Dr Farooq Abdullah has time and again advocated talks with Pakistan as mandatory for return of peace in Valley knowing fully well that it is not India but Pakistan that is avoiding talks, stated Brig Anil Gupta, State Spokesperson of Bharatiya Janata Party in response to Farooq’s utterances at a public meeting in Budgam District. Modi government has made it very clear that Pakistan must cease its support to cross-border terror and dismantle/destroy the terrorist infrastructure on its soil to create a conducive environment for the commencement of bilateral talks to resolve all outstanding issues. However, Pakistan’s insistence on Kashmir being its jugular vein, unfinished agenda of partition and its Army’s urge to obtain parity with India is preventing the former from sitting on a negotiation table with India. Pakistan has to realize that both of its ambitions are impossible to acquire since India’s economy is 10 times larger than Pakistan’s as well as it is the fastest growing economy in the world and Indian Armed Forces are fourth most powerful in the world, explained Brig Gupta. Even the claim on Kashmir is bogus, if Kashmir is really the jugular vein of Pakistan, how it has survived for last seventy years, exclaimed the Spokesperson! J&K is the crown of India and her integral part.
Even after acquiring nuclear weapons, Pakistan has chosen terrorism as an instrument of state policy which highlights Pakistan’s evil intentions. Dr Abdullah needs to know that a window exists even in a nuclear environment, Kargil War and surgical strikes in 2016 exemplify the same. But India wants peace which Pakistan doesn’t. Pakistan is using terror as a low-cost option to bleed India since it considers India as an existential threat and aims at India’s balkanization to counter her growing might. There is no indication of any change in Pakistan’s intent despite India’s best efforts to normalize the relations according to Brig Gupta. It is surprising that a personality like Dr Abdullah is failing to recognise the realityor is feigning ignorance in order to play to the gallery since he is a master of theatrics. Pakistan has to give up terrorism as an ‘option’ against India and its mind-set has to change from “settlement first” to “peace first” for any engagement between the two neighbours. Ball is wholly and squarely in Pakistan’s court.
Referring to his statement that “we have left our youth disillusioned and disenchanted,” Brig Gupta said that Abdullahs and National Conference are to be blamed for the same. The root causes of disenchantment are lust for power, politics of deceit and falsehood, communal, divisive and dynastic politics, financial mismanagement, self-promotion and poor governance, listed Brig Gupta while clarifying that none other than Kashmiri power brokers are responsible for these. Rather than batting for Pakistan and creating further confusion and dilemma in the mind of the youth, Kashmiri politicians have to accept the reality that their future is safe and secure only with democratic India and they have to learn to live with a hostile Pakistan as a neighbour. Bharatiya Janata Party firmly believes that the nation’s resolve and the might of Indian Army is capable enough of taking care of a hostile Pakistan but India would never succumb to the pressure of cross border terrorism or global Islamic terror, Farooq needs to know.
