Dr. Muhammad Khan

CREATION of Pakistan on the basis of Two-Nation theory was not less than a miracle. It was indeed against the confluence of Hindu majority and British rulers in India. Hindu leadership never desired a division of India and emergence of a Muslim state on the basis of a separate ideology. Under the determined leadership of Quaid-i-Azam, Pakistan became a reality to the dislike of Hindus and British rulers. Hindu leadership presumed that it would be a matter of few months or maximum few years that, this country will fall back to India. Thus, right from beginning, Indian leadership started conspiring against the state of Pakistan. India refused to give due share of assets to Pakistan at the time of independence and created problems like the invasion in Kashmir and Sir Creek.
Following the sudden deaths of the founding fathers, there arose leadership crisis in Pakistan that enhanced its vulnerabilities too. The subsequent leadership lacked the vision, fathers of the nation had for the growth and progress of this largest Muslim country of the world. The weaknesses of the Pakistani leadership were fully exploited by the foes of Pakistan, who kept on conspiring at all levels to destabilize Pakistan. Since it was easy to make in ingress into East Pakistan, therefore, India through its spying network and through other means started creating misleading the Bengali populace. Unfortunately, the Pakistani leadership too was casual to keep an eye over the growing Indian influence in this part of Pakistan.

The continuous Indian involvement in East Pakistan and Pakistani ignorance ultimately lead to the fateful day of Pakistani history, Dec 16, 1971. On this day, Pakistan lost its Eastern part, the former East Pakistan. It is worth mentioning that this tragedy did not happen suddenly. For years, there has been unrest among the masses of East Pakistan, created by two factors; internally, it was bad governance by the successive rulers of this biggest Muslim country and externally, it was the conspiracy of India, which never has the acceptability for the Pakistan and wanted to undo that by all cost. Though Pakistani masses did not reconcile with this loss of half of the country, yet, the Government of Pakistan recognized the Bangladesh in the mid-1970s. On its part, the Bangladeshi rulers are constantly conspiring against Pakistan and even today, incumbent Bangladeshi Govt is targeting those people who wanted to keep Pakistan united in 1971.
Contrary to the blame game of the India and incumbent Bangladeshi Government, famous India writer, and scholar, Sarmila Bose, have revealed some of the realities of 1971 sad incident. She has written an impartial account of the 1971 tragedy, the disintegration of Pakistan. The people of Pakistan have yet not forgotten the sad episode of 1971, once there occurred another sad and a very tragic incident on December 16, 2014, in Army Public School (APS) Peshawar.
While the entire nation was fighting against the terrorism, the enemies of Pakistan planned another incident, killing 150 people in APS, Peshawar in the broad daylight. Those attacked the school had come from Afghanistan and were fully supported by the Afghan spying network (NDS) in collaboration of RAW, the infamous Indian spying network. Those killed by these terrorists include 132 schoolchildren and remaining were teachers and staff members. This was a well-planned attack and date was chosen while keeping in view the tragic day of December 1971. December 16, 1971, was an overt act of invasion and terrorism by the Eastern neighbor of Pakistan and 2014 APS attack was a covert act of terrorism planned and executed from the soil of our western neighbor.
India is in constant search of exploiting any weakness or vulnerability of Pakistan in future too. Just a few days back, Indian Home Minister, Mr. Rajnath Singh threatened Pakistan with dire consequences and said in a statement that, “Pakistan has been divided into two countries. If it does not stop cross-border terrorism, it will soon be in 10 pieces.” Earlier, the Indian Prime Minister gave equally threatening statements about the province of Balochistan, AJK, and Gilgit-Baltistan. India has been running the terrorist and separatist networks in Afghanistan to support the terrorism and separatism in various parts of Pakistan. In last two decades, the province of Balochistan has been the main target of India. Besides, India is providing all out support to TTP and other terrorist organizations in Pakistan. Over and above, Afghan Government is fully onboard and do everything to support Indian terrorism in Pakistan.
There is a growing need that, Pakistan learns lessons from the two worst tragedies of December 16, 1971, and December 16, 2014. At the level of masses, there is a greater need for unity and harmony; rejecting all avenues of the possible divide on the ethnic, sectarian and factional basis. At the level of ruling class, brings political stability and economic prosperity, which will come through good governance and protect national interests of Pakistan.
This all is possible once there is visionary leadership having people and state-centric approach, rather political bargaining and blame games. The internal threats of extremism and terrorism have to be combated as being done by armed forces of Pakistan. Externally, Pakistani leadership must make political engagements and follow a pro-active diplomacy to improve the image and a degree of acceptability among the comity of nations. While doing all this, the national integrity and respect have to be maintained at all cost with a personal character.
— The writer is International Relations analyst based in Islamabad.
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