IMRAN LEADS PAKISTAN- WHO SHOULD LEAD INDIA IN 2019?

Imran Leads Pakistan- Who Should lead India in 2019?

When I was young, Mr Imran Khan was a person young Indians loved to hate. Many a time, he snatched victory from the Indian cricket team when all believed that India would win the match easily. At the end of his cricketing career, many of the haters became admirers. The cancer hospital in Lahore, built by him in his mother’s memory, made most people envy and admire him.

Mr Imran Khan, a Pathan by ethnicity and a Lahorian by domicile, is an Oxonian. He comes from a good family and all of his siblings are very accomplished. He does not hail from a land-owning feudal family. His family played no part in Pakistani politics. As a resident of London, he was always seen in “Liberal Circles” dated many accomplished women, married a lady of Jewish origin. Notwithstanding a divorce after about a decade, the couple has a reasonably healthy post-separation relationship. His life also included one acknowledged (after a contest) out-of-wedlock child and if his divorced second wife is to be believed, has many unacknowledged, children in India.

Despite having an English wife who is a billionaire, Imran Khan settled down in Pakistan, gave his children Islamic-sounding names and admittedly followed a moderate form of ‘Sufi Islam’. He continued to adopt a living style which is more Western-European than Islamic. He was attracted to politics about 23 years ago. Today, his party has number of seats in the Pakistani national assembly (at least more than the combined total of PML and PPP). Having, enjoyed the support of the army during the long 23 years of his political innings, he can be a reasonably sure that army believes that Mr Imran Khan is their best political bet, in the current circumstances.

Mr Imran Khan faces many tough problems in addition to having to cobble together a viable majority. These are:

a) Deteriorating economic and political relations with USA.

b) Handling the burgeoning increasing economic and political co-operation with China.

c) Bring stability to the Indian subcontinent, so that the China-Pakistan economic corridor will bring great economic dividends to Pakistan.

d) Domestically, he will have to deal with the extremist Islam in his own territory and integrate them into the mainstream moderate Islam, which was one of the distinguishing features of the Muslims of Indian sub-continent. He will also have to address his other biggest problem, namely, the corruption in governance. Since, it is the Pakistan Army which governed the country for a very long time, Mr Khan will have to address corruption and usurping of civil powers by the Pakistan Army as well.

India, being the neighbour that shares a long and heavily militarized boundary with Pakistan will naturally be a core area of concern to Mr Imran Khan’s government. Infiltrators originating from Pakistan getting shot dead at the Pakistani border happens very regularly. Hence, between India and Pakistan business is unusual.

But, Pakistan under Mr Imran Khan will be in no hurry to tackle the issue of:

A. Resolving Kashmir crisis

B. Increasing economic co-operation between India and Pakistan which will benefit both

C. Withdrawing support to Kashmir militancy and facilitating a better climate for bilateral negotiations.

D. Reduce the role of Army in Pakistan governance.

To begin with, Mr Imran Khan’s government, will prefer to deal first with United States and Chinese relations rather than focusing on Indo-Pak relations. The natural reason for this is the impending Indian elections in 2019.

When not many in the country gave BJP under Mr L K Advani and others gave half a chance to BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, Mr Modi, a person hailing from a backward community, dethroned stalwarts like Mr L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwanth Sinha, Jaswanth Singh etc and evolved a comprehensive strategy to take on the Congress, reducing its monopoly over political power. Mr Narendra Modi does enjoy a viable political majority in Lok Sabha and a strong position in the Rajya Sabha. During his tenure of 3.5 years Mr Modi’s government did make terrible mistakes:

a) they were unable to sail with their partners like TDP and Shiv Sena.

b) Demonetisation turned out to be an economic disaster, yet both in terms of Foreign Investment and economic growth, the Modi Government performance is much above average though it’s not the best.

c) The morale of the average Indian is slightly higher. For a change, won a good tally of medals in the last concluded Olympics. The opposition, spear-headed by Mr Rahul Gandhi, Ms Mamatha Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati and dominant regional parties are contemplating to fight as a United Front to take on Mr Modi.

Imran Khan would think that anybody other than Mr Narendra Modi will be easier for him to handle. The name that figures on top of the list is undoubtedly Mr Rahul Gandhi, a distinguished descendant from an illustrious family. The credentials of Mr Rahul Gandhi as a true and equally influential politician to take on the mighty Modi can never be disputed. But, unfortunately for him, the more and more Indians are deserting the Congress and voting for regional parties, in almost every state Assembly election. People like Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav are not comfortable with idea of Rahul Gandhi as a Prime minister Candidate. The next rank in the list, is shared by Mamata, Mayawati, Naveen Patnaik and Chandrababu Naidu at the moment. As heads of regional parties with a strong national presence, these leaders definitely pose a threat to the political hegemony of Modi and Amit Shah combination. Assuming that they will either have a prepoll alliance with the Congress or explore post poll adjustments, these leaders are known to be partial to their states as opposed to having a national outlook. In fact, in the past, even Modi was accused of having a distinct pro-Gujarat bias. Politically Modi had demonstrated his national outlook by giving up his Gujarat political life and contesting from the emotionally important Varanasi constituency. I doubt if any of the above alternate leaders can take such a political risk. Furthermore, none of these people, except Mamata, have experience in the governance of Union of India. Hence by all accounts, Modi scores over them.

This is not to say that everything about Modi led BJP government is wonderful and hence they would deserve a second chance. In fact, Modi government has failed miserably on the following areas

a) Demonetization still remains an unmitigated disaster

b) Protection of cows and vigilante attacks against cow-slaughter has made people react and say cows are safer in India than women and children.

c) Despite the best efforts of the BJP, south Indians are sceptical about the BJP and its long-term intentions

d) Though the Modi government benefitted substantially from a relatively long period of low oil prices, the common man did not enjoy any benefit from this.

e) The Modi government in its zeal to protect corporate borrowers has been permitting the public and private sector banks to rip off the general public.

f) The Modi government had been spending substantial money for arms acquisition from foreign suppliers in a very big way in a process which lacks transparency and accountability. All these issues will make an impartial voter hesitate before voting for the Modi and Amit Shah combination again. At this point, it will be useful to take into consideration what astute political observers in India said about the possible victor in 2019. Mr. Omar Abdullah, a hereditary politician from Jammu and Kashmir had once famously said that there is no vacancy for prime ministership till 2024. Another accomplished leader from Bihar, Mr Nitish Kumar who was once an ally of the BJP and became subsequently a power-sharing partner with the RJD and Congress alliance and get back into the hold of Modi.

g) Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan, a Dalit leader from U.P. who never fail to identify the winning alliance in the election has allied with Modi.

h) Internationally India is getting bigger even in comparison with advanced countries like France and U.K.; its economic growth is only next to China, U.S.A., Russia, Germany and Japan.

i) Virtually, Modi is all the time on aeroplanes visiting big and small nations. Indian candidate for ICJ judgeship, surprisingly, defeated the nominee of U.K. Though, fugitives from India, like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Choksi continue to dodge the arm of Indian Legal Process, their cockiness, nonchalance has come down substantially. Many people are being expatriated to India from South-east Asian and Middle-eastern countries. Hence, India’s presence in international relations has become more prominent and India is truly growing into global super power.

Last, but not the least, India has come closer to the U.S.A. and now India is one of the trusted allies of U.S.A. Now it is a part of United States STA I-list. This would mean that India would not suffer the crippling sanctions of the U.S. as frequently as it did in the past.

Coming back to the comparison between Modi and Imran Khan, we must recognize that both of them are strong-willed rightist politicians. Today, the one-time liberal Mr. Imran Khan is nick-named as Taliban Khan, as he counts religious fundamentalist groups in Pakistan as part of his support group. Modi himself is an RSS worker which is identified as a Hindu fundamentalist group. Mr. Imran Khan brought about a refreshing change in the Pakistani cricket team. He was not only good at ‘inswing and outswing’ but also a co-inventor of Reverse Swing as well. Similarly, Modi has brought about a resurgence among the Indian citizens’ mindset. His scheme such as Swachh Bharat and Make in India, have stirred up the imagination of average Indian mindset. These two schemes are slowly and steadily becoming little more than empty slogans.

In terms of foreign policy, Modi carries the baggage of the foreign policy propounded by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Imran Khan, on the other hand, does not have any baggage to carry. Imran, as a cricket captain, was considered a thinking cricketer who often led from the front and was keen to ensure a reasonable amount of discipline in the Pakistani team. Similarly, Mr. Modi has ensured that loud mouths like H.Raja and S.Ve. Sekhar are immediately silenced when they made indecent criticism of political opponents. Modi had also denounced cow-vigilantism by RSS-BJP and their affiliate cadre and has promised strict action against that perpetrating violence. Similarly, even with senior leaders like Arun Showri, Yashwant Sinha and Shatrugan Sinha, he has allowed them to make their criticisms of him or his policies without precipitating any provocative action against them. In effect, both Modi and Imran are right of centre politicians who count on the support of ‘believers’ in their respective countries for their political success.

In the past, the Congress party traditionally resorted to minority and Dalit appeasement. Leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Mulayam Singh Yadav and to some extent Ms. Mayawati are dependent on Muslim support for their continued political relevance. In other words, they are unlikely to take tough decisions if they believe that such decisions will be unpopular with religious minorities.

Now coming to the dissimilarities between the two: Mr. Modi surprised the world by inviting leaders of all the neighbouring countries to participate in his swearing-in ceremony. He also made an unscheduled visit to Lahore to attend a wedding in the Nawaz Sharif family and surprised Pakistanis by gifting a saree to Nawaz Sharif’s mother. Imran Khan on the other hand, studiously avoided inviting political leaders from neighbouring countries to attend his swearing in. He believed in ‘people to people’ contact extending invitations to Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Navjot Singh Sidhu. Hence, we can safely assume that Mr. Imran Khan’s foreign policy indications are at best tentative and his first priority will be to establish a good rapport with the U.S. and Chinese governments and will not make any major foreign policy move in Pakistan’s relations with India, till 2019 Indian General Elections.

One must recognize that armies in both the countries will oppose any goodwill gesture to their neighbour. Mercifully, the Indian army is non-political. In India, the government has the army. Virtually, it plays no role in the making of the foreign policy. On the other hand, in Pakistan, unlike rest of the world, the army has the nation for itself and virtually decides the foreign policy of Pakistan. Whenever the civilian governments in Pakistan wanted to normalise relations with India, the Pakistani army made sure that such efforts were nipped in the bud. Hopefully, Imran Khan will prove that he will be as tough as Pakistan’s Prime Minster as he was the cricket captain. Surely, you can expect him to adopt, innovative methods in dealing with the Kashmir problem. He also has to grapple with the issue of Pakistan not granting MFN status to India, despite receiving this status from India. If Pakistan is to manage without American aid and survive tough repayment terms for Chinese loans, it cannot realistically spend as much money on defence as it was doing in the past. His status as an educated Pathan from Lahore will enable him to handle the current disturbances on the Afghanistan border. He would probably try to bring back normalcy in the western border before trying anything remarkable on the eastern side. Similarly, Modi government is also facing problems in its northern and north-eastern borders, despite having better relations with other neighbours such as Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Nepal and other east Asian countries. Though India had openly opposed CPEC and the Chinese hegemony in the South Asia Sea, Prime Minister Modi loses no opportunity to summit with the Chinese President. In this, the Modi Government is realistic and very keen to have normal and friendly relations with China. Both China and India will have to grapple with U.S. sanctions against Iran. Both countries have major investments in Iran and are keen to continue oil and natural gas trade with Iran. Pakistan, on the other hand, after having backed the Iran-Pakistan-Indian gas pipelines under U.S. pressure quietly pulled out and started pursuing alternate pipelines from North-Asian States like Kazakhstan.

It will be interesting to see how the other Islamic countries with Wahabi ideology will react to the Imran Khan Government with its Sufi tilt. To sum it all up, Indian voters should recognize that the election of Imran Khan as Prime Minister today poses new challenges to Indian Foreign Policy establishment. Although, Indian citizens do not bother much about the foreign policy concerns while choosing our electoral candidates or parties, we would be better off with continuity in our foreign policy objectives than trying untested leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee and Ms. Mayawati. Hence, though I may not like many of the excesses of the BJP cadre in the States run by them, I will be constrained to vote for Mr. Modi because he is the Indian leader who can best handle the multi- talented Mr. Imran Khan.

Jai Hind!