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It was the dawn of 1st January 2010 and a new decade of the 21st century had just begun, when these two words LOVE PAKISTAN jumped out of the front pages of the Times of India and hit me like lightning.
Most of you will concede that these two words ‘Love’ and ‘Pakistan’ do look rather strange side by side. Terror, hatred and fanaticism sit more comfortably in our minds when we think of our neighbours.
Was someone trying to play some kind of a prank on us I wondered ? The dreamer in me who has worked on building bridges with Pakistan through the platform of cinema, hoped that the Indo-Pak relationship which had hit the rock bottom after 26/11 was somehow going to get better.
Over the years one has observed that whenever any leading media house of a nation makes a determined effort to campaign for a sane , life affirming cause which contributes to global interests, things change.
“ Don’t jump with joy. This Indo-Pak Peace Project called AMAN KI ASHA which the TOI and the JANG group from Pakistan have launched with so much fanfare, has in reality been fathered by the Americans,’ said a senior journalist cum peace activist of great repute to me ominously.”It is a commercial deal for these media groups, nothing more. Do you know this project also has the unspoken approval of both the governments? That is why these people have managed to get so many big names from your industry who more often than not don’t say a word about the Indo/ Pak peace process.
It takes guts to crusade for a better tomorrow in the times of hate. It is not every ones cup of tea,’ he continued, thereby puncturing and deflating my full-bodied enthusiasm.
To be honest I had begun to believe that these two media houses, who had in recent times damaged the peace process, had unexpectedly had a change of heart and were now wanting to make amends. Now if what my senior friend was saying was right; that the Americans were behind this project then I had to find out for myself what their motive could be for orchestrating this ‘Love Pakistan’ project!
For years the general perception on the ground in both India and Pakistan has been that the Americans would never want India and Pakistan to have peaceful relations. Peace is counterproductive to their economic policies.
Because the war industries have made USA a superpower. Selling tools of war to warring nation is what they have been doing for years. Peace between India and Pakistan would end that. So what has changed ?
What has changed is that Washington, New Delhi and Islamabad have one area of fear that is common to all three: rogue jihadists operating on Pakistani soil. The jihadists believe that the recent pressure mounted by the Pakistan army on their safe havens in northwest Pakistan, is threatening their survival. There is a clear intent, therefore, for these jihadists to keep Pakistan focused on the Indian threat on its eastern border in order to lessen the pressure on their jihadist bases in the northwest. The best way to trigger a conflict between India and Pakistan is through a large-scale militant attack in hopes of inducing an Indian military response and possibly another near-nuclear confrontation on the border.
India is already bracing itself for such a scenario, and is still grappling with the dilemma that any Indian military response inside Pakistan — even limited strikes — would risk emboldening the jihadists, seriously destabilizing Pakistan.
India struggled with this issue in the wake of the Mumbai attacks and it appears undecided on how to react to another major attack. In any case, a crisis along the border can be expected, and it would be up to the United States to put out the fire. A crisis on the Indo-Pakistani border would certainly put in jeopardy those plans, since Pakistan would devote its energy to dealing with India, (its principal existential threat) rather than Al Qaeda and the Taliban.Throw the threat of nuclear war into the equation, and if that happens the United States will have an entirely new challenge. So to avert that doomsday scenario, USA is doing all that it can to engineer peace in this blood soaked region.
But what happens to these two brothers who have turned enemies after the US achieves its objective of neutralizing the jihadis? Does it mean after that they will once again revert back to their games of engineering hate between the two nations to fuel their war industry? Will the season of hate then replace this season of peace? If that happens it would be tragedy.
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