Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif must have felt a little conflicted while addressing the United Nations General Assembly. While he praised US President Donald Trump for averting a war in South Asia, and mentioned that Pakistan had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, he also spoke firmly in support of the people of Gaza against Israel, thus contradicting Mr Trump, who had spoken at the same forum only a couple of days earlier, and had done his best to justify Iarael for committing genocide. However, while speaking about relations with India, he was clear in declaring that Pakistan wanted improved relations with India, even while it refused to accept its bullying. The particular problem that India posed was its refusal to grant the people of Kashmir their right of self-determination, and he noted the additional problem of the unilateral suspension, amounting to abrogation, of the Indus Basin Waters Treaty.
It was appropriate for Mr Sharif to devote so much of his speech to Pakistan’s bilateral relationship with India, because not only is it fraught with the possibility of conflict, but because that conflict could be nuclear, with the threat of unleashing nuclear winter over the whole world. It can only be hoped that his word did not fall on deaf ears, because it is the silence of the world community over Indian bad behaviour and intransigence which has allowed it to go on trampling the rights of the Kashmiris, as well as its minorities. It is time Pakistan reconciles itself to the fact that if the government of India is a Hindu supremacist, caste-ist, expansionist, murderous and anti-Pakistan state, it will continue its bad behaviour unless the world restrains it.
At the moment, Mr Sharif has the attention of the world community, as evidenced by the special treatment he has received from Mr Trump. It is thus important that he press for genuine action, instead of just going through the motions. Pakistan has to face the double whammy of neighbors like India and Afghanistan, all the while in close proximity to a volatile neighborhood. Mr Sharif had to deal with the reality that the volatility in the area is produced by the very country, Israel, which is backed by the power Mr Sharif is trying to mend fences with. Mr Harif could not make a more depressing speech. It is to be hoped that next year, the Pakistani PM can make a more upbeat speech.
