December 17, 2014

Pakistan and its perceived existential threat from India or is it that it needs India for its existence



It would not be an exaggeration to say that despite an independent existence for past 67 years Pakistan continues to see India as an existential threat. The two countries stand at different platforms today in the gamut of world affairs. Ever since Pakistan became an idea and consequently a reality, it has seen India as a threat to its existence but it is also a bigger fact that it needs a perceived threat from India for its very existence today . Pakistan is a country supposedly created for Indian muslims. What could be a bigger irony for a nation created on an identity of religion alone that it could not even keep itself together for 25 years. With creation of Bangladesh in 1971, the very ideology behind Pakistan ceased to exist. It blamed India for the loss of its eastern part not realizing that it never did justice to the Bengali Pakistanis. Pakistani text books continue to hide the truth and blame the Hindu Baniya (merchants) for “Sakut e Dhaka” or fall of Dhaka.  More than 40 years later not much has changed , even today many Pakistanis believe that India carried out 26/11 attacks itself and there are ‘analysts’ in Pakistan who believe that 9/11 attacks were a handiwork of USA so that it could attack Saddam Hussein. Knowing that it cannot defeat India in a direct war, it resorted to covert war (read terrorism).


Be it giving support to Khalistan movement or Kashmir separatists, Pakistan has always tried to bleed India. It helped USA to set up Taliban in order to help arrest the Russian influence in Afghanistan all through the late 70s and 80s. After Russia’s withdrawal from Afghanistan it used them against India.  It even supported Taliban who have taken Afghanistan to dark-age but now the same Taliban is destroying it.  Now it is realizing that it has achieved nothing but only self-destruction and a tarnished global image as well. All because it wanted to ‘settle’ some score with India, wanted to bleed India by thousand cuts. Pakistani establishment need to re-think its attitude towards India. Pakistan cannot claim to be frontline state by fighting against terrorists on its western borders if it breeds terrorists on its eastern borders. Else the results would only worsen with time.The fact of the matter is that Pakistan has failed terribly at evolving a national identity. Pakistan has ceased to exist in many areas in FATA and Baluchistan. Shias are being killed for being shia, sunnis( ahmadis) are being targeted for not being the right kind of muslim. Christians are being targeted with blasphemy laws. The plight of Hazaras is not even discussed in the media because no one seems to care for them. Hindu girls are kidnapped and forced into marrying muslims. The only thing that seems to bring Pakistanis( well most of them ) is hatred towards  India. It was not surprising to see Hamid Gul blaming India for the attack on the army school in Peshawar.

 It needs India to survive else everybody has allegiances which are more towards religion and sects and religions don't need countries to survive. Pakistan needs a huge shift in its orientation towards terrorism. If TTP is a terrorist group them Laskar is a terrorist group too else the time is not far when there would be similar attacks in Pakistani Punjab too. Extremist ideologies do not leave any room for others. We should not be too hopeful that much is going to change in Pakistan  in its attitude towards India because now it is at a point where it needs India to survive , hatred towards India.








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