Imran Khan Hits A Sixer With Saudi Crown Prince But Will Lose The Test Match : The Indian Dilemna
Rajiv Upadhyay 
After carefully seeing the recordings of the visit of crown prince of Saudi Arabia to Pakistan , one is reminded of great success of Pakistan’s General Ayub Khan during the visit of US President Eisenhower . It has been recorded that Eisenhower was so moved by the grand reception Ayub Khan organised for him in 1959, during his visit to Pakistan that he increased the committed aid to Pakistan considerably including military aid which USA was avoiding till then . Eisenhower told Nehru that he was aiding Pakistan to check communism . Nehru knew better than that but was helpless .
Pakistan gave the visiting Saudi prince the highest civilian award Nishane Pakistan and presented a gold plated rifle .Imran Khan drove the car for Saudi Prince Salman and treated him so exceptionally well . Flattery never fails but it is never a substitute for hard work. Still it would have made a very deep lasting impression on prince Salman just like Ayub Khan made on Eisenhower . Release of 2100 prisoners on the spot has made every Pakistani heart flutter . Imran choice of words in asking treating Pakistani workers as his own could not have been better .Apparently he also sold some Pulwama being the result of torture of locals type story because Salman chose to ignore that issue completely in Delhi . But if one reads both the joint statements it is clear that that the prince was avoiding taking sides and pleased local audience in both the countries . What India has achieved is a real coup.By flattery Pakistan will be able to convince Trump to try to mediate in Kashmir . Saudis too are not averse to that patch of glory under the sun. . President Erdogan of Turkey too had offered that . UN Secretary General too is just waiting .Russia is cosying upto Pakistan and may sell T90 tanks and will not mind holding another Tashkent summit . All of them consider Kashmir a low hanging fruit . How wrong they all are !Pak Army and its appointee foreign minister have a very aggressive strategy in foreign policy vis a vis India and with Chinese support may play hard ball . UK too is mulling soft approach . British parliament had debated Kashmir Khalistan referendum is schedule for 2020 in London .West may not be against using Pakistan to check and discipline India. India is not able to give much due to its limited foreign trade .Imran has good friends in UK and its army still has considerable residual influence in Pentagon .Time has come that PM Modi must give up efforts to isolate Pakistan publicly . Behind the scene efforts can continue with even greater intensity and imagination . But now the law of diminishing returns will set in isolation strategy . Imran did not get cowed down by Trump’s new year tweets and took a firm stand in his tweets. Now even Trump is considering visiting Pakistan if it can deliver Taliban to him. This is how Trump will behave !Modi should be ready to face Trump in unreasonable pressures on Kashmir .Total Indo Pak War will mutually destructive and futile like Iran Iraq war . But no war / military action now will be a sure sign of India’s continued weakness and will promote greater adventurism against India in future.So after some inevitable military show down which may give us some advantage the long term stalemate will still continue . Trump will not return to this region once he is able to get out of Afghanistan . We should not hope of any real US support in containing China or Pakistan .But here comes the catch for Pakistan under Imran . India Pakistan match is a test match and a sixer or two that he or Shah Mohammed Quereshi may score will not determine the out come of test match . Jinnah , Ayub , Musharraf , Zia all tried to make Pakistan rich without hard work by prostituting and pandering its army and ISI. Imran is continuing the same policy.In contrast Bangladesh is growing so fast economically and will beat Pakistan in less than a decade . India’s friendship will be far more beneficial to Pakistan than CPEC which is just making Pakistan a Chinese colony .Nawaz Sharif realized it in Ufa summit but was summarily sacked by Bhutto trial type judicial coup. Nawaz realized that Bangladesh is growing without prostituting itself ! Pakistan’s army is the biggest bunch of traitors in keeping the nation a prisoner of its self interest and post retirement benefits.No one in Pakistan has courage to address the real issues hurting its economy . Economy is not army’s forte nor is the foreign policy .The defeat of Pakistan in the test match is certain . But it will continue to deliver a few bouncers and hurt our batsman in the hope of bleeding India .No one will fight India’s wars . India has to learn dealing with its enemies on its own strength !Our economy is our weakness . It is folly not to catch up with china in economic growth when only the fittest will survive . We have to increase exports and spend two and a half percent of our GDP on defence without interference of Babus and giving freedom to HAL , DRDO , and Armed forces and Industry to excel .So far Modi government, inspite of removing the paralysis in decision making in defence ministry, has not addressed the real issues preventing us from attaining our full growth potential .It must be understood that Babus are a national liability but Modi is more dependent on them than any other PM .No wonder we are back to 5.5- 6% real GDP growth by Vajpayee or Manmohan government’s comparative standards .The next government hopefully under Modi needs to think big and differently without the chains of Babus holding it back .Pakistan will whither economically due to its hide bound defence centric approach but will be a constant thorn in India’s path due to its nuclear weapons . Its army will continue to bleed us by religion based terror outfits .We must change our laws protecting the fifth columnists .We must have capacity to deliver killer punches when hurt like in Mumbai attack and ruthlessly remove Indian links .The beginning has to be made from Pulwama .
