
population. Their only hope is the military,
which in return, has a vice-like grip on the
country. Not just today, but progressively over
the years since the country became independent.
ment to science and technology.
Its not just during natural disasters that the
army reaches out to the civilians, but its an integral part of public life. They run business enterprises such as dairy farms, bakeries, security
systems and banking. It produces goods such as
fertilisers, sugar and is also active in the services industry. Its communications and logistic
units are essential for building roads and bridges, and communications infrastructure. We may
recall that its communications cell was allegedly
involved in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
Its also involved in education. The National
University of Science and Technology has a
pride position, and the Military Engineering
Service handles technology and research ranging from missiles to satellites.
Quoting from Dr Ayesha Siddiqas international best seller, Military Inc: Inside Pakistans Military Economy, The Guardian said in
2007: The Pakistani militarys private business
empire could be worth as much as 10 bn.
Retired and serving officers run secretive industrial conglomerates, manufacture everything
from cement to cornflakes, and own 12m acres
of public land.
Five giant conglomerates, known as welfare
foundations, run thousands of businesses,
A Firstpost article raised this question last year:

Why is Pakistans army more popular than its
politicians? an army that imposed dictatorship four times and unseated elected governments three times, and an institution that eats
up a third of its national budget?
Not surprisingly, an answer eluded the principal
question.
Why is Pakistan military so powerful and popular in the country? Why do people, including the
elites, stand by them?
There havent been exhaustive and satisfactory
explanations, but the most obvious fact is that
it is the only national pride that the distraught
Pakistanis can hold on to, particularly in comparison to a thriving India and its democratic
institutions. Military is the source for everything
that works in the country from dairy developranging from street corner petrol pumps to
sprawling industrial plants. The main street
of any Pakistani town bears testament to their
economic power, with military-owned bakeries,
banks, insurance companies and universities,
usually fronted by civilian employees.
According to Siddiqua, out of 96 businesses run
by the four largest foundations, only nine file
public accounts. The generals handling these
foundations are immune to parliaments demands for an account of money they spend.
The military is now inseparable from civilian life
and therefore, any form of democracy will only
be subservient to a military rule. Given its
pervasive spread into civilian life, discipline and
command structure, the ruling dispensation in
Pakistan is a military dictatorship dressed up as
democracy. It is irreversible.
Siddiqua notes that it was during Musharrafs

time that the militarys penetration into society
accelerated. He had sent about 1,200 officers
to critical positions in public institutions. The
military claimed, and the people accepted, that
it can run these institutions better than anybody
else. And the average citizens vouch for this efficiency.
That the military is the only functioning institution in the country and hence its peoples
responsibility to protect such an institution is a
common response from an average Pakistani,
including well-heeled expatriates. They also feel
that it is the only institution that can protect it
from the threat of India about 59 per cent of
Pakistanis last year felt that India was their biggest threat.
Any criticism or attack on the military, by India
and Indians, is seen is an attack on the country.
It is the countrys alter ego.
The Guardian article notes that, in a 2004
speech to open a new industry owned by the
Fauji (Soldier) Foundation, General Musharraf boasted of exceptional military-owned

banks, cement and fertiliser plants. Why is
anyone jealous if the retired military officers
or the civilians with them are doing a good job
contributing to the economy?
This is exactly Indias problem while seeking
peace with Pakistan. As Pakistan journalist Najam Sethi pointed out, in India, civilians control
the army, but in Pakistan, its the other way
around.
Imran Khan and Quadri have factored this in.
Army is the ultimate authority and submission
to its authority is non-negotiable. Indians rant,
but the fact still hasnt sunk in.
Or perhaps it has and we all know that we will
never be able to buy peace with a military establishment even if its leadership now says that
its main enemy is from within and not from
outside. But our repetitive ranting has become
a habit that real solutions are not an issue any
more.
LoC violation: Liberals are

ignoring the reality of
Pakistan
Liberal artists protest too much over Indias
momentary suspension of cultural and sporting links
with Pakistan, but wilfully ignore the maniacal
suspicion that agitates the minds of Pakistani
Army officers who see even Indian films as
propagandist tools.
It would be impossible, Singh conceded, almost
or someone who is so completely tonea week after the tension along the Line of Condeaf to the national discourse and insentrol escalated, to conduct business as usual
sitive to the mood of the moment, Prime
Minister Manmohan Singhs first public articulation on Tuesday of his thoughts on the current
border stand-off between India and Pakistan
must count, by the timeline of his typical responsiveness, as particularly rapid.
with Pakistan so long as the barbaric act of the

beheading of an Indian soldier remained
unpunished. It was the surest sign that the
manifest outrage of an entire nation over the
Pakistani Armys beastly beheading of an Indian
soldier had finally permeated the palace walls
on-arrival facility for Pakistani visitors, ostensibly for technical reasons, but more probably
because it would have made for bad political
optics for India to be conducting business as
usual at this particularly incendiary moment in
bilateral relations.
Also on Tuesday, the Indian Hockey Federation decided to send back nine Pakistani players
who were to have taken part in the Hockey India League tournament; although the proximate
reason cited for this decision was the security
concern arising from the Shiv Senas call for a
boycott of the players, it perhaps more realistically reflected the wisdom of prudence in this
time of political volatility and of not wanting
to be seen as being excessively accommodating of Pakistani sensitivities rather more than
Indian sentiments.
Copious liberal tears are already being shed over
the fact that sporting and cultural ties between
the two countries are being held hos- tage to
cussed politics. The usual suspects are already
out shaking their pom-poms for, if anything,
greater people-to-people interaction between
the two countries as an antidote for the shrill
tone of the discourse at the political level. But
such entreaties, while not without intrinsic
merit, appear particularly ill-timed at a moment like this, and only offers curious insights
into the parallel universe that diehard peaceniks
inhabit.
Writing in the Indian Express (here), for instance, Mani Shankar Aiyar derides what he
calls the hostility industry in India which he
says is made up of retired generals, superannuated ambassadors, and the most dangerous
of the breed demobbed short service officers
turned diplomats for vitiating the tense atmosphere with their favourite prejudices and
their shrill tub-thumping.
and compelled its inmate to poke his nose into

the cold Delhi winter air and wonder what the
fuss was about.
Simultaneously on Tuesday, the Indian government suspended the inauguration of the visaCiting a huge mindset change under way in
Pakistan, Aiyar claims that a critical mass of
Pakistanis have been sold on the imperative for
peace with India, particularly since Pakistans
own descent into the hell world of jihadi violence in recent years has shown up the utter
folly of the radicalisation of that countrys polity
over a generation and more of Army-ISI-backed
cultivation of terrorists as their proxy arm.
Appearing on a CNN-IBN talk show late on

Tuesday, film-maker Mahesh Bhatt and Pakistani pop singer Salman Ahmed (of Junoon
fame) advanced much the same theme, arguing
in favour of greater cultural interaction between
India and Pakistan particularly in moments of
diplomatic strain.
Bhatt, who has in the past made syrupy, soppy
films that romanticise an imagined India-Pakistani love-fest, wrapped himself (and Salman
Ahmed) in the cloak of peace martyrs who were
buffeted along by hostile winds. Salman and I
have to come to terms with a bit of truth: that
when the winds of hate blow, all talk of restraint
and love is looked upon as acts of treason, and
you are branded as not a patriot. There was
a time, he added, when people like him were
deluded into thinking that artists like him were
the engines of bilateral relations. It took us a
while to realise that we are merely gliders: we
glide where the winds are blowing.
Salman Ahmed, whose bands songs also have a
niche market among those who pine for IndiaPakistan bonhomie that fails to acknowledge
the political reality, waxed lyrical on the same

show, claiming that whereas Pakistanis like him
were offering their heart to Indians, the Indian
side was demanding the return of the severed
head of the soldier.
But the trouble with such unrealistic romanticisation of what is after all very complex subcontinental history is that it fundamentally
addresses the wrong constituency in India.
Far too often, advocates of this line are preaching to the choir. By and large, Pakistani players
and artists are welcome in India more so than
Indians are welcome in Pakistan; the current
quibble only relates to the timing of such visits, given the tension along the border and the
particularly brutal nature of the beheading,
about which Pakistan continues to be in denial.
The constituency that these artists and peacenik
activists really need to address is back in Pakistan, among the jihadists and their political and
Army backers who are fundamentally opposed
to any normalisation of relations with India.
Indicatively, there are influential elements within the Pakistani Army, who are shaping the perspectives on threat perceptions vis-a-vis India,
who see even the syrupy movies of the sorts that

Mahesh Bhatt makes as a propagandist tool on
behalf of India intended to subvert the Pakistani
identity by promoting the idea of Grand Passion
between Hindus and Muslims.
Writing in The Hindu (here), Praveen Swami
points to the prevailing mindset among the
Pakistani Army as reflected in the Green Book
compilations of essays by senior Pakistani Army
officers, published in an official capacity by
the Army. They offer a compelling insight into
the official Army outlook on the Mahesh Bhatt
brand of films.
Swami writes: From the very first essay in the
current Green Book, it becomes clear that the
Pakistani officer corps maniacal suspicion of
India hasnt stilled. A Pakistani Brigadier, for
instance, claims that the Indian exernal intelligence agency RAW funds televisions channels
to promote psychological war with Pakistan.
More bizarrely, he sees even Bollywood films
that promote Hindu-Muslim unity and friendship as part of this psychological war operation. Swami quotes from the Brigadiers essay:
The most subtle form (of this psychological
war) is found in movies where Muslim and
Hindu friendship is screened within the back-
drop of melodrama. Indian soaps and movies

are readily welcomed in most households in
Pakistan. The Brigadier further claims that
such films and soaps are intended to undermine
the Two Nation theory on which basis Pakistan
was founded.
In other words, in the perception of Pakistani
Army officers, films like Veer-Zara and Border
are examples of Indian propagandist efforts,
hand in hand with Bollywood, to undermine the
very identity of Pakistan and the basis for its
founding as an independent country.
Rather than deal with bigotry and needless
suspicion at its very roots in the minds of the
jihadists and their Army backers the peacenik
brigade of Aiyar, Bhatt and Salman Ahmed
(and others) has taken to lecturing the rather
more accommodating Indian audience who only
make the nuanced point that perhaps at this
particular moment of justifiable national outrage, there may be eminent good sense in not
rolling out the red carpet to Pakistani cultural
artists and sportsperson if only to signal to the
official Pakistani establishment that our protestations about the border atrocity are earnest.
Does Manmohan want to

be
seen as Paks appeaser-in-chief?

Manmohan Singhs Pakistan appeasement strategy
is not going to work. It hasnt worked in the past,
and it is not working now
hen it comes to Pakistan, what stands

out is Indias weak-willed stance
which has no strategic content whatsoever. And this encompasses everyone from
Nehru to Shastri to Indira Gandhi to Atal Behari
Vajpayee to Manmohan Singh. The last-named,
our current Prime Minister, is the worst of the
lot.
Consider the past: in 1948, Nehru agreed to a

ceasefire in Kashmir when we were just about
to drive the Pakistanis out of the state. In 1965,
India vacated some of the most strategic conquests during the war (Haji Pir pass, for example) after the Tashkent peace agreement signed
by Shastri. In 1971, even with 90,000 Pakistani
soldiers held as prisoners of war, Iron Lady Indira Gandhi melted and failed to press home the
advantage in the Shimla talks. In 1998-2001,
Pakistan first reciprocated Vajpayees Lahore
bus trip with Kargil. And then followed it up
with an attack on Parliament. But after rushing
troops to the border, Vajpayee meekly withdrew
them in 2003 and resumed the peace process
without conditions.
This government has, of course, been the pits.
After 26/11, we saw some fire and brimstone

domestic speeches, but Manmohan Singh has
unilaterally decided to pursue peace with Pakistan. Once again.
As Brahma Chellaney notes in an article in The
Economic Times today, under Manmohan Singh
India has simply abandoned the idea of seeking
any kind of action against Hafiz Saeed or Pakistan-based terrorist groups. Being nice with a
determined adversary in the hope that this will
change its behaviour is not strategy. With Singh
dreaming of open borders with terror-exporting
Pakistan, Indias Pakistan policy remains driven
by hopes and gushy expectations, not statecraft.
Chellaney offers two reasons why Pakistan has
again changed tactics against India. One is the
coming US disengagement from Afghanistan
and the return of the US-Pakistani relationship
two countries. Weve also discussed these latest
incidents with both governments, (and) urged
them to talk to each other and urged calm, the
US State Department spokesperson Victoria
Nuland told reporters.
This is nonsense, and India should reject any
equidistance between aggressor and defender.
Why didnt the US hold talks with Osama bin
Laden to sort out their differences? Why is the
US still continuing drone attacks on alleged terrorist bases in Pakistans frontier region? Maybe
we should urge calm and ask the US to hold
talks with the militants holed up on the Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal belts.
The real problem with the US is not that they do
not know Pakistans terrorist orientation, but its
efforts to disengage from not only South Asia,
but possibly elsewhere in Asia too barring
China. In the past, the need for Gulf oil meant
that America saw its security interests deeply
tied to what happened in West Asia. Now, with
the US close to achieving energy independence,
thanks to huge shale gas discoveries and the
drop in gas prices, the US no longer sees oil as
an important reason to stake men and money in
the Gulf. This, more than anything else, helped
the US speed up disengagement in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
This is clearly emboldening Pakistan, which
now sees itself getting its way in Afghanistan. It
to normality. Not only has the US resumed arms

sales to Pakistan in a big way, but it has also
started treating India and Pakistan on a par as
though terror-exporters and victims of terror
ought to be treated equally. The sympathy that
the US had for India after 9/11 is now gone. The
other factor emboldening Pakistan is Manmohan Singhs continued appeasement of Pakistan.
The US new neutrality towards India and Pakistan under Barack Obama after George Bushs
efforts to correct the imbalance - is reflected in
the statement made after Pakistan killed two
Indian soldiers on our side of the Line of Control (LOC), and the reported ghastly mutilation
of one of their bodies.
Were urging both sides to take steps to end
the violence. We continue to strongly support
any efforts to improve relations between the
will soon be able to devote more time and energy to Kashmir and terrorism in India.
Unfortunately, the Manmohan Singh government has not grasped the fact that India will not
get much help from the US or Russia or anyone
else in reining in Pakistan.
We stand alone, and dealing with Pakistan calls

for strategic thinking. But this, as Chellaney
points out, is completely lacking in Manmohan
Singh and his government, including the latest External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid
who talked of a proportionate response from
Pakistan on the recent LOC killings.
it will be a setback to the normalisation of relations. Chellaney notes: In other words, if there
were another Mumbai-style terrorist attack, it
will merely be a setback to ties that, too, a
temporary setback followed by Indian concessions.
Chellaney offers these quotes from Manmohan Singhs references to Pakistan to make his
point.
On another occasion, the PM said: IndiaPakistan relations are prone to accidents.

Chellaneys comment: Were the attacks on the
Indian Parliament and Red Fort, the Mumbai
terrorist strikes, and the myriad other Pakistanscripted outrages just accidents? Will the latest
savagery (the body mutilation on the LOC) also
be treated as another accident after the current
public indignation fades?
The PM said after one meeting with former Pakistani PM Yousaf Raza Gilani: We both recognise that if there is another attack like Mumbai,
The Pakistani state is fortunate to have Manmohan Singh as its appeaser-in-chief. Is this what
the PM wants to be noted for by history?
In fact, the Prime Ministers body language and

wordage show that India is willing to repeatedly appease Pakistan to buy some modicum of
peace.
The LoC violation
From Pak FM to India

PM:
Who said what on LoC
violation
The brutal killing of two Indian jawans along the LoC,
has generated a flurry of reactions - mostly outrage by
India, and aggrieved denials by Pakistan. This
is a collection of who has said what so far.
FP Staff, Jan 16, 2013
the kind of reactions coming out of India. Most
he brutal killing and beheading of two
recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said
Indian army jawans along the Line of
that India could not conduct business as usual
Control which has put a strain on diplowith Pakistan until the perpetrators of the brumatic relations between India and Pakistan, has
generated a flurry of reactions mostly outrage
by India, and aggrieved denials by Pakistan.
While the Indian government and opposition

parties expressed disgust and outrage at the
incident, Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said that she was a little appalled at
tal attack were punished.

This is a collection of who has said what about
the incident so far:
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh:
It should not be felt that the brazen denial and
the lack of a proper response from the Government of Pakistan to our repeated demarches on
this incident will be ignored and that bilateral
relations could be unaffected or that there will
be business as usual. Such actions by the Pakistan Army, which are in contravention of all
norms of international conduct, not only constitute a grave provocation but lead us to draw
appropriate conclusions about Pakistans seriousness in pursuing normalisation of relations
with India
This is inhuman. Extremely myopic, shortsighted. Has caused us tremendous hurt. It is
not something of light nature, public opinion
does not accept it. We need answers from the
Pakistani side. We may have to go beyond the
procedures,
Were not going to be pressurised by wild calls
for revenge and reaction. We will do what is in
the best interest of the country and peace, keeping in mind that there is a lot at stake. And we
hope there will be a similar approach from the
other side. We shouldnt really be lulled into
believing that nothing went wrong. We hope
well both have the ability to contain and control
while we continue to look at how we resolve the
fundamental issue.
When you make an enormous investment in
the peace process, you dont do it just because it
sounds good. You do it because there is objective and practical need for peace, because the
cost of not having peace is much greater rather
than the cost of investing in peace. Therefore,
we are today still committed and trying the best
that we can do to ensure that peace is not derailed, certainly not derailed beyond the extent
to which we have seen it getting derailed.
Pakistan Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani
Khar:
After this barbaric act there cannot be business

as usual with Pakistan. What happened at the
LoC is unacceptable, those who are responsible
should be brought to book
Indian External Affairs Minister, Salman
Khurshid
We see war mongering. It is deeply disturbing
to hear statements which are upping the ante,
where one politician is competing with the other
to give a more hostile statement
We have ordered an independent investigation, but we are offering more, let a third party
investigate the issue. I am appalled at some of
the suggestions being made by the Indian politicians and spokespersons on Pakistans effort to
derail the peace process. This is a government
that I represent of the Pakistan Peoples Party
that has invested four years of building normalcy an environment of trust, an environment of
moving forward to achieve common objectives
of regional peace and foster internal stability
between the two countries.
Three days back , Pakistani soldier Lance Naik
Aslam was brutally murdered because of Indian
firing, 400 metres inside Pakistani territory.
The DG (Military operations) of Pakistan asked
his counterpart in India for an explanation. You
did not see any hostile reaction coming in from
the foreign minister, as we believe that these
things must be dealt in a responsible manner.
You asked whether this will set back or derail
the (peace) process. I will hope not and I (do
not) see it derailing or setting back the process.
(Read more)
Indian defence Minister, AK Antony:
if the adversary respects it and will not tolerate
being fired upon.
Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne
We are watching the situation carefully, if the
violations continue, perhaps we may have to
think of some other options for compliance.
options are options If violations continue we
might have to look at the whole issue again.
Pakistan Retd Air Vice Marshal, Abid Rao
First of all, if what you have said is right, I
condemn it. The statements given by your Army
Chief and your Air Chiefthey are blowing the
issue beyond proportion. These things can be
settled in local flag meeting. Dont blow it out
of proportion where public sentiment is also
blown up to an extent where people are talking
about revenge.
Pakistan ambassador to India, Salman
Bashir
The killings were highly provocative. The way

they have treated the body of the Indian soldiers, it is inhuman. We are closely monitoring
the whole development and our people are on
alert. Ceasefire violations are a cause of serious concern and we are taking it seriously. We
will take every step to protect our interests and
of our soldiers and the prestige of the Indian
armed forces. We will convey our protest to the
Pakistan government and our DGMO (Director
General of Military Operations) will talk to his
counterpart in Pakistan.
(Read more)
Indian Army Chief, Bikram Singh
The Beheading (of Lance Naik Hemraj) is
unacceptable and unpardonable. It was stagemanaged and pre-planned. They have planted
lies to justify what they have done. India reserves its right to retaliate at the time and place
of its choice. We wont remain passive when
attacked. The important thing now is to ensure
that morale among commanders in Kashmir
remains high. We will uphold the ceasefire only
Both sides have agreed for the need to de-escalate the situation. Would like to reiterate Pakistans commitment to maintaining the ceasefire
along the Line of Control. As far as Pakistan is
concerned, we have refrained from going to the
media and preferred to use channels of communication
Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in
the Lok Sabha
If his (Hemrajs) head could not be brought
back (from Pakistan), we should get at least
10 heads from their side. The question is: will
we sit without any reaction and engage in a
dialogue? This should not happen. At least the
government should react in some way. That is
why we have said that government should take
some tough measures
Manish Tewari, Minister of Information

& Broadcasting
imperative to break all kinds of relations with

Pakistan.
The attack which took place at LoC and the

manner in which our soldiers were treated, the
entire nation is enraged by it. Organisations
that have the responsibility of dealing with the
issue should be allowed to. We should refrain
from jingoism
Hafiz Saeed, founder LeT
Uddhav Thackeray, Executive President,

Shiv Sena
Send the Indian military inside Pakistan and
take revenge for this horrific incident. Only
then will it be a tribute to the martyrdom of our
soldiers. Pakistan is beheading our soldiers and
here we are playing cricket (with them), forgetting all brutalities. Not only cricket ties, it is
I CHALLENGE the Indian Government, its

ministers & agencies to prove my presence
near LOC or remain exposed as Liars in front
of the world. I will accept every Indian allegation if they prove my alleged visit at the LOC
- It is nothing but a blatant lie. India is trying to shift focus from its internal problems of
Rape,Communal Riots and exploiting the sentiments against Pakistan. I condemn cowardly
blasts in Quetta & Swat and urge government
to expose the Indian evidence it is hiding Pakistanis know their enemies. India would never
spare opportunity to harm Pakistan. We invite
MFN AmankiAsha supporters to see Indian
politics of violence & propaganda.
LoC conflict: How to deal

with a rogue state like
Pakistan
With its unnuanced narrative on conducting relations
with a troublesome neighbour, the Manmohan Singh
government is rewarding bad behaviour
on Pakistans part - and opening up India to
yet more vulnerabilities.
he compulsions of international diplomacy occasionally require even countries

that are locked eyeball-to-eyeball in
confrontation to couch their belligerence in the
language of moderation. Yet, Indian interlocutors, from External Affairs Minister Salman
Khurshid downwards, signal only fecklessness
of a high order when they appear overeager to
restore a sense of normalcy along the Line of
Control with Pakistan despite the latters act of
provocation and its pointed unwillingness to
repent.
Ahead of Mondays flag meeting of officers of

the two armies, Pakistan has persisted with firing across the Line of Control, evidently to provide cover for terrorist infiltration into Jammu
and Kashmir. And yet, the Indian political
response has been to tread on eggshells in order
not to be seen to be yielding to popular pressure
to avenge the brutal beheading last week of an
Indian soldier by elements of the Pakistan Army
or its proxy arm.
Going even farther, the Indian side has already

signalled that it will not allow the current border confrontation to derail the ongoing bilateral
dialogue. Media accounts, quoting government
sources, have indicated that while the Indian
side may delay the scheduling of proposed
Secretary-level talks on a range of bilateral issues, the government will not suspend the talks
in their entirety.
Such a unilateral concession, even before the
representatives of the two armies have met to
address the current confrontation, amounts to
revealing ones hand while preparing ostensibly to play blind mans bluff with a neighbour
that has proved recalcitrant in the extreme.
Khurshids manifest attempts to tamp down on
demands for retaliatory action of some sorts,
articulated most forcefully by Indias Air Chief
NAK Browne, have only conveyed to Pakistan
that its provocative action in beheading an
Indian soldier and mutilating another will go
unchallenged, at least for the moment.
No useful purpose is, of course, served by spoiling for a fight, but there is something perverse
about Indias excessive concern about not wanting to see the conflict escalate, particularly when
that concern is not shared across the border by
Pakistan. The dynamics of power require one to
carry a big stick even while speaking softly, but
the UPA governments disproportionate interest in making peace overtures even when the
sentiment has gone unrequited only shows up
India as a soft state that can be pushed around
by even the puniest of its neighbours.
Much of this springs from a failure on the UPA
governments part to read the power dynamics within Pakistan correctly. The emphasis
all along has been on tango-ing with the Pakistani civilian government in the belief that the
woolly-headed Aman ki Asha aspirations are
reciprocated and, more critically, that the
Zardari government will rein in the Pakistani
deep state, including the Pakistani Army and
the ISI.
Such expectations have proved hopelessly
unrealistic, but the message appears to have
been lost on the Manmohan Singh government,
particularly the Prime Minister who evidently
wants to earn a place in the footnotes of subcontinental history as a peacemaker who went the
extra mile. Peacenik aspirations are not illegitimate in themselves, but the yearning for peace
at any cost even overlooking monstrous acts
of cross-border terrorism is perverse in the
extreme and effectively sells India short.
If the past is prologue, it was always known that
India would be vulnerable to cross-border
violations and terrorism particularly during moments of seeming reconciliation. To that extent,
the cruel beheading of an Indian soldier and the
mutilation of another were virtually written into
the script when the cricket diplomacy initiative got under way.
Yet, the Indian governments failure to take the
heat to Pakistan for such transgressions, and
to make that jihadi nation pay even a nominal
price for its repeated acts of perfidy, has only
enhanced Indias vulnerability. Khurshid is,

however, being more than a little disingenuous
when he dismisses demands to make Pakistan
pay as being overly bellicose.
Theres a lesson from the teachings of wise
men that is illustrative in this context. A snake,
which had a disconcerting habit of harassing
and biting cowherds on a whim, was counselled
by a sage to instead seek salvation through nonviolence. The snake turned pacifist overnight,
but since it no longer posed a venomous threat,
it became the target of attack by the cowherds.
Beaten near to death, the snake presented itself
before the sage to complain bitterly that his
counsel had proved ruinous. You asked me
not to bite anyone, but now Im being beaten to
death, it said. To which the sage responded: I
merely asked you not to bite anyone: did I tell
you not to hiss at anyone to protect yourself?
It is nobodys case that Indias best interests lie
in escalating the conflict with Pakistan. But the
Manmohan Singh government, and Khurshid,
appear to have concluded that the alternative to
not biting a bothersome neighbour is to curl up
and die in the way of the pacifist snake.
There are ways of protecting your interest
without being the neighbourhood bully. With
its unnuanced narrative on conducting relations
with a troublesome neighbour, the Manmohan
Singh government is rewarding bad behaviour
on Pakistans part and opening up India to yet
more vulnerabilities.
LoC violation: Why the US

wants India and Pakistan to cool
it
If transparency and trust have to grow between India
and the US, a more honest exchange of views is
necessary. The US needs to keep India informed in
detail about its plans, intentions, and predictions for
Afghanistan, which hasnt always been the case.
Seema Sirohi, Jan 13, 2013
ashington: Are there reasons beyond

the local for the recent exchange of
fire along the Line of Control on the
India-Pakistan border that revealed the brutality that sometimes creeps in maintaining the
ceasefire?
Some in India believe that the Pakistan army is
flexing its muscles with India thanks to a
renewed sense of indispensability in brokering
peace in Afghanistan with apparent blessings
from Washington.
American officials insist that it is not the case.

Pakistan is not going to play a dominant proxy
role in the five-phase peace process currently
being discussed. Neither is the United States.
It has to be an Afghan-owned and led process
but for which Pakistans support is required.
During the visit of President Hamid Karzai,
President Barack Obama said that success in
Afghanistan would require constructive support from across the region, including Pakistan
and more than simply military actions. He

added that Islamabad was showing greater
awareness of the need to reduce extremism.
The United States obviously has an interest
in facilitating and participating in cooperation
between the two sovereign countries.
Washington is trying hard to tell New Delhi
that the AfPak peace plan is not a plot against
it. It seems the plan was actually worked out by
the British, leaving the US in an awkward position of not being able to publicly distance itself.
Old allies had to hang together in public. So the
Americans took the next best route they went
along. Indian officials have interpreted this as
Americans signing on to a process that gives
Pakistan primacy in a post-2014 Afghanistan.
If transparency and trust have to grow between

India and the US, a more honest exchange of
views is necessary. The US needs to keep India
informed in detail about its plans, intentions,
and predictions for Afghanistan, which hasnt
always been the case. Nervousness in India is
growing about the withdrawal of US and NATO
troops from Afghanistan because no matter
which way you assemble the pieces, it doesnt
spell comfort. India has no reason to feel sanguine about the Taliban good or bad versions.
Whatever genius the Pakistani military may
bring to the table, the problems of negotiating
with the Taliban are legion. Michael Semple, an
Irish expert who has lived in Afghanistan and
Pakistan for 25 years and speaks Dari, provides
a sober reminder here for those in Washington
who have once again put faith in the Taliban.
But the Taliban dont accept Karzai or the Afghan constitution. Or womens rights for that
matter.
So what Pakistan is trying is something too
clever by half get the Quetta Shura to be part
of a future political equation in Afghanistan to
limit Indias role and also keep a check on the
Taliban by immersing them in politics. The
question is how can the US have any presence in
Afghanistan when the Taliban wants no foreign
forces? Besides, why should the Taliban even
negotiate seriously on anything when they can
wait it out.
While India cant really be faulted for the interpretation, it doesnt have to see a nefarious plot behind it and read the current border
temperature as a result of American design. The
Americans are frantically messaging India and
Pakistan to put a lid on the situation before
the exchange of fire gets any louder and bursts
into a broader confrontation. They are a bit dismayed that New Delhi told them the firing was
essentially Pakistan giving cover for infiltrators trying to get into Jammu and Kashmir.
The real reasons behind the current cycle of fire
have since come out in a key report by Praveen
Swami in The Hindu. Another report by Saikat
Dutta in the DNA newspaper also provides
crucial details. These reports besides giving the
context may also reflect ongoing differences between Indian intelligence agencies and the army
on border monitoring and management.
The answer one gets from experts and officials
is that the Taliban realize it is much harder to
take over Afghanistan today than it was in the
1990s. So they are depending on Pakistan to
deliver the south and east Afghanistan to them

through the peace process. Why would other
stakeholders in the process accept this proposition which on the face of it is a lose-lose situation.
Pakistan for its part claims it has already lowered its expectations from having a friendly
government in Kabul with no affinity to India
to trying for a stable border with Afghanistan
controlled by elements it can influence. Since
limiting Indias influence remains a major
obsession, Pakistan wants to have the perfect
balance of forces caught permanently in an
intermediate situation which checks both India
and the Taliban.
None of this may turn out the way Pakistani

generals expect, throwing the careful calibration
and justifications out of the window. But that
doesnt mean India will have satisfaction.
India is in a horrendous situation it lives close
to the hub of terrorism but cant decisively act
because of a host of reasons. It didnt write
the symphony but must face the music. Meanwhile, Obama is in a hurry to leave Afghanistan
after 10 years of a debilitating war, blood and
treasure and unspectacular gains. Domestic
tolerance is near zero, and he appears to have
decided to call it quits no matter what. What
is difficult for India to accept is that he has to
depend on the same country for an exit from
Afghanistan that provided the brains and brawn
for 9/11 and the Mumbai attacks.
Army chief plays dove

more
than hawk on LoC
violations
The army chief, despite some initial tough talk, chose

to downplay the recent ceasefire violations on the LoC
in line with the governments stand.
Sanjay Singh, Jan 14, 2013
ast Saturday, Air Chief Marshal NAK

Browne used strong words in relation to
Pakistans violation of the Line of Control
(LoC). If Pakistan did not behave, we may have
to look at some other options for compliance.
He gave the impression that the armed forces
had taken the brutal killing of the two soldiers
to heart and would deal tough with a rogue
neighbour.
Two days later, Indian Army Chief General

Bikram Singh punctured that assumption and
clarified that the other options that the Air
Chief Marshall talked about related to diplomatic and economic levers. He managed to turn his
air force counterpart from hawk to dove when
talking about Pakistans action of beheading a
dead Indian soldier.
It is tough to guess why General Singh chose to
play down the tough message from the air force
chief. But the army chiefs interpretation is
obviously in line with the soft stance adopted by
the civilian political heads in the establishment

who have been at pains to emphasise that the
issue should not be escalated.
But even General Singh didnt begin with a

soft line. In his opening statement, he said we
reserve the right to retaliate at a time and place
of our choosing. But when it came to detail, he
elaborated on the localised nature of the operation, which would be dealt with at the tactical
level. The implicit meaning was that the time
and place of action would not be outside the
current zone of ceasefire violation.
He maintained that the morale of the forces
serving on the LoC was of supreme importance.
I expect all my commanders to be aggressive
and offensive in (response to) provocation. The
commanders have been directed to respond
to provocation. We shall not be passive to fire.
(But) the response will always be measured and
to effect.
But what raised eyebrows was the Army Chiefs
admission that Lance Naik Hemraj Singhs
in the peace process and would not like it to be
derailed in the closing months of UPA-2.
The sustained media focus and fast by Hem- raj
Singhs family and kin demanding that the
government should pressure Pakistan to get his
severed head back has forced the government to
respond. Its no different from how the government initially responded to the Delhi gangrape
case.
General Bikram Singhs media interaction allowed him to vent his own feelings. He wanted
the government to do more, and raise the (issue) at the highest level at various forums.
This is unacceptable and unpardonable. We
lodged a very strong protest with our government, and through our government to them,
then at DGMO meeting and today at the flag
meeting, he said.
beheading was not the first such incident, and

at least two similar incidents had take place
before one in 2012 and another in 2011. The
incidents were underplayed then and only some
unconfirmed reports surfaced. The families of
the martyrs were not allowed to see the mutilated bodies, like in the case of Hemraj Singh. To
a pointed query on how many soldiers had been
beheaded on those two occasions, the army
headquarters did not want to reveal it publicly
at todays briefing.
The big question is this: had it not been for the
media ruckus and consequent popular outrage,
would the political establishment have let the
sacrifice of Lance Naik Hemraj Singh and Sudhakar Singh pass away quietly and proceed with
the peace process as though nothing else mattered? Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has
invested too much of his own personal capital
were 117 instances, on an average every third
day, whereas in 2011 the average was every six
days.
Being a democracy and a responsible nation,
it seems the onus is more on India to maintain
the ceasefire agreement of November 2003.
Pakistan, where the military holds some power
independent of the civilian authority, can apparently violate it at will and get away with it.
The Army Chief, however, still sees some merit
in the ceasefire agreement. According to him
the violations are in certain segments like Uri,
Krishnaghari, Poonch and some other areas, not
on the whole of the LoC or international border.
These take place because of local dynamics. He
believes that the ceasefire to a large extent is
holding.
The current bout of firing and mutilation of Indian soldiers was probably the work of Pakistani
SSG commandos and army regulars because the
The statistics on ceasefire violations by PakiIndian army had effectively blocked the shortest
stan, ostensibly to give cover to infiltrators, have infiltration route at Churunda in the Uri sector,
been alarming. While such violations took place the Army Chief suggested.
as recently as yesterday night, last year there
No more business as usual:

Govt translates PMs words into
action
India takes a tough position vis--vis Pakistan.
FP Politics, Jan 15, 2013
istry. This came hours after National Security
ollowing Prime Minister Manmohan
Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon briefed the two
Singhs tough message against Pakistan
that business couldnt be as usual until
those guilty of the beheading of the Indian soldiers were punished, the government got into
some swift action to make it official. It articulated its engagement policy vis-a-vis Pakistan.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid hurriedly called a media briefing at Shastri Bhawan
in the evening to announce that what the prime
minister said hours ago had been translated
into action by the government.
with India, Khursheed said.
Though Khursheed did not spell out the details, he gave a clear message to his counterpart
across the border that India was taking a tough
position and a number of confidence building
measures were going to be affected.
After this barbaric act there cannot be business
as usual with Pakistan. What happened at the
LoC is unacceptable. Those who are responsible
should be brought to book, Manmohan Singh
said. His statement was significant given the
fact that he had invested too much personally in
the peace process with Pakistan.
The PMs tough talk was followed by a trong official statement from the external affairs min-
Leaders of Opposition Sushma Swaraj and

Arun Jaitley on the continuing violations on
the Line of Control (LoC) and the impact of the
beheading of Indian soldiers on the strategic
situation.
day, today it was turn of northern command

chief Lt Gen KT Patnaik to send a message
across. He said the Indian Army does not believe in reacting in haste and anger. It has a plan
and will act accordingly.
The BJP has been demanding that India should

review its engagement with Pakistan and deal
strongly with the country. This also comes on
a day when the external affairs ministry delayed operationalisation of visa on arrival for
senior citizens. This was to come into effect
from today. Nine Pakistan hockey players who
were to take part in Indian Hockey League were
asked to return home. The Shiv Sena had taken
a tough political line that it would not allow
Pakistani players to play in Mumbai after the
beheading incident.
Top functionaries in the government were unhappy with the Pakistani response at the Brigadier level Flag meeting on LoC yesterday and
the fresh violation of ceasefire after the meeting.
It was thus no coincidence that a series of measures were seen today.
Since yesterday, the Army brass has started

talking to the media about the situation on the
ground and Indian position on the issue. If
Army chief Vikram Singh talked tough yester-
Sources said after the prime ministers tough

message the peace process is bound to take a
hit. In any case, the internal situation in Pakistan has become worse with what is called a
judicial coup Supreme Court asking for the
arrest of Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Parvez
Ashraf at a time when Islamic cleric Tahir-ulQadri leading the so called million man march
to Islamabad.
LoC violation: Should Pak

artistes and players pay the
price?
Was it the right thing to do by isolating Pakistani
hockey players and banning Pakistani performers
from India? Or is it a ploy by the hardliners to
hijack the issue?
he Shiv Sena and the non-responsive

Maharashtra government have ensured
that the Pakistani players from the Hockey India League will no longer participate in the
tournament. There has been a growing clamour
against Pakistani cultural artists and players
because of the tension in the LoC.
But is it right that artistes and sportspeople
have to pay the price for the actions of the Pakistani army?
Yes, said BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi. In a
late night discussion with Rajdeep Sardesai on
CNN-IBN, she said, The Pakistani cricketers
and artists should pay the price because we have
paid the price of good behaviour. They have to
question the country after going back.
India can assert itself. Otherwise, there is

going to be a morass of misadventures like the
ones you saw on the border the other day, she
added.
However, lead singer of Pakistani band Junoon
said that breaking sporting and cultural ties will
only be detrimental to the cause of peace. Cultural fusion is always better than nuclear fusion,
he said.
He said, When there is sabre rattling, civil
society becomes marginalised. Do 1.4 billion
people (in the two countries) want peace or all
this violence?.
According to him, one should not let the hardliners on both sides hijack the issue and earn
some political mileage out of it.
According to her, this is the only way in which

Watch Video
Hina Rabbani Khar lashes out
at India war mongering

akistan has reacted strongly to the continuing outrage in India over the brutal
killing and beheading of two soldiers
over the Line of Control, with Foreign Minister
Hina Rabbani Khar saying that Indian politicians were war-mongering.
with India, Khurshid said.
Though he did not spell out the details, he gave
a clear message to his counterpart across the
border that India was taking a tough position
and a number of confidence building measures
were going to be affected, says Firstpost editor
Sanjay Singh.
Shortly after that a visa-on-arrival programme
for senior citizens at the Wagah border was put
on hold by India citing technical reasons.
We see war mongering, Khar said at the Asia

Society in New York on Wednesday.
It is deeply disturbing to hear statements
which are upping the ante, where one politician is competing with the other to give a more
hostile statement, Khar added.
Khars comments come even as Prime Minis- ter
Manmohan Singh said that India could not
conduct business as usual with Pakistan until
the perpetrators of the brutal killings were
brought to book. Shortly afterwards External
Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid called a press
briefing to explain the Prime Ministers statement.
The government reactions came even as opposition calls for action against Pakistan grew more
strident.
BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said that India
should take ten Pakistani heads for the head
of the Indian soldier, while the Shiv Sena disrupted an HIL practice match which featured
Indian players. All Pakistani players in the
league have since been asked to return home.
Earlier Army Chief Bikram Singh warned Pakistan that India would not tolerate repeated
provocations and firing.
This is not the first time Khar has criticised
Indias reaction to the LoC violation. As soon as
the incident broke she told CNN-IBN that she
was a little appalled by the reactions coming in from India, and later at a Pakistani press
conference drew marked parallels between Indian media coverage and restrained Pakistani
coverage.
Mr Khurshid, what exactly is
proportionate response?
The savagery seems to have been intended to
serve a purpose. It was a message to the
peaceniks on both sides.
Akshaya Mishra, Jan 9, 2013
t cannot be mere coincidence. Whenever

theres a hint of the troubled diplomatic
equations between India and Pakistan
looking up, there are well-directed acts from
across the border to escalate tension and pull
things back to status quo. There are two possibilities here: one, there are powerful elements
in the Pakistani establishment who would like
the peace moves to be a non-starter; and two,
Islamabad is playing a clever double game with
India.
In a massive confidence-building initiative,
India allowed the Pakistan cricket team to visit

the country and play a few matches the first
such move since the Mumbai attacks of November 2008. It also allowed Pak Interior Minister,
Rehman Malik, to visit New Delhi and unveil a
new liberalised visa regime for greater peopleto-people interaction on both sides. After a long
season of chilly vibes there were signs of thaw.
Intriguingly, the same period witnessed a sudden escalation in cross-border violence along
the Line of Control after a lull of a few months.
There have been more than 10 ceasefire viola-
tions over the past four weeks alone. While

skirmishes between defence personnel on both
sides are not unusual, what strikes about Mondays incident is the brutality involved. The
Pakistani troops which allegedly crossed over
the LoC on Monday mutilated the bodies of two
Indian soldiers killed in the gunfight.
The savagery seems to have been intended to
serve a purpose. It was a message to the peaceniks on both sides, more specifically to those
in India. Its possible that the perpetrators were
under instruction from their bosses in Pakistan
to carry out the brutal mutilation. The latter
could not be unaware that the public reaction
to the act would be much sharper in India than
deaths from gunfire exchange. This would put
the brakes on the peace moves.
Pakistan Armys action is highly provocative.
The way they treated the dead bodies of Indian
soldiers is inhuman, said Defence Minister
AK Antony. Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid
termed the mutilation ghastly and extremely
distressing. There have been similar reaction
across the political spectrum in India. Khurshid
talked about `proportionate reaction to the act
from India.
The response from Islamabad has been on predicted lines. Pakistans Foreign Minister Hina
Rabbani Khar has already denied the role of
Pakistans Army in the incident and said theyre
willing to accept a third-party probe into the
matter. Everyone knows a third-party probe
does not mean anything. And, knowing the
insincerity on the Pakistani side in such cases

earlier, its only safe to predict that this case will
also hit a dead end soon.
In such circumstances, what could be the proportionate reaction from India? Frankly, nobody has an answer. The civilian government
in Pakistan is too powerless to act against the
Army. The Army is beyond any accountability.
Moreover, the intent of the civilian government
in pursuing the peace agenda is always suspect.
There will always be questions on whether the
peace moves from Pakistan are only a tactic to
distract attention from planned operations by
its Army across the LoC. Of course, there will be
questions whether any peace talks makes sense
when the civilian government is not in control
of the country.
The dilemmas are bigger for India than Pakistan. War with a nuclear-power is not an option.
It has more to gain from good equations and
peaceful coexistence with its neighbour. However, with different equally powerful elements
in the Pakistani establishment not in agreement
with Indias policy, it is difficult to move ahead
with a peace plan. It makes matters worse that
the national identity of Pakistan is built around
the anti-India sentiment. Diplomacy is useful. But it can only serve the limited purpose of
averting an open war.
Its a tricky situation indeed. India needs to
tread with great caution.
Pakistan's inner turmoil
Pakistan turmoil deepens

as
Supreme court orders PMs
arrest
Pakistans Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the
prime minister on Tuesday on corruption allegations,
ratcheting up pressure on a government that is also
facing street protests led by a cleric who has a
history of ties to the army.
However, the ruling coalition led by the Pakislamabad: Pakistans Supreme Court orstan Peoples Party (PPP) has a majority in pardered the arrest of the prime minister on
liament and lawmakers can simply elect another
Tuesday on corruption allegations, ratcheting up pressure on a government that is also
facing street protests led by a cleric who has a
history of ties to the army.
The combination of the arrest order and the

mass protest in the capital Islamabad led by
Muslim cleric Muhammad Tahirul Qadri raised
fears among politicians that the military was
working with the judiciary to force out a civilian
leader.
There is no doubt that Qadris march and the
Supreme Courts verdict were masterminded by
the military establishment of Pakistan, Fawad
Chaudhry, an aide to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, told Reuters.
The military can intervene at this moment as
the Supreme Court has opened a way for it.
prime minister if Ashraf is ousted. In June,

Ashraf replaced Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who was disqualified by the Supreme Court
in a previous showdown between the government and the judiciary.
Also, elections are due in a few months and
President Asif Ali Zardari hopes to lead the first
civilian government in Pakistans 65 years as an
independent nation that will complete its full
term.
But power struggles will distract the unpopular
government from tackling an array of problems
a Taliban insurgency, economic stagnation
and growing sectarian tensions triggered by
bomb attacks and tit-for-tat shootings.
The military, which sees itself as the guarantor
of Pakistans stability, has long regarded the
the military, on account of it being a long-time
stakeholder in Pakistani politics, said Shamila
Chaudhry, an analyst at Eurasia Group.
The Qadri march was like a trial balloon. The
military indirectly sent it out to see if it would
work.
Some politicians believe the military will try to
dominate the caretaker administration that will
oversee the run-up to the polls after parliament
is dissolved, which is due to happen in March.
An election date has yet to be announced.
The protest by Qadri and his followers has also
been seen by commentators as being orchestrated by the military to add to the pressure on
Zardaris government, although the military has
denied any ties to the cleric.
PEOPLES MONEY
Thousands of followers of the populist cleric
camped near the federal parliament cheered
and waved Pakistani flags as television channels
broadcast news of the Supreme Courts order to
arrest Ashraf on charges of corruption.
We dont want any of those old politicians.
They just take all the peoples money, said
19-year-old student Mohammed Wasim. We
congratulate the whole nation (on the Supreme
Courts order). Now we have to take the rest of
the thieves to court.
PPP-led government as corrupt, incompetent

and unable to prevent the nuclear-armed country from falling apart.
Pakistans powerful army has a long history of
coups and intervening in politics. But these days
generals seem to have little appetite for a coup.
Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has vowed to
keep the military out of politics.
But many believe top military leaders still try
to exert behind-the-scenes influence, and any
moves by the military in the latest crisis could
not happen without a green light from Kayani,
arguably the most powerful man in Pakistan.
Extra-constitutional regime change, or outside of the political calendar if you will, is
only possible in Pakistan with the tacit nod of
Government officials said they were baffled by

the arrest order, which came hours after Chief
Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said elections should
go ahead as scheduled.
This was totally unexpected, an official in
Ashrafs office told Reuters. The prime minister and two or three of his friends were watching Qadri speak on television and this suddenly
happened.
Pakistans stock exchange fell by more than
500 points, or nearly three percent, on news of
the court order, due to fears over fresh political turmoil, which comes against a backdrop of
militant bombings and tension on the border
with India.
Qadri, who played a role in backing a military

coup in 1999, threatened to remain camped out
near the federal parliament with thousands of
supporters until his demands for the resignation of the government were met.
The fiery orator returned home from Canada
less than a month ago to lead a call for electoral
reforms to bar corrupt politicians from office
that has made him an instant hit among Pakistanis disillusioned with the state.
In a speech from behind a bullet-proof shield in
front of parliament, Qadri praised the military
and the judiciary, the countrys two other power
centres.
(The government) has wasted and brought a
bad end to our armed forces, those armed forces
who are highly sincere, highly competent and
highly capable and highly professional, he said,
alternating between Urdu and English.
Even they cant do anything because the political government isnt able to deliver anything
from this land. Judgments are being passed by
our great, independent judiciary but the government is not ready to implement them.
Qadri is demanding that the government dissolve the legislature and announce the formation of a caretaker government to oversee the
run-up to elections.
One senior military officer, who said he was
speaking in a purely personal capacity, said
there was no appetite in the military to repeat
the coups seen in Pakistans past, but added the
stand-off could be resolved if the army played a
role in the formation of a caretaker government
as a moderator.
We should try as far as possible to abide by the
constitution and law in looking for change. The
army chief has made this clear, the officer told
Reuters.
But things seem to be moving beyond control,
the officer added. It is totally incorrect to say
the army is behind Qadri. But if he brings thousands of people to the streets and things get
worse, there may be very few options.
Pakistan continues its 65-year-old
record of forcing out

PMs
Pakistans prime ministers have always been removed through external intervention. What used to be
a system where power was shared uneasily between
army and civil society now has a third force. An
energized judiciary.
Aakar Patel, Jan 16, 2013
ditors Note: This blog post was originally published on 24 June 2011, when
then Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf
Raza Gillani was forced out of his post. With
the Pakistan Supreme Court ordering the arrest of current Premier Raja Parvez Ashraf,
we have decided to republish it, as it portrays
how this trend of forcing out its Prime Ministers is something that has unfortunately been
a feature of the Pakistani state, almost since its
inception.
Yusuf Raza Gillani was the 23rd consecutive

Pakistani leader to be ejected before his time.
This is a remarkable tribute to both Pakistans
desire to be a democracy and its incompetence
at managing it.
If Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry continues to
insist that the government send the Swiss letter, and if President Asif Zardari insists he will
not prosecute the grave of Benazir Bhutto,
Pakistan might lose its best chance to have an

elected national assembly finish its full term.
Along with Nepal, which has been a republic for

just four years, Pakistan is the only state in
south Asia to never have a prime minister finish
his term.
The man who served longest was Liaqat Ali
Khan, Pakistans first prime minister, who was
killed in 1951. This brought a chain of unelected
leaders who fought among themselves while
failing to produce a constitution.
Malik Ghulam Muhammad is mentioned in the
records of Mahindra & Mahindra, where he was
a partner, with great reverence, but Ayub Khan
describes him in his autobiography as a wicked
old man who cackled incomprehensibly (I was
taken aback to learn that Ghulam Muhammad
was only 61 when he died). He booted out Pakistans first Bengali prime minister, Nazimuddin.
because of his constitution, Pakistans second,
which brought grassroots democracy, a claim
that Musharraf would repeat.
Under Gen Yahya, Pakistans fourth and last
Bengali prime minister Nurul Amin came and
went as the country was partitioned in 1971.
The Baloch Bhutto was a very charismatic man
and therefore loved or hated. He led the best
cabinet in Pakistans history. Even today, 40
years later, the best books about the working of
Pakistans politics are those written by Bhuttos
men, Rafi Raza, Mubashir Hasan, and later
Khalid Hasan and Iqbal Akhund.
Another very fine book is Sherbaz Mazaris
memoir, in which he describes how Khair Buksh
Marri, being the bigger wadero, humiliated
Bhutto by repeatedly turning his face away from
him when offered the job of governor under the
tribal practise the Baloch call siyal.
History has been unkind to Bhutto even though
he was hanged, but he did produce a very good
constitution, Pakistans third, later wrecked by
amendments, including the infamous second
one against Ahmadis.
The long night under Zia had one prime minister, the Sindhi Junejo. The dawn of Benazir
(how young and fresh she looks in her photographs in those early years) was stained very
soon. Would Pakistan be different today if she
were alive? Columnist Saroop Ijaz spoke for
Iskandar Mirza got rid of the second and third

Bengali prime ministers, Bogra (who might
have kept Pakistan united) and Suhrawardy,
who was disliked in India because of the carnage in Calcutta on Direct Action Day, but was
probably a better leader than Liaqat.
The first Punjabi prime minister, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali lasted only a year and Pakistans
first and only Gujarati prime minister, Chundrigar, lasted two months. Feroz Khan Noon was
the last prime minister before the long intervention of Ayub Khan.
Samuel Huntington was infamous for his clash
of civilisations theory, but he was also an early
enthusiast of Pakistani strongmen. He compared Ayub to the Athenian lawgiver Solon,
many Pakistanis, when he wrote that we live in
the wreckage of her death.
Nawaz Sharif wrote an embarrassingly fawning tribute to Zia in a book compiled after the
general died, and he should be shown his words
every so often. He is a difficult man to understand, sometimes pragmatic, other times stubborn. After the Osama incident and the attack
on Karachis naval base, he set about demanding accountability from Gen Kayani, but soon
backed off when he understood the national

consensus in favour of the army. It is thought
that Sharif has matured enough to be a good
leader if he gets another chance.
In the years when he and Benazir rotated
around the prime ministers chair also came the
four caretaker prime ministers Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Moinuddin Qureshi, Meraj Khalid
and Balkh Sher Mazari. One of them, I cannot
remember which one, had a cabinet of professionals that included men of the stature of
Najam Sethi.
Gen Musharraf called himself Chief Executive
(he said that one of his Lt Gens had suggested
the title and he had liked it) to take the edge off
his coup. His prime ministers were Zafarullah
Jamali, who displayed very little energy, Chaudhry Shujaat as caretaker and then Shaukat Aziz.
Someone, I think my friend Khalid Hasan, nicknamed him Shortcut. Both he and Musharraf
are gone, never to return, despite the promises.
Muhammad Mian Soomro then became caretaker prime minister, by my count Pakistans
seventh, before the PPP took power.
Yusuf Gilani almost made it across the line before being tripped up by the Supreme Court and
Raja Pervez Ashraf now must wait to see how
long he will be in office.
Pakistans prime ministers have always and
without exception been removed through external intervention. What used to be a system
where power was shared uneasily between army
and civil society now has a third force. An energised judiciary is backed by a free media that
insists on accountability only from the elected.
Pakistans tradition of democratically elected
leaders being ejected through undemocratic
methods seems set to continue.
How can Tahir-Ul-Qadri mobilise

numbers without Pak Army
support?
Tahir Ul Qadri, Pakistans anti-corruption crusader
has to face several unanswered questions. Is he
trying to derail the elections by riding on a
soft military coup?
he million-man march that Tahir Ul

Qadri is leading to Islamabad has gained
strength in numbers and has undoubtedly clouded the political future of Pakistan.
Coupled with the Supreme Court directives to
arrest the Prime Minister, what really is the
agenda of Qadri, who some tout as Pakistans
Anna Hazare?
His (Tahir Ul Qadri) agenda is very clear, said
M K Bhadrakumar, ex-envoy to Pakistan, on a
late night discussion with Rajdeep Sardesai on
CNN-IBN. He said, For him elections are not
a priority. This crisis (the one that he has been
spearheading) will derail the kind of dialogue
between PPP (Pakistan Peoples Party) and Nawaz Sharifs party.
Commentators agreed that there are a lot of
questions that remain to be answered about
Qadri one of which is his proximity to the
army. And the second, was the huge amount of
financial resources committed to him. Bhadrakumar said, He was praising only two institutions: judiciary and the army. It could be a soft
coup.
Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Hindu

agreed with Bhadrakumar. He said, Its astonishing that a person who stresses on the importance of democracy praises the army. Especially
in Pakistan where there are no two ways about
it.
Did Qadri want a situation of anarchy to derail
the political process in Pakistan given that the
elections are going to be held in March this
year?
Its not anarchy. Its a carefully choreographed
when elections are held the situation will be so
vitiated and then if they want to cut down the
military to size, then they will be silenced.
He is seen as being close to the army and some
experts also go to the extent of saying that he is
being propped up by the army. He cant mobilise so many people if he does not have covert
support (of the army) given the kind of security
blanket in Islamabad, said Varadarajan.
Watch Video
Pak PM Ashraf lobbies with
political leaders against

Qadri
Ashraf said his government was exercising restraint,

patience and tolerance in the face of the protest by
Qadri and this should not be taken as
a sign of weakness.
PTI, Jan 15, 2013
slamabad: With influential cleric Tahirul- Qadri descending on Islamadad with

swarms of his supporters, Pakistan Prime
Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf today lobbied with
top political leaders, including PML-N chief
Nawaz Sharif, for upholding the democratic
system.
Hours after Qadri gathered in the heart of
Islamabad with tens of thousands of people de-
manding sweeping electoral reforms, Ashraf telephoned Sharif, PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat
Hussain, Awami National Party leader Asfandyar Wali Khan, Muttahida Qaumi Movement
chief Altaf Hussain and Pakhtoonkhwa Milli
Awami Party leader Mehmood Khan Achkzai to
discuss the situation.
During his conversation with the political leaders, there was a consensus on upholding the
Constitution and the democratic system. The
leaders noted that democracy has been achieved
in the country after great sacrifices and struggle
by the people of Pakistan and it will be defended
at all costs, said a statement issued by the premiers office.
against the premier.
The statement quoted the political leaders as

saying that any attempt to subvert the Constitution, derail the democratic dispensation
or adopt unconstitutional measures should be
dealt with firmly.
Kaira made it clear that the general election

would be held on time as the President, Prime
Minister, parliament and Supreme Court had
asserted repeatedly. The system will not be
derailed no matter what one wishes. We will
not allow democracy to be derailed, he told the
media.
Ashraf contacted the leaders shortly before the

apex court ordered his arrest over allegations
of corruption in power projects. Ashraf said his
government was exercising restraint, patience
and tolerance in the face of the protest by
Qadri and this should not be taken as a sign of
weakness.
He added, Nobody will be allowed to impose his
personal agenda. During their conversation
with the premier, the political leaders agreed
that the entire focus of the all democratic and
political forces should be on the preparation for
the next general elections and their holding in
free, fair and impartial manner under the supervision of the Election Commission, the statement said.
The apex courts order added to the uncertainty
created by a protest in the heart of Islamabad by
tens of thousands of supporters of Qadri, who
demanded that the government should quit and
dissolve the national and provincial assemblies.
Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira
acknowledged that there had been a lot of ups
and downs in the political situation since the
morning but said the government had not yet
received a copy of the apex courts arrest order
He questioned the actions of Qadri, pointing out

that the cleric had referred to the President and
Prime Minister as the ex-President and exPrime Minister in an address early this morning. It was almost as if he had prior information about the Supreme Courts order, he said.
Aitzaz Ahsan, a senior leader of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and a leading lawyer, told
reporters that Ashraf would remain the Prime
Minister until he is convicted and disqualified
as a member of parliament.
Arrest doesnt mean the government has collapsed, he said. The graft charges against
Ashraf date back to his tenure as power minister. He has not yet been convicted for corruption.
Information Minister Kaira further said Qadris
demands were not constitutional or lawful. He
said the law would take its course if the cleric
and his supporters continued their protest in
Islamabad.
At the same time, he said, the government was
ready to hold talks with Qadri on his demands.
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Copyright 2011-12 Firstpost All rights reserved

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Can India and Pakistan

ever talk peace?

Peace with Pakistan: The impossible dream?

Beyond LoC violations, India is losing the Great Game to Pak

Cowardice is not the way to secure peace with Pakistan

Dear India: If you want peace, speak to Pakistan Military

LoC violation: Liberals are ignoring the reality of Pakistan

Does Manmohan want to be seen as Paks appeaser-in-chief?

The LoC violation

LoC conflict: How to deal with a rogue state like Pakistan

LoC violation: Why the US wants India and Pakistan to cool it

Army chief plays dove more than hawk on LoC violations

No more business as usual: Govt translates PMs words into action

Hina Rabbani Khar lashes out at India war mongering

Mr Khurshid, what exactly is proportionate response?

Pakistan's inner turmoil

Pakistan continues its 65-year-old record of forcing out PMs

How can Tahir-Ul-Qadri mobilise numbers without Pak Army support?

Pak PM Ashraf lobbies with political leaders against Qadri

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Peace with Pakistan:

We are fools: 6 things

The message is simple: no matter what peace

when it is all one-sided. Our jaw-jaw is not an

between state and people is meaningless since

could easily fall prey to the violent ideologies of

and strengths. But underpinning it all will be

Beyond LoC violations,

hen artillery guns are booming across

Gen Singh disclosed that the beheading of

That an elected government would literally

sweep the beheaded bodies of Indian soldiers

A yearning for peace isnt, of course, folly in

elation about earlier instances of beheading of

it is still not too late to retrieve some of the

Cowardice is not the

The choice before India in dealing with Pakistan is

t serves nobodys purpose not Indias, not

the result of our weakness and they would not

are repeatedly surprised by their perfidies. After

to change internally in Pakistan (read here), but

layed Pakistan still hasnt granted India most

To be sure, this writer is dead against the kind

Sharma even thinks that Manmohan Singhs

Pakistan wants two things: validating its core

to be our permanent enemy, even if it means

win a war, it will want to keep bleeding us by

Dear India: If you want peace,

very time a Dr Muhammad Tahir ulQadri or an Imran Khan manages to

People like Quadri and Imran Khan sound

A Firstpost article raised this question last year:

Siddiqua notes that it was during Musharrafs

Fauji (Soldier) Foundation, General Musharraf boasted of exceptional military-owned

LoC violation: Liberals are

with Pakistan so long as the barbaric act of the

and compelled its inmate to poke his nose into

Appearing on a CNN-IBN talk show late on

the political reality, waxed lyrical on the same

who see even the syrupy movies of the sorts that

drop of melodrama. Indian soaps and movies

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Does Manmohan want to

seen as Paks appeaser-in-chief?