The situation in SWAT valley, Pakistan is far from normal. As per Time over 1.5 million civilians have been displaced and both sides claim to have killed over a 1000 soldiers.
For the past decade or so the government had little control over North West Frontier, but now the situation has reached crisis proportion. Pakistan needs all the men it can to fight the situation, but the problem is that bulk of its army and military infrastructure is entrenched all along the Indo Pak border and is miles away from the actual battlefield. The trust between we 2 countries is so low that no General can even think of sparing these men.
Now the question is:
1. What is the implication of this Afghan Pak standoff for India?
2. How can India make the best of it?
Losing control over the SWAT valley could destabilize/topple the newly formed democratic government in Pak. Now a democratic govt is always far better for the peace of the region than a military dictator. (Musharaff was a war hero and the chief architect for Kargil War)
Lawlessness are the recruiting grounds for terrorist. Even now Pakistan is feeling the heat of the attacks from these groups. We not only have a moral responsibility to lend them a helping hand, but ending this would reduce a lot of terrorist threats for India. After all its better to curtail the threat of Taliban on Pak soil then battle them out in our cities.
Goodwill: If India makes the smallest gesture like declaring:
“We (India) sympathize with Pak for the battle they are fighting and unilaterally declare cease fire till the threat is over” and also withdraw some troops then it will not only help us gain some goodwill with
a. Pak Army
b. Pak population
c. International Forums.
This will free a lot of Pak troops to fight the talibans. Indian army should also welcome this move because this way not only military expenses will go down, it will free our soldiers for other pressing tasks.
I think a small gesture like this could go a long way in resolving the indo-pak conflict over kashmir and also extract diplomatic mileage.
Ankur Aggarwal
sree
Sandip Chaudhuri
vbr
Skabeesh
shobhendrasrivastava
