Imran’s guide to history

A world that is already in great turmoil was warned on Friday by Prime Minister Imran Khan that India’s annexation of held Kashmir could escalate into a nuclear conflict. And the message was appropriately delivered in a strong and passionate speech made at the United Nations General Assembly.

In that sense, the great expectations that had been built up for a forceful projection of Pakistan’s Kashmir narrative in the prime minister’s UNGA address were realised, at least for the domestic audience. But we will have to wait and see how the world leaders respond to this potentially frightening alarm sounded by Imran Khan. How India reacts to it would be more relevant. It may not help that President Trump is embroiled in a rancorous process of impeachment. Likewise, most other countries have their own demons to deal with, such as Brexit in the UK.

What is certain is that confrontation between India and Pakistan is heating up. Things are likely to happen in the immediate future since the lockdown of the held Kashmir for much longer is untenable and one point specifically stressed by Imran Khan was that “when the curfew is lifted, there will be bloodshed”. Like we saw in Karachi on Friday afternoon, dark clouds have gathered on the horizon.

Significantly, the US has urged India to quickly ease restrictions in Occupied Kashmir. The US State Department’s top official for South Asia, Alice Wells, told reporters in New York that “we hope to see rapid action – the lifting of restrictions and the release of those who have been detained”.

It is instructive that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not refer to the Kashmir situation in his speech that preceded the address of the Pakistani leader. While the coverage in the Pakistani media is almost entirely devoted to the Kashmir and India-related part of the speech, Imran began with climate change and also dealt with corruption and Islamophobia.

Imran Khan’s week-long exertions in New York, keeping his focus on the consequences of India’s annexation of Kashmir and the persecution of the Kashmiris, should have a positive influence on his image in the country. The entire visit, with its climax in the UN General Assembly, would be seen as a diplomatic success.

However, he must now attend to the emerging challenges that will test his leadership and define the path that Pakistan has to negotiate in these trying times. In his absence, an earthquake hit parts of Azad Kashmir. There were casualties and much damage.

What happens in Afghanistan is also of crucial importance. It is not possible to review the conditions in which Saturday’s elections are held at the time of this writing but recent incidents of violence involving large fatalities cast very dark shadows on not just Afghanistan. It has implications for the entire region.

By the way, what was it that Imran Khan said about the Durand Line in one of his numerous encounters in New York? His penchant for lapsing into lessons that he wants us to learn becomes problematic at times. We do not have any system of instant fact checking of statements made by a leader and that can hardly be expected in the existing media environment. One is often intrigued by his simultaneous references to Medina’s ‘riyasat’ and the Scandinavian democracy and, more frequently mentioned these days, the Chinese model of development.

It is also difficult for him to not summon up his World Cup triumph and talk about his experience of living in the West. Talking about the anticipation that was there about his UNGA speech, he said: “The closest I’ve had in the past was before the World Cup cricket final I played a long time ago”.

Nevertheless, I detect a silver lining in his somewhat intellectual explorations. We do need to learn from our own and other countries’ historical experience. For instance, he has been highly critical of the shift in the country’s strategic stance after 9/11. These are issues that have to be objectively analysed and Pakistan’s policies must be guided by independent think tanks and by research conducted in our institutes of higher learning.

If anything, the PTI could set up a task force, adding one more to the plentiful task forces that have been announced, to expound and interpret the ideological framework in which Imran Khan invests his knowledge of history. This may also amount to learning from China.

When he spoke at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, he said he was an ardent admirer of the Chinese model against poverty. “The way they have tackled corruption, unfortunately I can’t do in Pakistan. Four hundred and fifty ministerial level people in the past five years have been put into jail on corruption. I wish I could do that in my country, but I have limitations”. With whatever limitations, he seems to be doing well in that respect.

That apart, China certainly is a great model and has baffled the world with the progress it has made. Much of this may be attributed to the Chinese culture which is akin to that of Japan and Korea. One perfunctory hint is that religion is not its dominant force.

In any case, China will be very much in the news next week because it celebrates the 70th year of its revolution on Tuesday. We gained our freedom two years before that. Have we lagged behind because of the cultural backwardness that we share, in so many ways, with other countries of this region?

Unfortunately, we cannot discuss these matters at length even in our academic institutions in an environment that has curtailed the freedom of expression and has suppressed rational debate. Even the subject of human rights, which is at the heart of the plight of the Kashmiris, is broached in a selective manner.

Let me conclude with a tweet posted by Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch: “I met today with Pakistan PM Imran Khan and discussed human rights concerns regarding Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, the Rohingya, and Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang as well as rights issues in Pakistan including media freedom, civil society space, religious freedom and police reform”.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com