Musharraf may be irrelevant, but his rant is not
From the time he lost power and credibility, General Pervez Musharraf has ceased to be taken seriously even by the people of Pakistan. One would have thought that the former Pakistani President would do something sensible to rebuild his torn reputation. But Gen Musharraf has been saying exactly those things that have contributed to a further decline in his image, in the mistaken belief that his utterances will render him relevant. His continued rant against India should be seen in that context. However, even by the flimsy standards he has set for himself, his recent remark in the course of a television interview that the people of Kashmir need to be merely “incited” to make them rise against Indian rule; and that once the incitement happens, lakhs of volunteers from Pakistan were ready to cross over in support of the Kashmiris, is both shocking and atrocious. His statement is perhaps the most open admission by a former Pakistani head of state in recent memory that Islamabad and Rawalpindi have been aiding and abetting separatists in the valley, and that Islamabad has patronised and readied a bunch of nefarious elements to stoke trouble across the border. The statement only reiterates what New Delhi has always maintained: That Pakistan is financially and militarily supporting the proxy war against India by terror attacks in Kashmir and fomenting unrest in the valley through its cronies in the form of hardline separatist leaders such as Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Yasin Malik. To that extent, Gen Musharraf has only let the cat out of the bag. He has also exposed himself in the process. let us not forget that as President, he had marketed himself as a leader who wanted peace with India. He had been helped in the process by elements in India who were floored by his ‘sincerity’ and the fact that, being supremely in command in Pakistan, he was the ‘best bet’ for India-Pakistan relations. But admittedly, there will be many people in Pakistan who would be aghast at Gen Musharraf’s latest rant, which comes at a time when relations between New Delhi and Islamabad are going through a difficult phase.
Senior Pakistani journalists like Hamid Mir have suggested that the former President and military ruler should not be taken seriously and that his utterances are those of a person who is desperate to seek public attention at whatever cost. That Gen Musharraf is looking for cheap publicity is indeed true. Nevertheless, his observations on Kashmir do display the destructive mindset Pakistan harbours against India even as it talks of peace. It remains to be seen if Pakistan’s political establishment — Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim league (Nawaz) and Mr Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf — will condemn this sabre-rattling. It would be refreshingly welcome if they do so. But, if the past is anything to go by, none of the mainstream leaders will. After all, many of them have been pursuing a similar agenda.