Azad Kashmir will now be trotting into the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, courtesy a Pakistani equestrian who is all set to piggy ride on the freshly stoked controversy and get sponsors for himself and his horse. His horse is named ‘Azad Kashmir’.
A Pakistani equestrian finds himself embroiled in a geopolitical controversy with Indian officials mulling legal action against the athlete. As an add-on, nobody was thus far willing to sponsor Usman Khan for him to ride on ‘Azad Kashmir’ in Tokyo this year.
Desperate as it may sound, Pakistan has now really been reduced to such stunts alone. While Pakistan winning an Olympic medal by riding Azad Kashmir may be a promising proposition, India is not willing to extend the pleasure to the terror state just yet.
“It’s a trivial issue really. My intentions are very clear. The horse was not named in response to the lockdown in Indian Kashmir… I am presently looking for sponsors to bear the cost of taking me and Azad Kashmir to the Tokyo Olympics and this will only help our cause,” Usman told Pakistani media network Dawn. The athlete admits to using this controversy to find sponsors for himself and his horse, as there will be many Pakistanis willing to bet their money on the possibility of Pakistan’s victory with their hopes riding on ‘Azad Kashmir’ at an international extravaganza.
That Pakistan would even dream to ride on Azad Kashmir towards victory at the Tokyo Olympics is a cringe-worthy political statement by a terror-sponsoring nation at best. Pakistan seems to want to ‘gallop’ till the last mile in the quest for Kashmir, its ‘jugular vein’, only to make a wholehearted and absolute clown of itself.
Pakistan’s shameful involvement of politics in sports is an indication that the terror state has no diplomatic legroom around the world and is forced to resort to such flimsy tactics to draw the attention of the world community towards Kashmir in a bid to legitimize Pakistan’s claim on Kashmir.
However, while Pakistan’s biggest obsession is Kashmir, their second-biggest obsession is the ‘atom bomb’, so do we now expect an escalation to a point where a Pakistani shot-put athlete may name their shot – ‘atom bomb’ before dropping it in a field in Japan? Now that, certainly, will not go down well with the Japanese. Not the greatest joke, but it indeed is a serious possibility with Pakistani sport and a silly trend.
With peaking inflation rates at over 14% and diplomatic and administrative failures staring it in the face, Pakistan’ government and military establishment is starved of nationalist talking points and so is the populace which is running low on morale and high on anger. Such political stunts may help out temporarily on the domestic front, but globally Pakistan is turning itself into a circus, and the trotting ‘Azad Kashmir’ into a circus act.