WE live in a realistic, not idealistic world. The world community judges us by our economic and military strength, not merely by hollow slogans. Recently the UAE presented ‘Order of Zayed’ to Narendra Modi — the butcher of Gujarat and Kashmir. This has annoyed many in the Muslim world, yet, we Muslims forget that the contemporary world is mostly dominated by economic interests.

India boasts a budget worth $2.57 trillion. It is so immunised that despite having a huge population of 1.25 billion, not even a single polio case was detected in whole of India. Arab countries enjoy $100 billion worth of trade with India.

On the other hand, Pakistan has a negative balance of trade with the Gulf countries. We look towards Arab countries for seeking bailout packages. The recent monetary help and oil facility to Pakistan by Saudi Arabia and the UAE are a good example. There is no respect for beggars in the international community, especially when our image is portrayed as a state marred by terrorism and economic failure.

In these circumstances, none of the countries will dare stand with us in these testing times. Therefore, the only way to come out of this Kashmir imbroglio is to improve our economic conditions.

The current government came to power a year ago with a lot of promises of economic prosperity and investment but it seems none of the targets is being achieved.

We tried options like resorting to direct military interventions and using proxies to liberate Kashmir, but all in vain. We did not manage to liberate Kashmir. Similarly, we outsourced jihad to various ‘jaishs’ and ‘lashkars’ but these outfits further defamed us.

Therefore, Kashmir’s only solution for Pakistan, is to strengthen itself economically. There is no shortcut to freeing Kashmir.

Mahmood Ahmad
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2019