Editorial: Exercise in duplicity
Pakistan’s National Security Policy (NSP), touted as the country’s first strategy document, follows a familiar trope of blaming India for the stalemate in the bilateral relations and setting resolution of the Kashmir issue as a precondition for the resumption of talks. By reiterating its moral, diplomatic, political and legal support to the people of Kashmir, the Imran Khan government continues to display an obsessive preoccupation with a single issue at the cost of multiple challenges facing the country. The 62-page public version of the document, which was seven years in the making, does not contain even a single workable idea or an out-of-the-box suggestion to address the security-related issues. The tall talk of working for optimising national security through regional peace based on mutual co-existence, regional connectivity and shared prosperity is a mere eyewash. The entire world has been witnessing how Islamabad has used terrorism as an instrument of state policy and continuously waged proxy war with India. Instead of raking up the issue of the status of Jammu & Kashmir, which is India’s internal matter, Pakistan should have done some honest introspection about the far more serious internal problems like the unprecedented economic crisis and growing threat from sectarian strife and internal separatist movements. The document comes at a time when the country is involved in negotiations with the IMF for further disbursals from the sanctioned loan. Islamabad is finding it difficult and politically risky to fulfil the conditionalities of the global lender, fuelling popular resentment. The Imran Khan government is caught in a dilemma whether to reject the IMF bailout or opt for the unpleasant task of raising taxes and prices of goods and utilities.
It is ironic that Pakistan, which is being torn apart by religious extremism, chose to point fingers at the ideology of the ruling party in India and cite Hindutva-driven policies as one of the hurdles in the path of improving bilateral ties. It is a cruel paradox that the security establishment of a country, created on the basis of religion and declared itself as Islamic Republic, should be commenting on the ideology of the party in power in a secular country where the Constitution provides equal rights to people of all faiths. Once a tool in the hands of the Pakistani army, religious extremism is now firmly part and parcel of Pakistani politics, from the prime minister, who himself has earned the moniker ‘Taliban Khan’, downwards to a series of non-state actors, all of whom claim to speak for Islam. Pakistan must realise that unless the country is turned towards actual economic integration rather than as a base for terrorist sponsorship, a precipitous slide into anarchy could become inevitable, as the common man rebels against rising prices and turns even more towards religious extremists for salvation.
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