Desperate propaganda is self defeating

Pakistan’s vain and desperate attempt at propagating a false Stockholm syndrome on condemned prisoner Kulbhushan Jhadav (in the video deriding Indian High Commissioner) will fail the test it seeks at ICJ for an equal playing field. This political denouement is blatantly bereft of statecraft and stabs diplomatic protocol defeating Pakistan in the long term anyway.

Pakistan is posturing only to negotiate … just to restore its self-respect where its bluff of being victimised  by terrorist violence has been called by US President Donald Trump as well as realpolitik in Baluchistan.

With the threat of American aid disappearing, coupled with the absence of a robust economy, little can Pakistan risk war against India which is led by a resolute Hindu party that has never reconciled to Partition. Pakistan is even unable to admit that it wishes to negotiate for the release of Pakistan’s terrorists arrested and in India’s custody. Even if it could, how can Pakistan establish that its terrorist in India’s custody is wrecking mayhem on behalf of Afghanistan in Pakistan? The Judiciary and bureaucracy in Pakistan are far too defunct to be able to document this credibly! 

The release of Masood Azhar from Indian custody to secure the release of the hijacked passengers of IC 812 in 1999 has led to the entrenchment of terror tentacles in the subcontinent – spearheaded wholly by Pakistan. India played into the hands of such terror unwittingly even during the statesmanly leadership of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Pakistan thus lacks legitimacy to claim that it is the victim of terrorism. On the other hand it makes itself laughable on the international stage.

Assuming for an instant that Pakistan’s desperate negotiating tactics with India to defend terrorism as it were will pay off, it will only acquiesce US President Donald Trump’s charge that Pakistan is no more than a failed terrorist state. 

Without making the Pakistani Army a pariah it is reasonable to question on what grounds it sustains porous borders with “Azad Kashmir” and all along the Afghan and Iran borders.

I recall I was not yet 10 years old when jailed Pakistani PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed on 4^th April 1979. I distinctly remember I could not eat for days, I could not sleep – I was so disturbed. I used to ask my grandmother and parents why was President of Pakistan not kind enough to pardon him… how can anyone be hanged and deliberately killed in public view? … I used to ask.

In the days leading to his execution after the Pakistan Supreme Court dismissed his appeal against his conviction for the murder of Nawab Mohammad Ahmad Khan on 24^th March 1979 I was traumatised  and it led me to firmly oppose death penalty  in my adult life.

Between the negation of his appeal and execution there were less than 10 days. – It bespeaks the lack of legal defenses in a totalitarian regime in any case. Like in all political trials evidence relies only on the power of political patronage and oratory.

Pakistan’s kangaroo courts lack the credibility, its executive / bureaucracy is accountable to the Army rather than political leadership. Worse, Pakistan’s bloody history of totalitarianism is mired by assassinations, execution, murder and mayhem,… ideal grounds for sustaining terrorism… these are the tenets of a failed state that has absolved itself of all legal responsibilities of statecraft.

It was Bhutto’s hanging that firmly convinced me in that tender age that death penalty / execution is never an effective deterrence. If indeed Bhutto’s execution could have prevented further murders in Pakistan or for that matter any crime in any country, the number of executions that have happened should by now have made the world a Utopian manifestation free of all shades of crime.  

Coming back to the instant case of the farcical trial and condemnation of ‘Indian spy’ Kulbhushan Jhadav, the Modi Government did well to expeditiously petition the International Court of Justice. The so called evidence against Jhadav too will not hold water. Pakistan’s case will fail in ICJ… that is a foregone conclusion, it remains to be seen if Pakistan’s vendetta will lead to war or UN sanctions after the ICJ verdict and suspension of US Aid.  Its propaganda by coercing a death row prisoner against his motherland is the very desperate manifestation of the nadir Pakistani statecraft has sunk to. It’s a bait India would do well to avoid biting. There is not a shred of credible evidence against Kulbhushan Jhadav. Much less credible is the political case. In the circumstances Pakistani national power, diplomacy and international credibility as well as the modicum of economy it has, will be decimated if it executes Jhadav.

The Modi government should spare no efforts to literally rescue Jhadav if necessary. Even visible preparations for that will alert Pakistan to its senses. Taking the US government into confidence in a secret operation like the one which annihilated Osama Bin Laden will not be inopportune. Infact it would be a service to larger humanity to help implode a failed terrorist state.  

Pakistan’s brazen insensitivity to cultural insignia of Jhadav’s family while visiting their condemned family member needs to be unequivocally snubbed - (not by the Government of India for that would mean biting the bait) - but by unofficial institutions, socio economic corridors and liaisons.

It is time for the ordinary man / woman on the streets of Pakistan to hold their government to account instead of parroting their Government’s hypocrisy.

I fear that the Government of Pakistan will not give Jhadav time to appeal either. It is time for the Government of India to move matters in the UN Security Council and International Court of Justice. Defeating Pakistan legally will perhaps sound the most effective death knell of state sponsored terrorism.

Malini Shankar

Malini Shankar has been a freelance journalist, blogger, radio broadcaster author and filmmaker based in Bangalore, India. She is now one of the Founder Directors of Digital Discourse Foundation (www.digitaldiscourse.org.in) in Bangalore.