“Ye ek anari ki foreign policy hai” says the former foreign minister Salman Khurshid from Congress, he goes on to further add “By bringing in Balochistan, you are ruining our case on PoK. It will give Pakistan additional handle to interfere in our internal affairs. We don’t speak about atrocities in other countries” this was in response to the Modi’s Red Fort address on the genuine atrocities committed by Pakistani forces in that part of the country. Other congress leaders like Kapil Sibal, Chidambaram and Manish Tiwari too echoed on the same lines. Now who will explain these lawyer leaders that this is no courtroom where they are fighting a legal case for their client, namely the Congress party.
Opposition has been for the sake of opposition without even thinking of national interest, such has been the mental bankruptcy of these great luminaries.
The other reasoning probably is for the word “Balochistan”, the line of argument is that since BJP opposed us in the year 2009 when former PM Manmohan Singh included it in the joint statement with Pakistan and was badly hit from all quarters, then how dare Modi can use it now and get away with it without any criticism, so let’s condemn him assuming that the nation is with us. That is like doing the “tit-for-tat” thing.
Well that assumption was very short lived and better sense prevailed to someone really sensible and with a good reach within the party who could do a reasoning to the madam and eventually the Congress did a U-turn in the evening by its spokesperson Randeep Surjewala condemning the Human right violations in Balochistan and PoK. The fact that Modi stole the thunder and they have to toe his line of reasoning was kind of something that the congress leaders were visibly uncomfortable and that can even be seen when Jayram Ramesh was repeatedly asked about the party’s stand on Balochistan and he refused to make any value addition or for that matter did not even repeat what Surjewala said a day before. So it was kind of reluctant acceptance understanding the public mood and not a strategic nationalistic acceptance.
PM Modi with his speech on this 15th Aug was an aggressive one and instead of being defensive on Kashmir, he basically had the goal post shifted to Balochistan & PoK. With carefully crafted diplomatic offensive the talk point now nationally and internationally is the atrocities and human right violations committed in Balochistan and the onus is on Pakistan to prove that India is incorrect. Raising the unfinished agenda of returning PoK, further added pressure on Pakistan to stumble & rumble its diplomacy which completely was caught unaware and unexpected of this aggression from India under the leadership of Modi.
BJP MPs taking a cue from the PM have even gone a step ahead by claiming that we should have MPs and MLAs from the region of PoK to our Parliament and assemblies respectively. Now this is why I say the Congress always loses the plot, they could have also picked up this point or even supported this demand with full vigor, but instead they keep doing self-goals by saying words like “India occupied Kashmir”.
Factually let’s try to understand and compare the two instances when this word of “Balochistan” was uttered.
In the year 2009, former PM Manmohan Singh in a joint declaration at Sharm-el-sheikh, Egypt included the following statement “Both leaders agreed that the two countries will share real time, credible and actionable information on any future terrorist threats. Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that Pakistan has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas.” Now in a simple language just to understand this means that if in “TIMBAK-TU” there are any terror activity and if you are aware of it you must share it with me, which means there is a possibility that you could be near or around “TIMBAK-TU” but at the end of the day you just do not know what and where is “TIMBAK-TU”. This is the kind of trap the Pakistanis laid for Singh and he fell and therefore the criticism. While PM Modi from the ramparts of Red Fort talked about the atrocities committed against the people of Balochistan, Gilgit and Baltistan in PoK which those people have brought to his notice and therefore brings the glare of human rights violation by the Pakistanis at the international fora.
To sum-up the message for Pakistan goes with an old Hindi proverb and a famous Bollywood dialogue “Jinke ghar sheeshe ke hote hain woh doosron ke gharron par patthar nahi phenka karte”, which means “those who reside in glass houses do not throw stone on others house”.