Pak's 'induced' sense of hostility is now 'mellowed': Jaswant

New Delhi, Aug 16 (PTI) Contrary to what his party may
say, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jaswant Singh
feels Pakistan's "induced" sense of hostility to New Delhi is
now somewhat "mellowed" and it is ready to accept a greater
understanding of the many oneness that bond it with India.

However, he admits Pakistan had chosen terror as an
instrument of state policy to be used as a tool of oppression.

"...nemesis had to visit upon such policy planks; that
malevolent energy of terror, by whatever name you choose to
call it, once unleashed had to turn back upon its creator and
to begin devouring it," Singh writes in "Jinnah - India,
Partition, Independence", which will hit the stands Monday.

"This has now converted Pakistan into the epicentre of
global terrorism, sadly, therefore, Talibanisation now eats
into the very vitals of Pakistan," the 669-page book says.

"Its (Pakistan's) induced and perpetual sense of
hostility to India is now somewhat mellowed, it is more
confident of itself, therefore, accommodative and is now ready
to accept a greater understanding of the many oneness and
unities that bond India and Pakistan together. Or is it really
ready? Dare I ask?" Singh questions.

The BJP, however, maintains that Pakistan has been
responsible for terrorist acts against India by elements
trained and funded from its soil.

"...after emerging as a new country, Pakistan now has a
much greater and sharpened sense of its 'Pakistanness', a more
enhanced consciousness of it being a distinctly separate
country from India, and not just in contra-distinction to
India," Singh writes.

According to the former India External Affairs Minister,
the "turbid sediment of our recent past, the agony of our
blood encrusted Partition" continues to sour present Indo-Pak
ties.

"Our sensibilities are now so splenetic that even the
routine is a source of spiteful disbelief. Obviously, there is
now no 'South Asian Monroe doctrine' of which Jinnah had
spoken idealistically, instead we now have a near constant
haze of simmering discord and mistrust."

He then visualises what would have happened if instead of
"this path of breaking apart and near continuous conflict, we
had, instead, post the 1947 Partition chosen to work together.

"...Would that have brought back that lost 'peace' to our
region? I cannot vouchsafe the outcome; indeed, who can? For,
along with several other there is one central difficulty that
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh face: our 'past' has, in
reality never gone into the 'past', it continues to reinvent
itself, constantly becoming our 'present', thus preventing us
from escaping the imprisonment of memories."

Singh says his attempt at Jinnah's political biography is
an account of the politics of those times. "In the end, any
assessment of who gained what in this traumatic Partition
becomes an empty exercise."

The veteran BJP leader feels Pakistan has remained a
conceptual orphan, the result of somewhat barren attainment;
'barren' because Pakistan itself, as both the progenitor and
as the first born of the idea, has demonstrated that this
notion of "Muslims being a separate nation does not work".

"However, sadly, even this land for Muslims has not been
the end of the journey. Pakistan went further along the path
of Islamic exclusiveness, it opted to become an Islamic state,
and this after having already separated on grounds of
Islam..."

He says it is a compendium of many accumulated
grievances, a deep sense in the minds and hearts of the
citizens of Pakistan that they have been repeatedly betrayed,
wronged continuously, decade after decade since 1947 by the
West, also often by India, and it is this that has made
Pakistan not a strategic outpost of Western interests but in
reality a great threat to the West.

The book describes as "epic journey of Jinnah from being
the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity to the Quaid-e-Azam of
Pakistan". PTI ZMN
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