Pakistan has much to answer for
Parliament spoke in one voice against the inhuman treatment that Pakistan meted out to Kulbhushan Jadhav’s mother and wife in Pakistan. The treatment they received across the border was in violation of the Vienna Convention.
The entire opposition led by Ghulam Nabi Azad in the Rajya Sabha stood in unstinted support of the government as external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj denounced Pakistan.
Pakistan played with the dignity of Jadhav’s mother and wife. This was strong proof of the unhealthy psyche of the neighouring country.
“Nuclear Pakistan is more complicated a nation, lives in venom of hatred, a terrorprone fundamentalism to the most of the globe,” said senator Bernie Sanders in the US Senate this month, supporting US President Donald Trump’s agenda against terrorism.
Democracy stands firmly on the four pillars of the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and the media. The world knows how much poison is regularly spewed by the Pakistan legislature and the executive against India.
The Pakistan media crossed all limits of professional decency when they hooted and insulted Jadhav’s mother and wife, calling them ‘terrorist’s mother’ and ‘terrorist’s wife’.
The two women were forced to change their dress from saris to Pakistani attire, remove sacred marriage symbol of bangles, mangalsutra and bindi. Jadhav’s wife had to remove her shoes, which were then sent for a forensic test.
The world media noticed this inhuman behaviour with shame and disgust. Soon, Pakistan struck in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir through Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, martyring five of our CRPF jawans.
Three things are fast eroding in Pakistan: empathy, honesty and respect for international laws.
Why so? Hatred is one major reason. It is inbuilt in Pak-polity and civil life. Speaking on global human relations in the USA in June 2016: Nobel Laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi said, “Hatred and terror once allowed to grow in socio-political life, do not pick and choose. It spreads like fire. Once we say it is good terror and reasonable hate, something based on their religion and narrow national interest, we are also opening the door to violence and division based on race, gender, sexuality and more.”
Can a neighbour like Pakistan understand that we are all safe and prosperous when we are together.
Will good sense ever prevail on Pakistan and China that no neighbour can afford to compromise on its security and integrity. Liberty and unity culminate in Inclusive-nationalism leading to humanism.
Let the Pakistan leadership not stick to self-destructive hatred.
Pakistan must remember Malala Yousafzai exhorted her nation in her Nobel Speech 2014: “Why is that countries are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is that giving guns is so easy, but giving books so hard? Why is it that making tanks so easy, but building school and permitting boys and girls to study is so hard? Why is it that hatred spreads so fast, and love spreads so slow?”
Who will answer these questions in Pakistan of 2018?