I do not agree with an Independent Sindh. Sindh has to be part of India. The Pashtun areas in Pakistan are a result of Durand Line and I support the move to dissolve that line and unite Pashtun areas back into Afghanistan.
Islamic Republic of Pakistan : News, Discussions & Updates
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Honestly at this point, thanks to Pakistan, Sindh is an absolute, total mess. Not to mention, you'd have to add Sindh's entire population to the pre-existing Muslim population of India (remember Democracy is a numbers game); and a lot of these Muslims would likely be even more hardline than Indian ones.
I'm not too sure if I want them in India anymore. I'd settle for an independent Sindh that's friendly to India and de-nuclearized. Such an idea would likely have more traction amongst native Sindhis as well, as opposed to being forcibly joined into India.
Sindh has a population which respects its history and its Hindu roots. They are very different from Punjabi Pakistanis. It will be easy to bring them to Indian fold and Hinduism than anyother population of Pakistan. Plus Sindh has oil and mineral deposits second to Balochistan.
We will be seen as an imperialistic power then. It may not affect us today, but it will come up as a big problem 50 years or whatever down the line with calls for referendum by a new generation. That will create a domino effect elsewhere in India.
The only dispute with Pakistan is PoK. We should take that back, with the rest being split along ethnic lines.
three crore sindhis and 1.5 crore Muhajirs will never be a problem for us. And we can always do the integration thru a democratic process.
Along whatever lines that cuts them equally into two halves. The population there is over 100 million and will double by 2050. We don't want a country near us with 200 million people that hate us.
Whichever way you see it, now that it's clear Trump will pull out US troops from Afghanistan, I believe we have approached the beginning of the end game in our part of the world.
Once the US withdraws, it's only a matter of time before you have a rehash of 1996 as far as Afghanistan goes, where the Taliban comes to power, this time with the Chinese backing the Pakistanis & a depleted Northern Alliance retreating into the Pamirs minus a charismatic Ahmed Shah Masood to chart their future.
This should bring added pressure in Kashmir, the likes of which we've seen from 2001 onwards with multiple high profile suicide strikes, given India's refusal to engage Pakistan.
While we should have made adequate preparations with respect to our procurements and war waging capabilities, I suspect it's going to be a perrenial case of work in progress.
Hence the results of the 2019 elections are more important than we can possibly fathom. A fractured mandate and we'd see a return to aman ka tamasha & other such niceties. I'm not sure if that would be bad, if it aids in us boosting our economy.
In conclusion, I once happened to read an article which described India's offer of talks on Kashmir in the words of our then Foreign Minister - the venerable Swaran Singh as that of a village belle who got her kicks from exposing her legs to the village lads & left them satiated. A rather crude and misogynistic analogy.
An apt analogy for the time perhaps where after denying the Pakistanis the opportunity, we would finally concede their demands for talks on Kashmir, which in itself would thrill them. Left unsaid was the notion that tactics by themselves don't make up strategy. Just like then, we still are buying time today without any end game in mind either in Kashmir itself or to tackle our nemesis - Pakistan on this issue. This seems as true of the Congress as it does of the BJP.
Going back to the village belle analogy, what if those lads aren't contented with merely seeing what they're shown. What if they misconstrue the village belle's actions?
By giving Pakistan a say in Kashmir consistently since Nehru onwards, we have given it veto rights. There's till today not a single national level politician in India who can categorically state that our policy of talking Kashmir with Pakistan is a historic mistake and we will reverse it.
Whereas every Pakistani politician worth his salt thinks and says so loudly that Kashmir is the unfinished business of Partition, as of Kashmir is their birthright.
It could be even worse, at least for Indian interests in Afghanistan this time, because this time not only is the great Ahmad Shah Massoud gone; but both Iran & Russia are more than happy to cut deals with the Taliban for their own interests, as opposed to the '90s when they were both firmly pro-Northern Alliance and aligned with India on the matter. And while 9/11 and America's sudden revival of interest in Afghanistan gave India a second chance to enter the scene and make room for itself; there's no guarantee of any such event/development again in the future.
Either India seriously steps up to fill in the vacuum as America leaves, or Afghanistan could be lost for good this time.
Our line as far as Kashmir goes is to follow the late PVNR's philosophy - that of masterly inactivity in Zen like fashion. And if this is going to be our stance in our own homeland, why even discuss Afghanistan?
Yea unfortunately things are suddenly becoming super turbulent/dynamic. So while India hasn't really shown any indications of being proactive; we're also rapidly approaching a juncture where choices and moves will have to be made. Sometimes, sudden jolts can wake up those who are asleep, and I hope that's what happens in this case; because India has already missed too many major opportunities and made too many major blunders throughout its history that its still paying for in a lot of ways.
It's not as bad as it's been portrayed.
Non-US NATO has 8000 troops, all involved in training the Afghans. Trump added 4000 troops last year taking the total US troops to 14000, and now wants to bring that down to 7000 troops.
Out of those 14000, thousands are involved in training the Afghan forces. So their withdrawal will not affect the ground situation since the Afghans already have ample training resources. Stuff will change only if the fighting troops are withdrawn.
And if push comes to shove, the training troops can also fight. Both NATO and the US. And the air force will continue operating as they are.
Anyway the withdrawal is still under evaluation.
Our official position on the matter is, if we have talks, it will only be about PoK and not J&K. India does not consider J&K as disputed territory.
Aren't Mujahirs the people who were extremist to the point that they migrated out of Bharat to move to their 'muslim land'? If anything the opposite o what you said is true.
Massive attack on Pak checkposts along Durand Line,several soldiers killed.Attackers came from Afghanistan
Pakistan’s army is to blame for the poverty of the country’s 208m citizens
It has fostered the paranoia and extremism that hold the country back
Print version | Leaders
Jan 12th 2019
IT HAS FOR so long been a country of such unmet potential that the scale of Pakistan’s dereliction towards its people is easily forgotten. Yet on every measure of progress, Pakistanis fare atrociously. More than 20m children are deprived of school. Less than 30% of women are employed. Exports have grown at a fifth of the rate in Bangladesh and India over the past 20 years. And now the ambitions of the new government under Imran Khan, who at least acknowledges his country’s problems (see Briefing), are thwarted by a balance-of-payments crisis. If Mr Khan gets an IMF bail-out, it will be Pakistan’s 22nd. The persistence of poverty and maladministration, and the instability they foster, is a disaster for the world’s sixth-most-populous country. Thanks to its nuclear weapons and plentiful religious zealots, it poses a danger for the world, too.
Many, including Mr Khan, blame venal politicians for Pakistan’s problems. Others argue that Pakistan sits in a uniquely hostile part of the world, between war-torn Afghanistan and implacable India. Both these woes are used to justify the power of the armed forces. Yet the army’s pre-eminence is precisely what lies at the heart of Pakistan’s troubles. The army lords it over civilian politicians. Last year it helped cast out the previous prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, and engineer Mr Khan’s rise (as it once did Mr Sharif’s).
Since the founding of Pakistan in 1947, the army has not just defended state ideology but defined it, in two destructive ways. The country exists to safeguard Islam, not a tolerant, prosperous citizenry. And the army, believing the country to be surrounded by enemies, promotes a doctrine of persecution and paranoia.
The effects are dire. Religiosity has bred an extremism that at times has looked like tearing Pakistan apart. The state backed those who took up arms in the name of Islam. Although they initially waged war on Pakistan’s perceived enemies, before long they began to wreak havoc at home. Some 60,000 Pakistanis have died at the hands of militants, most of whom come under the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The army at last moved against them following an appalling school massacre in 2014. Yet even today it shelters violent groups it finds useful. Some leaders of the Afghan Taliban reside in Quetta. The presumed instigator of a series of attacks in Mumbai in 2008, which killed 174, remains a free man.
Melding religion and state has other costs, including the harsh suppression of local identities—hence long-running insurgencies in Baloch and Pushtun areas. Religious minorities, such as the Ahmadis, are cruelly persecuted. As for the paranoia, the army is no more the state’s glorious guardian than India is the implacable foe. Of the four wars between the two countries, all of which Pakistan lost, India launched only one, in 1971—to put an end to the genocide Pakistan was unleashing in what became Bangladesh. Even if politicking before a coming general election obscures it, development interests India more than picking fights.
The paranoid doctrine helps the armed forces commandeer resources. More money goes to them than on development. Worse, it has bred a habit of geopolitical blackmail: help us financially or we might add to your perils in a very dangerous part of the world. This is at the root of Pakistan’s addiction to aid, despite its prickly nationalism. The latest iteration of this is China’s $60bn investment in roads, railways, power plants and ports, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The fantasy that, without other transformations, prosperity can be brought in from outside is underscored by CPEC’s transport links. Without an opening to India, they will never fulfil their potential. But the army blocks any rapprochement.
Mr Khan’s government can do much to improve things. It should increase its tax take by clamping down on evasion, give independence to the monetary authority and unify the official and black-market exchange rates. Above all, it should seek to boost competitiveness and integrate Pakistan’s economy with the world’s. All that can raise growth.
Yet the challenge is so much greater. By mid-century, Pakistan’s population will have increased by half. Only sizzling rates of economic growth can guarantee Pakistanis a decent life, and that demands profound change in how the economy works, people are taught and welfare is conceived. Failing so many, in contrast, really will be felt beyond the country’s borders.
Transformation depends on Pakistan doing away with the state’s twin props of religion and paranoia—and with them the army’s power. Mr Khan is not obviously the catalyst for radical change. But he must recognise the problem. He has made a start by standing up to demagogues baying for the death of Asia Bibi, a Christian labourer falsely accused of blasphemy.
However, wholesale reform is beyond the reach of any one individual, including the prime minister. Many politicians, businesspeople, intellectuals, journalists and even whisky-swilling generals would far rather a more secular Pakistan. They should speak out. Yes, for some there are risks, not least to their lives or liberty. But for most—especially if they act together—the elites have nothing to lose but their hypocrisy.
Link: Pakistan’s army is to blame for the poverty of the country’s 208m citizens
