Pakistan: The Art of Lying

By Lt Gen Prakash Katoch

12 May , 2014

John F Kennedy had said, “No matter how big the lie; repeat it often and the masses will regard it as truth”. However, wisdom speaks that quotes more often are like guidelines that cannot be applied across the board in every situation. But then radicals don’t understand logic and so how do you blame Pakistan with all the institutionalized radicalization, successful double-crossing of both the US and China and its so-called democracy held ransom by the military. In context of the latter, Huma Yusuf wrote in The Dawn three years back, “In the absence of the activism of democracy, you are left with the fatalism of patronage.

The fact is that the very preamble in the 1948 UN Resolution on Kashmir categorically stated that prior to any such plebiscite, Pakistani security forces must vacate the entire State of Jammu & Kashmir.

A nation that obsesses over external threats is one that values patronage, because patronage means protection from what may come. Valuing patronage is in some ways the antithesis of voting in a democracy: rather than shape your future, you seek protection from it. Ironically, patronage also nullifies the future possibility of democracy because it reiterates the importance of that which is local — kinship, ethnicity, language, sect — over what is national. As long as we seek protection from an external enemy, we will seek patrons, even if they come in uniform —and it is thus that history readies to repeat itself.” Pervez Hoodbhoy, Professor of Nuclear& High Energy Physics, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad was more explicit in saying, “An extremist takeover of Pakistan is probably no further than five to 10 years away”.

But getting back to the lying part, in most international forums you can find Pakistani politicians, bureaucrats and military officials (both serving and retired) breast beating and shouting how India is not permitting plebiscite in J&K in accordance the 1948 UN Resolution on Kashmir. The repeated lie has its effect. Of course there are those in the audience who choose to put up with the lie by remaining silent because of geopolitical considerations and national interests of their own country. Take the farce about GWOT (Global War on Terrorism) and front-line ally Pakistan when the “global war” itself is being fought through ‘terrorism’ with prolific use of proxies. But getting back to the question of plebiscite in Kashmir, a larger cross-section is apparently unaware of ground realities.

The fact is that the very preamble in the 1948 UN Resolution on Kashmir categorically stated that prior to any such plebiscite, Pakistani security forces must vacate the entire State of Jammu & Kashmir. Not only was this not done by Pakistan, she did the reverse by pumping in more and more security forces in areas of the illegally occupied POK. In addition, Pakistan changed the demography of POK by settling outsiders from the plains into these areas. Concurrently, Pakistan sent terrorists into J&K for specific purpose of undertaking ethnic cleansing, killing scores, forcing non-Muslims to leave the State, leaving behind their houses and properties. Pakistan also illegally ceded the Shaksgam Valley (which is part of J&K) to China in 1963. Post the ceasefire with India in 2004, Pakistan shifted major Sunni terrorist camps into Gilgit-Baltistan area of POK to further change the demography of POK, and in an attempt to mix blood with original Shia residents reducing their numbers further. However, when the latter did not succeed, institutionalized killings and massacres of Shia population of Gilgit-Baltistan were organized. The population of Gilgit-Baltistan has been petitioning the UN for intervention and protecting their Constitutional rights being denied by Pakistan. The mounting unrest led Pakistan to bring in the Chinese PLA into the area in garb of civilians, and the PLA has brought along their own labour force. As the PLA digs tunnel after tunnel in Gilgit-Baltistan for apparent deployment of missiles, the locals are not permitted to go anywhere close by despite the land in the area belonging to them.

Ceasefire apart, even to-date Pakistan is holding positions West of the Saltoro Range and does not have a single man or beast on Siachen Glacier, so where is the question of resolving and what?

So what plebiscite in Kashmir and its denial by India, is Pakistan lying about. Most would also be unaware of the poll that was conducted in J&K few years back on behest of Mian Musharraf who persuaded Gaddafi’s son to finance its execution over several months. The stark reality is that results of first ever poll both sides of the Line of Control in J&K conducted by Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatam House), UK in conjunction King’s College during 2009-2010 brought out that 98% of people in J&K do not wish to be part of Pakistan and 50% of people in POK do not wish to remain with Pakistan. So, Pakistan’s propaganda in relation to Kashmir and Kashmir population wanting to join up with Pakistan is a lie that global masses cannot believe no matter how often they keep repeating it.

Then you have the cheeky Pakistani Army Chief Raheel Sharif recently claim during the ongoing elections in India that Kashmir is a “jugular vein” of Pakistan despite the fact that the entire state of J&K had been acceded to India by the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. Raheel Sharif has no business poking his nose into the ongoing Indian elections especially with his army and ISI having consigned his own country into the jaws of radicalization and terror in perpetuity or shall we say foreseeable future. Without desilting of Pakistan’s rivers, the waters of J&K are lucrative objectives to be played upon a population of water starved radicals but the jugular of Pakistan is actually in the jaws of the Taliban and Co, though geographically the neck and the juggler can be identified from the illustration below, which certainly is not inside Kashmir:

What Mian Rasheel Sharif, the Pakistani Army Chief needs to do is to quit lying about Kashmir being the jugular of Pakistan and get his own house in order. It is no secret that while his army has no will to fight the Taliban, the ISI is hand in glove with the latter and Mujahid battalions are being trained and readied to operate in conjunction Taliban to infiltrate and create mayhem in Afghanistan. The recent killings of some 60 Taliban close to the Pakistan border by Afghanistan National Army is indication of this. More importantly, Mian Rasheel Sharif should bother about the genocide his military has unleashed in Baluchistan, what with discovery of mass unmarked graves and Pakistan Air Force attacking the Baluchis in blatant disregard to human rights.

What is being shielded from the Pakistani public is that Pakistan itself has become the jugular that is being constantly pressed in the jaws of the Pakistani military and the terrorists they are spawning.

Then you have the fledgling High Commissioner of Pakistan in New Delhi, Abdul Basit talk of resolving Siachen, which unambiguously is Indian Territory. So what is he lying about? Claude Arpi very succinctly cleared the perspective by saying that the resolution of August 1948 “had conceded the legality of Kashmir’s accession to India and as such no man’s land, if any, should be controlled by India during the period of ceasefire and truce. This meant that the onus of proof to convince the commission of any factual position on the date of the ceasefire, in any disputed territory, rested with Pakistan”. Ceasefire apart, even to-date Pakistan is holding positions West of the Saltoro Range and does not have a single man or beast on Siachen Glacier, so where is the question of resolving and what? If they lost over 100 soldiers in an avalanche at Ghyari, well they have our sympathies but Ghyari by no stroke of imagination is Siachen. So quit lying and admit to the world on ground there is not a Pakistani soul anywhere close to the Siachen Glacier.

Of course the same Basit had earlier talked of better prospects of India-Pakistan relations with prospects of change of government in India but even as India hopes that relations with Pakistan could improve, deliberate idiotic moves on part of Pakistani officials stymie such hope. So while Basit portrayed hope, obviously the ISI held the gun to the head of Choudhary Nisar Ali Khan, Interior Minister of Pakistsn, who went berserk in announcing that Mr Modi, if elected as India’s Prime Minister would “destabilize” regional peace, also virtually announcing to the world that Dawood Ibrahim is indeed his house guest. The fact that this was direct meddling into India’s elections and internal affairs did not deter the geek, diplomatic niceties apart. What is being shielded from the Pakistani public is that Pakistan itself has become the jugular that is being constantly pressed in the jaws of the Pakistani military and the terrorists they are spawning. The solution will have to be found within Pakistan. It would be better for Pakistan’s foreign policy to transcend from the military to the democratic political authority in recognition of the fact that India is rising and the old maxim of reliance on repeating the lies is unlikely to work anymore.