J&K is burning, claims Pakistan. People are under siege, the Indian Army is running amuck! When one actually shows photographs and videos of life being as normal as possible, one is told these are all fake and photo ops! Fair enough. After all, Indians are very devious and publicity crazy people.
Sindh is burning, Karachi is burning, people are sick of “Handsome” and his mismanagement in Pakistan claims India. Immediately, you hear “nothing is happening here. There is no Baloch movement, no problems in Karachi nor Sindh. It’s all a figment of Indian imagination”. Of course, it is! Indians are not only the most devious people, they’re also the most conniving people who have nothing else to do but build stories about a failed state who’s entire annual budget is about the same as the IPL budget for the year!!!
The year 2018. Elections in Pakistan were gaining momentum. The Deep State, also known as The Establishment, had to come to terms with the candidates for the post of Prime Minister! On the one side, they had the three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and on the other, Imran Khan. The establishment knew about Sharif.
It has to be imagined what the scenario would be in deciding the next prime minister! An ex-cricketer, who was good during his time. Could he influence the cricket-crazy neighbors into “playing the game, with Pakistan’s rules”? He did have many friends in India, who had political clout. Could they help him get through to the offices of Mr Modi?
They should have realized that Indians have moved on from the 70s, 80s and early 90s. Expectations have to be tempered with reality! He was a good fast bowler, but there were better bowlers at the time; the formidable West Indies had 4 of them, Australia had a couple of them, England had one or two themselves and so did India. If the Establishment expected the Indian people to relive the 70s-90s and give him the adulation they thought he deserved, they were in for a dose of reality! Over time, one’s looks fail, as it did with this person! People tend to associate more with today’s stars than previous years “has beens”. The current generation doesn’t know, nor cares, who he was. Today’s generation wants heroes they can identify with, not someone who is still reliving his glory days from a few decades ago!!!
And so it comes to be that this person feels like he’s being mocked, humiliated and ignored by the people who were expected to treat him as Royalty! He, after all, was a legend (in his country maybe, but that didn’t stop him from believing this was true the world over) and deserved better than what he was getting. Those failed expectations, along with the political reality that is today’s Pakistan, have made this person a very bitter and very delusional leader. Delusional because he still believes that his cricketing achievements would be enough to have all doors opened for him. After all he did win the World Cup in 1992. So what if India had won the very same tournament 9 years earlier? Difficult for a person to believe that what was once described as a legendary career was now no longer remembered.
Having laid out the ground reality, let’s talk about some of the misconceptions that need straightening out:
- The United Nations has never said Jammu & Kashmir belongs to Pakistan. The UN diktat specifically states the following (in that order):
- Pakistan will move all its armed forces out of occupied Kashmir.
- India will maintain forces to allow the maintenance of law and order in the area.
- ONLY after the first two are complied with to the satisfaction of the UN, will a plebiscite be held.
Most people from that country are either ignorant of these stipulations or choose to ignore them. They’d rather focus on the 3rd stipulation and nothing else. Till such time that they realize, and comply with, the UN’s stipulations in its entirety, they will always be distorting history.
- The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is not an organization that is controlled by any single country. Contrary to what Pakistan’s media reports, neither the USA nor India hold sway over the FATF’s actions. The President of the USA NEVER promised to get Pakistan out of the trouble they are in with the FATF, contrary to what’s reported by the Pakistani media outlets.
The actions, from the past, have come to haunt this country; actions that could have been taken care of in the past but were not. Case in point, an inhabitant, a notorious one at that, of Abbottabad, was protected while the country bilked billions from the US of A. To then claim that the USA had violated Pakistan when the USA sent in forces to neutralize that inhabitant, showed how underhanded the country wanted to play. The claim that this country has been a victim of terrorism, sponsored by India, has been ridiculed ever since this inhabitant was found in Abbottabad.
- Not all retired army officers go on to work for the RAW, unlike the neighbor’s army officers. India has an army of about 1.1 million currently. I reckon they have about 300,000 retired officers (I am grossly under-stating the numbers) and, can safely say that these retired officers do NOT work as undercover officers for the RAW. A majority of them are enjoying their retirement and have absolutely NO NEED to think about the neighboring country. They did enough of that, when they were active service personnel. When an armed services officer talks in the media, it’s more out of knowledge than out of any obligation to the RAW. The RAW would not want to change that equation, whatever the neighbors may think.
- Indian media outlets, especially the printed media, are often quoted by the neighbor’s media outlets. While most Indians would agree that the Indian media are never trustworthy and have their own allegiances, to come out and make ridiculous statements (one person claimed an outlet had printed that India was sponsoring terror activities in Pakistan and would continue to do so) shows the depths to which the neighbor’s media has fallen. It has to be disconcerting for these media personnel, from the neighboring country, to have to contend with reading English publications and then grasping what was written. Again, since it is print media, neither the tone nor the intent (sarcasm, humor or straight talk) are obvious and as a result these outlets are perplexed.
- The Rashtriya Swayam Sevak (RSS) that Pakistan seems to know nothing about, and yet claims to know everything about, is probably the one organization that is enjoying free worldwide publicity. Within India, the RSS is known, even among minorities, to help in situations where people are affected by natural calamities, disasters and terror attacks. When asked to name one incident where the RSS was involved in terror attacks, the Pakistan media name Godhra (not an RSS attack but hey, who cares about truth) and M K Gandhi’s assassination (again, not an RSS orchestrated attack). If these are the ONLY examples that these media personnel can come up with, we then have to question the veracity of this country’s media.
- When the PM of that country met with the President of the US of A Mr Trump, he requested Mr Trump to use his good offices to bring about a meeting between India and Pakistan in regards to Kashmir. Contrary to what’s being reported by Pakistani media outlets, the President did NOT promise to do so. He said, if both sides wanted this, he would get involved. India’s position on this issue has been clear from the beginning in that J&K is an integral part of India and there will be no second thoughts about this.
While media outlets in countries ruled by the army, generally have to watch what they report, honesty in reporting is quintessential; after all, even where one’s opinion is being put forth, one needs to be honest to oneself. Leave others out of it; be honest to yourself; learn from the likes of Hasan Nissar, the one Pakistani person who has integrity and I respect that in him!
जय श्रीराम। जय सीयाराम। उत्तिष्ठ भारत। जय माँ भारती
God Bless the USA.