Love Pakistan

Celebrity Writer

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It  was the  dawn of 1st January 2010 and a  new decade of  the 21st  century had just begun, when these two words LOVE PAKISTAN  jumped out of the front pages of the Times of India and hit me like lightning.

Most  of you will  concede  that these two words ‘Love’ and ‘Pakistan’ do look rather strange side by side. Terror, hatred and fanaticism sit more comfortably in our minds when we think of our neighbours.

Was someone  trying to play some kind of a prank  on us I wondered ?  The dreamer in me who has worked on building bridges with Pakistan through the platform of  cinema, hoped   that the  Indo-Pak relationship  which had  hit the rock  bottom after  26/11 was somehow going to  get  better.

Over the years one has observed that  whenever any  leading media house of a nation makes a determined effort to campaign for a  sane , life affirming cause which contributes to global interests, things change.

“ Don’t jump with joy. This  Indo-Pak Peace Project called AMAN KI ASHA which the TOI and the JANG group from Pakistan have launched  with so much fanfare, has in reality been fathered by the Americans,’ said a senior journalist cum peace activist of great repute to me ominously.”It is a commercial deal for these media groups, nothing more. Do you know this project also has the unspoken approval of both the governments? That is why these people have managed to get so many big  names from your industry who more often than not don’t say a word about the Indo/ Pak peace process.
It takes guts to crusade for a better tomorrow in the times of hate. It is not every ones cup of tea,’ he continued, thereby puncturing and deflating my full-bodied enthusiasm.

To be honest I had begun to believe that these two media houses, who had in recent times damaged the peace process, had unexpectedly had a change of heart and were now wanting to make amends. Now if what my senior friend was saying  was right; that the Americans were behind this project then  I had  to find out for myself what  their motive could  be for orchestrating this ‘Love Pakistan’ project!

For years the general perception on the ground in both India and Pakistan has been  that the Americans would never want  India and Pakistan to have peaceful relations.  Peace is counterproductive to their economic policies.
Because the  war industries have made USA a superpower. Selling tools of war to warring nation is what they have been doing for years. Peace between India and Pakistan  would end that. So what has changed ?

What has changed  is that Washington, New Delhi and Islamabad have  one area of fear that is common to all three: rogue jihadists operating on Pakistani soil.  The jihadists believe  that  the recent pressure mounted by the Pakistan army  on their safe havens in northwest Pakistan, is threatening their survival. There is a clear intent, therefore, for these jihadists to keep Pakistan focused on the Indian threat on its eastern border in order to lessen the pressure on their jihadist bases in the northwest. The best way to trigger a  conflict between India and Pakistan is  through a large-scale militant attack in hopes of inducing an Indian military response and possibly  another near-nuclear confrontation on the border.

India is already bracing itself for such a scenario, and is still grappling with the dilemma that any Indian military response inside Pakistan — even limited strikes — would risk emboldening the jihadists, seriously destabilizing Pakistan.

India struggled with this issue in the wake of the Mumbai attacks and it appears undecided on how to react to another major attack. In any case, a crisis along the border can be expected, and it would be up to the United States to put out the fire. A crisis on the Indo-Pakistani border would certainly put in jeopardy those plans, since Pakistan would devote its energy to dealing with India, (its principal existential threat) rather than Al Qaeda and the Taliban.Throw the threat of nuclear war into the equation, and if that happens the United States will have  an entirely new challenge. So  to avert that doomsday scenario, USA is doing all that it can to engineer peace in this blood soaked region.

But what happens to these two brothers who have turned enemies after the US achieves its objective of neutralizing the jihadis? Does it mean after that they will once again revert back to their games of engineering hate between the two nations to fuel their war industry?  Will the season of  hate then replace this season of peace? If that happens it would be tragedy.