Peaceniks from Pakistan

Opinion

By Ibn e Khaldun

The recent standoff between India and Pakistan, besides many things more,  has shown a spate of articles and pieces from Pakistani writers making the case for peace in the region while they were cheerleading their ‘brave and professional’ army. The interesting thing about Pakistanis is that they are so predictable. A pattern can be seen in their reasoning and inferences. Influence of ‘Pakistan Studies’ during school times?, Maybe. 
Almost all of them whom I have read recently, while extolled virtue of peace and progress for both India and Pakistan, almost invariably took dig at condition of Muslims in India, without any pretensions of employing term ‘minorities’; almost all of them decried India’s ‘jingoistic’ media and also ‘communal disposition’ of Prime Minister Modi. 

For a change, how about looking at such Pakistani ‘peaceniks’ credentials, their bona fides, rather than taking them at face value and going down the guilt trip? 
Are they really concerned about peace; do they value the rights of minorities so much are they so agitated about the rise of ‘communalism’ recently? 

One quick test can be: to ask whether there has been even a single piece by any Pakistani writer, including those from among these ‘peaceniks’ writings in English dailies in Pakistan; has anyone even raised an eyebrow at the Pakistan army chief’s blatantly communal, rather explicitly anti-Hindu rhetoric? Was Asim Munir talking love and harmony? Have these worthies who preach peace to India spoken on their own Army Chief’s vitriol? Has anyone bothered to ask what was the immediate trigger for Munir’s hate speech? Why this sudden reiteration of ‘theory of distance from non-believers’ as propounded by Shaikh Sirhindi in the 16th century and which has finally culminated in partition and separation!

Has there been one sane voice from amongst the ‘liberals’ in Pakistan? One article in ‘Dawn’, ‘The Friday Times’, ‘Express Tribune’ or any other English daily ever since Gen. Munir spat fire! I can accept any piece in any Urdu newspaper, magazine or portal too; though everyone knows the kind of hate and poison Urdu media spews!

I demand to see one writer amongst those who have written tomes on Modi’s dark side, have cried foul to Gen. Munir’s acerbic attack. Does this matter to them that Pakistan is home to about 20 lakh Hindus too, though they are constitutionally second-rate citizens, yet they have been living there for centuries before Munir’s forefathers moved into Pakistan!
All these sermons are reserved for Modi only? Do they have a concern for minorities in India only? They think minorities in their own country are growing and prospering, have equal rights and opportunities as the citizens from the majority community of Muslims have in Pakistan? 

If they don’t check all those boxes, then they probably have no moral right to harangue India and Modi. Hypocrites, better back off. 

Fact of the matter is that while it’s easy to castigate Indian media; and which is deservedly to an extent; Pakistani media has given green pass to Gen. Munir’s anti-Hindu verbosity; there have all along been vile commentaries and condemnations of faith of Hinduism and inherent evilness besides castigation of India and its society in mainstream Pakistani TV channels. They might be well justified in their ‘patriotic duty’ or may be desire to earn some rewards in piety by denouncing Kuffar but then with what face do they point finger at Indian counterparts? 

Everybody understands that Pakistani media is furthering the agenda of their army besides venting their religious bigotry, while simultaneously preaching secularism, democracy, and peace to be followed by India. They in fact, have had free run with westerners on this count and attempt this with India too. 

Immediately on the evening of the Pahalgam attacks, almost all of them, as if under some instruction, pronounced it as a ‘false flag’ attack while maintaining politically correct condemnation of civilian deaths! There can’t be anything more insensitive as well as obdurate than that. It was an inhuman and sinister stance to say the least because by blaming India for attacks on Indian citizens, they not only mocked Indian sensibilities, sought to discredit our Govt, but also sought to protect the real culprits. This is not how well-meaning people talk peace. 

In Pahalgam, tourists were asked to recite ‘Kalama’ or down their pants to show whether their private parts were circumcised; and whenever non-Muslim identities were established, the victim was gunned down in front of their children and wives. 

It's on such an evening that almost all Pakistani News TV anchors and hosts were pronouncing this act as India’s own doing! Najam Sethi did this, Hamid Mir did this. From  Mubashir Lukman, to Mehar Bukhari, to Javed Chaudhary, to Abdul Basist, and many more of them invariably pronounced this as India’s own doing, a false flag attack! The discerning worthies presented serious conspiracy theories which ‘unravelled’ a plan hatched by India to kill its own citizens; ‘to win Bihar Elections’,  ‘to present Pakistan as a terror sponsor to visiting American Vice President JD Vance’, besides similar other ludicrous and ingenious conspiracy theories. After all they are the same people where majority still holds that 9/11 attacks was doing of Americans and Jews; 26/11 attacks in Mumbai were carried out by RSS or it was war between Mumbai’s underworld gangs; Ajmal Kasab was in fact an ‘Amar Singh’, Osama Bin Laden was never found in Pakistan; Americans could never set foot on Moon etc.!So these are the people who started appearing on platforms like ‘Wire’ and preaching peace to India before India undertook strikes on 7th May. 
Some American politician is believed to have remarked on the incorrigible double-facedness of Nawaz Sharif; the fact is that this trait is shared by virtually every other Pakistani man. They can lie with a straight face, deny facts and cry victimhood all in one breath! By terming Gen. Zia Ul Haq a “patriotic liar”, Hussain Haqqani has used an apt phrase. This characterisation is applicable to countless other Pakistanis, too. I am old enough to remember that during the 26/11 attacks, one suave, sophisticated retired Pakistani diplomat or maybe an army man was a guest on Nidhi Razdan’s show on NDTV; he was smug and mocking and attributed the Mumbai terror attacks to the internecine war of Mumbai‘s underworld gangs! Gen. Hamid Gul would lie to CNN in an interview that poor Osama Bin Laden was already dead! Their propensity to lie and deny is just incomprehensible. The higher the position of man, the bigger the liar he would turn out to be. 

There is one Michael Kugleman, who writes and comments on South Asian matters. Looking at the unprecedented turnout in the funeral of hate-spewing, rabble rouser Mullah ‘Allama Khadim Rizvi’, the unsuspecting alien from the US was bemused and asked on social media why so much adoration for this hater Mullah who had other day demanded nuking France! A prominent Pakistani based in the US replied that this was so merely because in South Asian culture, they show respect to every departing man, and one shouldn’t read much into it about Pakistani society. The gullible ‘gora’ was taken to a plain where any further query could have endangered his credentials of tolerance to a ‘multi-cultural, multi-race’ society! 
This is how they use avowal to ‘liberal/ secular’ credentials against them; in fact, they have mastered this game. They are the people who trend Pro-Hitler twitter hashtags, call for annihilation of Jews and obliteration of state of Israel; there were street celebrations when twin towers were downed in USA; the trend of naming their newborn children ‘Osama’ started in South Asia when Laden emerged on the scene with attacks on US missions in Sudan and Kenya etc and than much spectacular act of 9/11 was carried out by him. This double-speak and perfidy do become irreconcilable when westerners discover in Pew surveys that Osama Bin Laden is held as a hero by the Pakistani majority or that they consider the USA and Israel as empires of evil and satan. 
The worthies who theorise that Pehalgam was India’s false flag attack cater to this audience; they are from this stock. These are uncomfortable facts they don't want to talk about. 

The irony is that the gravity of the matter goes unchallenged and unrefuted; the West doesn’t take note unless the problem doesn’t knocks at their own door. They reacted with almost indifference to the fact that Hindus have been killed in Kashmir merely because of their faith. Does West want India to suffer its commupence for dealing with Russians despite the ‘Ukrainian invasion’? Pakistan is again being partnered by the West and no sensible person can believe that the West is not aware of Pakistan’s complicity in terrorism in India and again it might spiral to engulf Western societies too. 

India certainly has to fight its battles on its own. The last time India was made to suffer alone was when an Indian airliner was hijacked by Pakistani nationals and taken to Kandahar. Within two years US had to witness the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban, which was controlled by Pakistan the was closely in touch with Osama Bin Laden and Ahmad Shah Massood, and was eliminated before they undertook 9/11 attacks. 
Now again, what the West is ignoring is that India or the Indian polity doesn’t have ideological hatred and scriptural commands to fight west. Those who have killed Hindus for their faith in Kashmir will certainly not stop at that. India has suffered this menace “for 1500 years,” as Trump remarked, and it knows that it will have to face them till they are around. The West can ignore these snakes at its peril. 
Coming to the issue we had set out to discuss, these ‘liberal’ peace-loving, balanced worthies stoop to concoction of baffling conspiracy theories and yet seek to sound well-meaning. They never hold their own institutions’ feet to the fire but love Arundhati Roy or N Ram in India; they want India to be secular and liberal, which is in fact good for India, never ever even venture to critique the Islamic character of the Pakistani state, which discriminates its citizens based on faith! They love to talk about the need for communal  BJP to be thrown out of power in India, but have no issues with the worst communal religious leaders entering the political fray and assuming power in Pakistan. The issue with them is that they don’t realise how irreconcilable the positions they take are, how shallow and hypocritical they sound. 
Smooth-talking Pakistani TV hosts and all and sundry have certain deeply imbibed world views, they know how to further the cause of Pakistan and that for them
It is the cause of Islam. If anyone seeks to call them out, they cry ‘Hindutva’, Islamophobia, racism. They in fact, take out the most suitable of these weapons as per circumstance and seek to push you down the guilt trip. They have mastered this art to frustrate any attempt at genuine critique or inquiry. Those who seek to take them at their face value do so at their own peril. Indian media, despite its all failings, have not castigated the religion of Islam; in Pakistan, rhetoric is unmistakably anti-Hindu. By giving them space, we are normalising their conduct as acceptable. The West will once again regret normalising and propping up a rogue state called Pakistan. Wait and watch.  

Disclaimer: This paper is the author's individual scholastic contribution and does not necessarily reflect the organization's viewpoint.