Why Imran talks of peace

How the mindsets have changed in the two hostile neighbours Pakistan and India with the passage of time could be judged from the fact that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s popularity has increased because of his ‘peace initiative’ while India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party confident of winning the next election were creating ‘war hysteria’. A million-dollar question is whether the ‘world’ will stand with peace or war.

Why Imran is getting high ‘ratings’, term often been used for the TV channels, for his plea for ‘peace and dialogue’ while his counterpart in India, is getting more ratings for negativity, aggression and threat to Pakistan. Is this also reflects the changing mindsets in both the countries.

For instance on the electoral front, Pakistan despite having fragile democracy till 2008, had never voted for extremist mindset to power while in India’s case, the BJP represents and promotes extremism to win the elections and had made its most extremist leader as prime minister despite serious differences within the BJP over his nomination when for the first time he was nominated.

In Pakistan, Imran Khan, Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari have political differences and having different party positions represent a moderate, centrist and liberal class. The PTI, the PML-N and the PPP have majority seats and reflect anti-extremist views and public opinion.

Thus extremism in Pakistan though very much part of society in many ways never been able to become party of mainstream politics unlike India. Therefore, one should not be surprised if Imran gets popular support and that too across the board and good ratings for taking position for dialogue and peace with India, because the mainstream politics in Pakistan is against extremism. So there is a need for the world to change their view about Pakistan and Pakistanis. It is also important for us to present our case more strongly on diplomatic front.

It is true that Pakistan has come a long way in defeating terrorism but it is also true that we still have to take some decisive actions to curtail and eliminate ‘extremism’. Pakistan is the worst victim of terrorism with 70,000 people killed including security personnel, jawans, policemen, politicians and even Islamic scholars.

The world also needs to appreciate how Pakistan kept extremism away from mainstream politics. Yes there are certain disadvantages when one compares it with India, which has huge market.

Kashmir is the core issue for Pakistan but from former Gen Pervez Musharraf to Prime Minister Imran Khan, rulers were ready for dialogue on all outstanding issues. Imran even went ahead and was ready to address the issue of ‘terrorism’ before taking up any other issue. Can the world force or use good offices to defuse tension and bringing India to negotiating table.

India says conducive atmosphere was needed for talks whereas talks to resolve conflicts always help in reducing tension and create conducive atmosphere. The changing trend was also reflected within the media in the two countries. While media in both the countries do have ‘professional and ethical issues’, the Indian media particularly TV channels are far ahead in creating war hysteria, hate and extremism against Pakistan while here except for few, anchors and analyst by and large supported all peace initiatives and dialogue between the two countries.

While there is a divided public opinion over allowing Indian channels and films in Pakistan, there is complete ban on Pakistani TV channels in India. Only few days ago in the backdrop of Indian intrusion and war hysteria; Indian movies were banned.

India under the BJP and Modi had de-linked all sports particularly cricketing ties with Pakistan as its policy. Pakistan was still willing to play with India anywhere in the world including in India.

Pakistan is still not opposing people-to-people dialogue, exchange of cultural ties and visit of Indian artistes, poets, intellectuals and journalists. The Indian government and the extremist mindset had imposed ban on all such tours.

With the passage of time the tolerance level has also increased in Pakistan, when it comes to India. Not a single ugly incident had taken place with Indian artistes, poets, sportsmen even when they were free to visit Pakistan everyone knows what happened with Pakistani artistes during their visit. India has now taken extremism to new height when it has approached International Cricket Council, first to remove Pakistan from ICC and if not, they are thinking of boycotting a match with Pakistan during the World Cup in England.

Yes there are some very sane voices in India as well who are concerned about the rising extremism in India, which has threatened its secularism and constitution. They also believe that the core issue of Kashmir should be resolved through dialogue. Some even went ahead in saying the way government had suppressed Kashmiris by force it has further pushed them away from India.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Imran Khan surprised the world including US President Donald Trump and other world leaders with his stand for peace. Trump, who has taken hard-line position on many issues with Pakistan, including one on ‘safe havens’, appreciated IK on his anti-war approach.

Today Pakistan is playing a key role in resolving 17-year-old Afghan conflict through negotiations. This in itself helped Pakistan in pursuing the US to hold talks with Afghan Taliban.

Same could not be said for India, where the extremist party is not only in power but may also retain it due to post-Pulwama scenario. Indian PM and the BJP faced criticism within India as well for creating war hysteria, in a bid to win elections and one of its leaders claimed that party would win at least 22 more seats due to government’s aggressive policy towards Pakistan after Pulwama.

Pakistan had paid a heavy price and knows the value of peace. The changing Indian mindset towards extremism including trends in the mainstream politics and media would damage the Indian society more than it could damage Pakistan.

War is not the option between the two ‘nuclear states’ and if something like this happened believe me there will be no winner. World and peace will be the loser. Say no to war, yes to peace.

The writer is a senior columnist and analyst of Geo, The News and Jang

Twitter: @MazharAbbasGEO