Pakistan: Lesson not learnt

Pakistan’s affair with extremist jihadi groups has risen in passion instead of abating amidst international pressures and the mounting terror attacks within the country by the terrorists. The Defence Day of Pakistan was celebrated on September 6 with the usual traditional fervour, eulogizing those who did and did not do much to win one of the series of confrontations that Pakistan provoked in its judgment to bring India down to its knees on the Kashmir issue. Under the layers and still carefully tucked away, the truth might never surface to allow the people to know that the passion of the 1965 war Pakistan pines for every year whenever any collective misery falls on it, has been raised on a façade about an enemy next door who attacked us in cowardly fashion and without warning or a formal declaration of war and not as retaliation for our infiltrating commandos into Indian-held Kashmir across the cease fire line. Indeed the field officers and the foot soldiers fought bravely in defence of the motherland under attack but the political and military leadership commanding the war came out as incompetent from the planning to the execution stage. The political leadership had ccnvinced itself that India would not dare attack across the international border despite Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s explicit warning and the military command was lulled into not preparing for such an eventuality. By the end of the 17-day war, we were running out of fuel and other supplies, including ammunition. Fortunately, the Soviets came to our rescue; had it not been so, September 6 might have added another dark chapter to our chequered history of wars against India. Yet we refuse to learn any lessons from this and other experiences. This defence day saw a plethora of religious parties on the streets showering kudos on the 1965 war martyrs, and putting feathers in the army’s cap for defending the country against the aggressors India. This was the gist of Hafiz Saeed’s commentary he made in Islamabad on Defence Day to a crowd of 10,000. Hafiz Saeed went all the way to the capital city Islamabad to celebrate the day, raising questions once again about the freedom granted to him in the public space. One, who paid for this elaborate arrangement, accommodating, a crowd of 10,000 people? The show was provided security and those attending it given a free hand to spray verbal hatred against the ‘perenniel’ enemy. Who gave permission for all this and was Hafiz Saeed’s speech vetted before being allowed to be delivered? Hafiz Saeed is not an ordinary jihadi. He is accused of being the mastermind behind the Mumbai attacks in 2008. He carries a head money of $ 10 million imposed by the US. Previously he led Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was banned in 2002 by Musharaf. His credentials are simmering with India hatred, yet his speech against India was allowed on Defence Day. What does it show? On the one hand Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is talking of peace and normalisation with India, and on the other anti-India sentiments are fanned at the behest of the establishment. It is unfortunate that Pakistan is still stuck with its duplicitous approach and insists on smearing the truth and distorting history, forgetting that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.