A reality check for Pakistan

Pakistan’s cup of sorrow couldn’t be fuller. It got into overdrive fomenting violence by its proxies in Kashmir since July, and followed this up with an attack on an Army administrative post in Uri last Sunday by terrorists despatched for the purpose, killing 18 soldiers. The aim was to showcase its advocacy of the cause of “self-determination” in Kashmir at the forum of the UN General Assembly, and seek to highlight “human rights violations” by India in Kashmir.

But by the time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took the floor at the UN last Wednesday to use these tired expressions, he was already a defeated man. Leaders of the leading countries of the world, including the key Islamic states led by Saudi Arabia, publicly chastised Pakistan for the Uri attack. Muslim countries of the South Asia region — Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Maldives — did the same. Russia went to the extent of cancelling military exercises that had been planned with the Pakistan Army.

So, there really wasn’t much for India to do in its right of reply to Mr Sharif’s rant on Kashmir. Our diplomatic representative aptly noted that the land of Taxila, the leading centre of learning in ancient times, had now become the “Ivy League of terrorism” and the “global epicentre of terrorism”.

He also pointed out that when terrorism was practised as an instrument of state policy, as is the case with Pakistan, it was tantamount to “war crime” as terrorism leads to the “worst violation of human rights”. The effects of the practice of terrorism through proxies could be felt far beyond South Asia, it was pointed out in the Indian reply, an allusion to the Pakistani hand in 9/11.

Pakistan has come to sound like a North Korea gone berserk. Its Prime Minister said in his speech that relations with India cannot be normalised until the Kashmir issue was resolved through peaceful negotiations but India was placing “unreasonable conditions”. Astoundingly, this is how the ending of terrorism was described.

Islamabad’s UN representative Maleeha Lodhi said Pakistan would not bring down its nuclear stockpile (which has been built through deception and subterfuge), brushing aside the advice of US secretary of state John Kerry.

While India mulls over its options after Uri, and takes on board Pakistan’s announced stand that relations can’t be made normal, it can go ahead and suo motu declare our western neighbour a “state sponsor of terrorism”, take appropriate economic boycott-type steps, and call upon other countries to take action in that spirit to the extent that they can until terrorism cease to be state policy. It’s really not much point losing time in trying to mobilise the leading powers first. We can improvise as we go along on how to isolate Pakistan further.