Pakistan and Musharraf: What is India’s Response?
“Muted”…
“India’s official reaction to the imposition of emergency rule in neighbor Pakistan, which it has fought three wars with, has been muted and cautious”. VOA correspondent Steve Herman in New Delhi explains why.
“The director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, retired Indian army major general Dipankar Banerjee, says India will continue to be reticent to avoid becoming part of the political conflict in Pakistan.
” ‘Unless things change substantially and take on a different hue or different forces emerge within Pakistan, India would not like to get involved in any sense within the democratic process within Pakistan,’ he said.
“The two neighbors have fought three wars since Pakistan was carved out of India at the end of the era of British rule. Relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors have thawed recently and General Banerjee at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies says India is in no rush to see President Musharraf depart the stage in Pakistan.”
One blogger has asked me isn’t India worried about the developments in Pakistan? With tongue firmly in my cheek, let me say that it is for the ‘weakened’ and ‘confused’ Western powers to worry about things in which they meddle without knowing the consequences.
In India and Pakistan, especially the former, the middle classes have gained enough confidence to handle their own affairs. The problem arises when the naive outside powers interfere and back forces inimical to the development of democratic institutions.
India is like a huge elephant which wants to live in peace with Pakistan. So India has nothing to worry. All the three wars between these nations were fought in the cold war era, with controversial roles played by the erstwhile Soviet Union and the USA.
If the Western powers get off the back of not only India and Pakistan but elsewhere, the local people know how to settle down and sort out their problems…The mantra is enlightened self-interest promoted through diplomacy and not through hammer all the time.
2 Responses to “Pakistan and Musharraf: What is India’s Response?”
The US attitude is the same. Ignore what the US press says, the Pakistanis military has ruled for decades and won’t welcome a Taliban style takeover. The Arab militaries in Egypt, Algeria and Pakistan won’t give up military rule for Sharia law.
But the NeoCon Kirkpatrickian/Kissingerian agenda must march on! Democracy now whether they want it or not!!
worked so well for the missionaries in Polynesia, well at least they were invited for dinner.