India’s unremitting misadventure

In response to my article published last Saturday, Agha Ghazanfar, former federal secretary of the government of Pakistan and a friend, sent the following note from Oxford, urging me to make it public with full attribution: “Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s August 11 speech was, in fact, excised much earlier. In 1975-1976 when Mr Yusuf Buch, Hamid Jalal and I were working on the encyclopaedic book on ‘Pakistan: Past & Present’ (published by Stacey International, London, 1976), we simply could not find it. Radio Pakistan told us that Yahya Khan’s Information Minister (General Sher Ali, I think) had told them to destroy the recording, which they had done.

“After a thorough worldwide search, Syed Ijlal Haider Zaidi, then DG of PBC, procured the only spool of that recording kept by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which had provided ‘pool’ syndicate coverage to the event that day. The recording crackled a bit, some words were too faint or drowned out, being of poor quality. Yet, Hamid Jalal and I prepared a transcript of it which was published for the first time ever in the Pakistan Book (1976) and serves to this day as the official and authentic text of that remarkable speech.

“The original ABC spool was given for archival purposes to the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation who, I have heard (though I cannot vouch for this), destroyed it upon the orders of General Ziaul Haq or his Colonel Siddique Salik who, incidentally, grilled me very harshly as a Bhutto partisan who was accused of being allegedly complicit in promoting an ideology contrary to the Islamic credentials and antecedents of Pakistan.

“I happen now to be the only living witness of what we did towards the distortion, nay obliteration, of Jinnah’s words and testament. This is only one proof in support of your worthwhile endeavour, and I think you should make public, with full attribution, this damning evidence as well.”

In retrospect, this possibly is the key reason why we have been enfeebled before ourselves and before the rest of the world. Nations are known for preserving and learning from their histories, not destroying them. These legacies help us move into a future as envisioned by the founding fathers. These are pillars on which the edifice of the state rests which need to be strengthened, not weakened, and which need to be honoured, not held in disdain.

As expected, India commenced hostilities against Pakistan by conducting surgical strikes at various places inside its territory, resulting in the death of at least 36 civilians. In the ensuing aerial combat, Pakistan claimed to have downed five planes, of which loss of three has been confirmed from reports from inside India and from international forums. According to these accounts, the kill included Rafales, which are reckoned as India’s pride possession.

In a meeting held on Wednesday, May 7, Pakistan’s National Security Committee “unequivocally condemned Indian attacks in various cities of the country as blatant violations of Pakistan’s sovereignty and integrity”. It also authorised the armed forces of Pakistan to undertake corresponding action in this regard “at a time, place and manner of its choosing to avenge the loss of innocent Pakistani lives”.

Throughout the day on Thursday, a spate of Indian drones hit various targets in the country. Most of these drones were shot down. Pakistan’s response since has been measured with news of many Indian installations hit, causing extensive damage. The two nuclear-armed neighbouring countries are precariously placed on the tenterhooks with the prospect of further escalation looming large.

As Pakistan contemplates its options with the world pleading for exercising restraint, it is evident that India has escaped the condemnation it deserved at its unprovoked assault on Pakistan in the wake of its inability to either provide credible evidence in support of its accusation holding it responsible for the terrorist incident or join an independent enquiry to unravel the truth. So, international pressure on Pakistan to restrain itself appears more like an instrument of intimidation.

Let’s face a few facts. India formally accused Pakistan of the incident within a space of only ten minutes of the occurrence. The question is whether this was sufficient time for India to have effectively ascertained the circumstances leading to the terrorist perpetration and to collect the requisite evidence to blame Pakistan? Also, if the prospect of such an incident was already in the knowledge of the Indian authorities, why were no steps taken to avert it, for which the Modi government is already being questioned within his own country.

India’s refusal to join an independent investigation of the incident to determine the actual perpetrators and opting for unilateral action is contrary to all international charters and norms. This reflects a predetermined mindset bent on acting irrespective of whether it had any credible evidence or not, which conclusively establishes India’s guilt for initiating unprovoked aggression against a sovereign country.

India did the same back in 2019 when it lost two of its planes in the encounter. One of its pilots was also captured, later released as a gesture of goodwill. In our counter-assault, Indian targets were hit with precision and lethality. India has done it again. But there is a difference between then and now. In 2019, we had Imran Khan with his colossal stature, domestic and international, leading the charge from the front. His proclamation that “we will not think of retaliating; we will retaliate” rings loud in our ears. He lived up to his words and made India retreat with a battered nose.

We are now confronted with a similar situation. But there is an enormous leadership vacuum. The government has gone mum. Not a word of condemnation has come from either Nawaz Sharif or Asif Ali Zardari, with the defence minister ceaselessly weaving rings of embarrassment. First, he acknowledged that Pakistan has been sponsoring terror on the behest of the US and other Western powers, and then, in a more recent television interaction, he cited social media posts as proof of India having lost five planes in the encounter. Blunders aplenty.

Pakistan will have to navigate between international intimidatory persuasion to exercise restraint, people’s ire if it does not act decisively, and the inherent need for the country to restore its sovereignty and pride. While there is ample rationale to act, Rana Sana has also claimed that Pakistan has already retaliated, and as a responsible country, we will restrain if India does not escalate.

India has escalated. A spectacle of compounding blunders impedes our path into the future. This is where we miss the commanding and inspiring leadership of Imran Khan, who remains illegally incarcerated at Adiala.

The writer is a political and security strategist and the founder of the Regional Peace Institute. He is a former special assistant to former PM Imran Khan and heads the PTI’s policy think-tank. He tweets @RaoofHasan