Prime Minister Narendra Modi has
just signaled to his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan that he doesn't want any
personal favor from Islamabad. After the MEA, in the routine course, got the
clearance from Pakistan to use its air space for the PM's flight to Bishkek to
attend the SCO meeting, NaMo made it clear that he would rather take the Oman
route to fly to the Kyrgyz capital than fly over the Pakistani air space. This
was significant in view of some of the Indian medical students in Bishkek
requesting the GoI to resolve the flight route problem with Pakistan because it
was making them lose a lot of money on journeys to, and from, India. By canceling the flight over
Pakistani air space, the PM has clearly sent out a signal to those students as
well as the common Indian masses that he would not avail of any facility that
Pakistan is not willing to extend to the Indians in general. This means there is no chance of
any personal deal. But this public posturing may not
exclude any covert deal to bring peace to the subcontinent. On the surface, Pakistan is being
driven to a situation where it might find that it can't talk to India on its
own condition. Facing the real danger of getting promoted into the blacklist of
the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Gazis of the Islamist military state
may find themselves checkmated when New Delhi completes assembly delimitation
exercise in J&K. The latter move will literally shift the hill state's
balance of power in favor of Jammu which, though being larger in geographic and
population terms, has disproportionately low representation than the valley.
Hopefully, the delimitation exercise may be complete before the next assembly
election. Once the balance of power shifts
to Dharmic-majority Jammu and Ladakh, the Islamist Gazis would find themselves
deprived of the cover of democracy to agitate for their separatist agenda.
Also, then the assembly can pass a legitimate resolution calling for the
abrogation of Article 370 inserted by late PM J L Nehru into the Constitution
of India. The article has in recent years only fueled separatism and Islamism
instead of making them content with their special status within the Union of
India. Further, Pakistan's best friend
China is deeply troubled by Trump's trade war is beset by growing US naval
activities in the Western Pacific. There are indications that Beijing may increasingly
find itself into a trap of its own making, from which it would be difficult for
it to lend a helping hand to its best Islamist friend. All of this can't but put
additional burden on Pakistan military Gazis whose philosophy, according to
American political scientist Christine Fair, is to 'fight to the end'. (By M K Shukla & Rakesh Ranjan)
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Modi to Imran: No favor needed
By IndianMandarins - 2019-06-14 11:37:18
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has
just signaled to his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan that he doesn't want any
personal favor from Islamabad. After the MEA, in the routine course, got the
clearance from Pakistan to use its air space for the PM's flight to Bishkek to
attend the SCO meeting, NaMo made it clear that he would rather take the Oman
route to fly to the Kyrgyz capital than fly over the Pakistani air space. This
was significant in view of some of the Indian medical students in Bishkek
requesting the GoI to resolve the flight route problem with Pakistan because it
was making them lose a lot of money on journeys to, and from, India.
By canceling the flight over Pakistani air space, the PM has clearly sent out a signal to those students as well as the common Indian masses that he would not avail of any facility that Pakistan is not willing to extend to the Indians in general.
This means there is no chance of any personal deal.
But this public posturing may not exclude any covert deal to bring peace to the subcontinent.
On the surface, Pakistan is being driven to a situation where it might find that it can't talk to India on its own condition. Facing the real danger of getting promoted into the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Gazis of the Islamist military state may find themselves checkmated when New Delhi completes assembly delimitation exercise in J&K. The latter move will literally shift the hill state's balance of power in favor of Jammu which, though being larger in geographic and population terms, has disproportionately low representation than the valley. Hopefully, the delimitation exercise may be complete before the next assembly election.
Once the balance of power shifts to Dharmic-majority Jammu and Ladakh, the Islamist Gazis would find themselves deprived of the cover of democracy to agitate for their separatist agenda. Also, then the assembly can pass a legitimate resolution calling for the abrogation of Article 370 inserted by late PM J L Nehru into the Constitution of India. The article has in recent years only fueled separatism and Islamism instead of making them content with their special status within the Union of India.
Further, Pakistan's best friend China is deeply troubled by Trump's trade war is beset by growing US naval activities in the Western Pacific. There are indications that Beijing may increasingly find itself into a trap of its own making, from which it would be difficult for it to lend a helping hand to its best Islamist friend.
All of this can't but put additional burden on Pakistan military Gazis whose philosophy, according to American political scientist Christine Fair, is to 'fight to the end'.
(By M K Shukla & Rakesh Ranjan)
