Centre announces a 'paradigm shift' in relations with Pakistan
Times of India News Service
The Times of India
June 14, 1999
Title: Centre announces a 'paradigm shift' in relations with Pakistan
Author: Times of India News Service
Publication: The Times of India
Date: June 14, 1999
Even as it reiterated its determination to undo Pakistani
transgressions on the Line of Control (LoC), the government announced
a "paradigm shift" in its relations with Islamabad.
Senior officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated that the
country, and the world at large, would have to face the blunt reality
that a relentlessly confrontationist attitude towards India was
inherent in the very creation of
Successive governments in Islamabad have sought with varying degrees
of intensity to destabilise, India, wreck its unity and challenge its
integrity over the past five decades.
Pakistan's latest actions along the LoC, the officials said, were only
a more provocative, escalatory version of what it had been doing for
the past ten or 12 years. It demonstrated yet again that though it
was "dysfunctional", the Pakistani state had sought to vindicate the
pernicious two-nation ideology which sustains it.
The officials said that the immediate aim of the government was to
ensure, through military and diplomatic means, to restore this status
quo ante on the LoC "regardless of the cost and consequences."
India's intentions were made unequivocally clear to the Pakistan
foreign minister Sartaj Aziz here on Saturday. Simultaneously, major
world capitals have been apprised of Islamabad's perfidious conduct
and India's single-minded purpose to safeguard the sanctity of the
LoC-
The government is of the view that Pakistan, without budging an inch
from the ground it has encroached upon, will continue in the days
ahead to engage in more provocative acts elsewhere in Jammu and
Kashmir even as it repeats its self- serving refrain that it is
prepared to talk to New Delhi to "defuse tension".
The officials said Pakistan and the outside world were fully aware of
the reasons that led to the tensions in the first place.
Consequently, the only point worth considering now is to address those
reasons squarely. This will also entail a loud and clear rebuff to
Pakistani attempts to create doubts about the LoC. The maps signed by
the two countries should leave no one with the illusion that the LoC
demarcation can be challenged.
On the reaction of the major powers, the officials said that all of
them understood India's concerns perfectly. Some of them, however,
could he tempted to re-sort to "evangelical zeal" should the situation
on the ground deteriorate. They added India must he pre-pared for
such an eventuality.
But over and beyond restoring normalcy on the LoC, the officials said,
"It is now imperative for the country to increase its state of
preparedness at all levels. No efforts should he spared to enhance
the country's military capabilities. It is only a militarily strong
nation that can engage in a dialogue which does not end up as it has
done in the present instance into an act of betrayal."
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