Why Pakistan again playing Kashmir card at UN?

AT a time when New Delhi and Islamabad were on the way to improving their relations through the composite dialogue process, Pakistan President Asif Zardari chose to raise the Kashmir question at the UN General Assembly last week. This could not be without some specific motive. Last year Pakistan chose to avoid such provocative references with its Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar saying that Pakistan would like to remain engaged with India for getting the issues between the two countries resolved through their own efforts. The change in the thinking appears to be aimed at diverting people’s attention from domestic issues to Kashmir. This is one issue which can make the people in Pakistan forget the other pressing and real issues affecting their lives considerably.

The PPP-led government has been under tremendous pressure from the higher judiciary to write a letter to the Swiss authorities to reopen the graft cases related to Mr Zardari’s bank accounts there. The government gave an undertaking to the Pakistan Supreme Court to obey its orders, but what it did ultimately was not exactly what the judiciary had asked for. Now, perhaps, the government’s idea is that an atmosphere should be created so that there is pressure from the people on all those trying to expose the misdeeds of the Pakistan President and the government in Islamabad to forget their domestic problems. Once strong anti-India feelings are aroused with the help of the Kashmir issue, all the other issues will get relegated to the background.

But in the process the Pakistan government would have caused a major damage to the interests of the people of that country. India has stated forcefully its well-known position on Kashmir. It cannot accept anything less than this: Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. Now with the two countries being back to where they were before they began the composite dialogue process a few years back, the talk of increasing bilateral trade and enhancing people-to-people contacts will have no meaning. First the peace process was stalled by the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai. The second setback it may suffer owing to Mr Zardari raking up again the Kashmir question in the UN General Assembly. This is not what the people on both sides of the border desire.