No matter which party is in power at the center, all parties should have a basic minimum "toughness" factor in matters related to policies towards Pakistan and Bangladesh. What is required even more is consistency among the different netas within the UPA itself.
During NDA regime, when India and Pakistan were on brink of a war, the Congress led by Sonia Gandhi, voiced an opinion that India should teach Pakistan a lesson and that any step in direction of a war would strongly be supported by the Congress led opposition. The same Congress is quite often proving to be very soft on Pakistan. Although a war with Pakistan is definitely a bad idea and there is no external threat to India by our ‘dear’ neighbor, internal threat is grave concern, and UPA needs to stick to its earlier stand, now that is in power.
Take for instance the 7/11 bomb blasts in Mumbai trains in 2006, following which our PM suspended all peace dialogs with Pakistan, till it showed concrete evidence of curbing terrorism. A very welcome stand indeed. But then what went wrong during the NAM (Non-Alignment Movement) summit at Havana just two months later (September)? PM was expected to reiterate India’s earlier tough stand to Musharraf who also attended the summit. Instead PM returned home declaring that Pakistan was itself a victim of terror caused by extremist groups that are “beyond its control”. Beyond its control ? That is simply unacceptable to Mr. PM. Are you sure, because the world is going to take the leader of the largest democracy pretty seriously.
In contrast, just few days after this event, the Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai slammed Musharraf for "not doing enough" to stop those madrassas in Pakistan that were "sanctuaries" for extremists. Our PM just deprived India of a chance to make its longstanding claims about Pakistan’s threat to its internal security, look even more credible after Karzai's statements.
Also in another incidence later in 2006 - just days after the then Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced that there was *no* decrease in terrorist insurgencies across the border from POK, Dr Singh said that cross border infiltration has gone down considerably. That not only made defense ministry’s claims look pale but also irked the defense forces.
India definitely wants peace and surely wants Pakistan to concentrate more on its own development by enhancing economic trade with India rather than spending its money and energy on weakening India. But Pakistan is yet showing no signs of realizing this. Until it does, our leaders, no matter which party they represent, need to talk tough.
Dear PM, we don't want another Nehru when it comes to policies against Pakistan in today’s world. We need a Sardar Patel, or even better - a Indira Gandhi, whose tough stand made her father's soft handling of Pakistan look much inferior.
Authored by: Mandar Garge
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