Pakistanis buoyed, Indians down

ISLAMABAD: Unlike his war-mongering Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Imran Khan reiterated his offer for dialogue even at this extremely heightened tension between the two South Asian neighbours and was not swayed away by the Indian bellicosity.Imran Khan’s speech reflected the well-thought out, mature policy of Pakistan that was delivered after a critical huddle of the National Command Authority (NCA) which was attended by the top civil and military leaders. It was aptly devoid of jingoism and stressed peace in the region.Even after a huge provocation--violation of Line of Control (LoC) by Indian jets --on Tuesday, Pakistan had not given a kneejerk reaction and had announced that it would respond at the time and place of its choosing. There was a feeling among certain circles over this violation that Pakistan should have downed at least one intruding Indian fighter.The Indian action had created a sense of anger among Pakistanis, but the military spokesman had announced that the armed forces would react in an appropriate manner. “I had a hunch that India would escalate, and that is why in my earlier speech I said that if India continues on this path, we will retaliate. We waited and today we took action. It was our plan to not cause any collateral damage and not to cause any casualties,” the prime minister said.Unlike the day before, on Wednesday there was tremendous satisfaction among Pakistanis over the shooting down of the two Indian jets and capture of two pilots. But this brought immense humiliation to India, which has been cheerleading, making unbelievable claims about its superiority.The disgrace suffered by Indian was demonstrated in several posts on the social media. Two tweets written by one Indian, Ram Parkash, who said he was a veteran Indian Air Force [IAF] pilot, stated: “We lost 2 MiG 21 and 3 pilots. It’s a major setback for IAF. I just talked to a wing commander who is there in Kashmir, Moral is down after this heavy loss. For the people of India I want to tell you guys that our media will never show that 2 jets are downed and 2 pilots are captured by Pakistan and 1 martyred.”As a whole, the Indians using the social media were on the defensive after the losses India sustained while they were very upbeat after Tuesday’s violation of the LoC. New Delhi had claimed to have dismantled a structure used by “terrorists” in Balakot.Imran Khan kept his cool and in a separate presser Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) chief Maj-Gen Asif Ghafoor also talked about peace and de-escalation. “We are ready to talk. Let better sense prevail. Let’s think sensibly. I ask India with our weapons capability on both sides, can we afford a miscalculation? If this escalation continues, matters will neither be in my control nor Modi’s. The hurt that has been caused due to the Pulwama attack, we want to come to the table and talk about terrorism that affects us both,” Imran Khan said in his brief televised address.He thus also gave an unambiguous message to the world that Pakistan stands for peace and not war despite massive provocations from India. Since Tuesday episode, this was the first time that he commented on the situation.It was generally argued and believed in Pakistan and India that Prime Minister Modi’s misadventure was meant to buoy up his prospects in the upcoming general elections. He has also previously used the “Pakistan card” in the polls. Long time ago, it was stated that he would embark upon such trajectory again and he did so.However, the disgrace facing him due to Wednesday’s downing of the Indian jets and seizure of Indian pilots is going to be counterproductive and will damage his election campaign. The move has boomeranged.Imran Khan repeated that Pakistan was prepared for investigation about the Pulwama incident if India provided something worthwhile but New Delhi never paid any heed to this offer. He particularly talked about miscalculations in wars. “All major wars have been a miscalculation.When they started, no one realised where they were headed. World War I was supposed to end in six months, but it went on for six years. Similarly, when it was launching the War on Terror, did the United States ever think it would remain in Afghanistan for 17 years? We know what war means. Since the beginning, we have asked India to share actionable evidence with us. It is nowhere in the interest of Pakistan for our soil to be used as a base for militancy.

from The News International - National https://ift.tt/2IHhvVA