Changing ideology

Hameed Haroon, CEO, Dawn Group of Publications What is important and critical is ideology, because we have changing ideologies in both India and Pakistan. We encounter the mechanics of changing ideology every day. Everybody says in Pakistan that Pakistan cannot change its policy on Kashmir significantly because of public opinion. Everybody in India says that India cannot significantly change its policy on Kashmir because of public opinion. Yet peopl e will hold in history the governments of India and Pakistan, as past masters, on the arc of changing ideology in the short term. Let's take India. India's leadership has steered its whole establishment, academia and public opinion, the schizophrenic heart of the India International Centre in Delhi also, away from its position as neutralist leader of the Third World to a pro-US stance, and to a subordinate relationship with Washington. Yes, of course, Indian academia is not dead, and Indian intelligentsia is not dead. But think of the enormity of the move, and how little has been said in response to it. Take Pakistan and its brigadiers. One day, they are pro-Taliban, and the next day they are told our policy has changed. So now you are going to be anti-Taliban and pro-Northern Alliance. This is the beginning of the change in Afghanistan, when the new government had turned over. Think of what the Pakistan government has gone through in order to ensure this change in implementation, the reining in of Kashmir militants. Maybe not successfully, but in a big way. How come India and Pakistan have both accomplished sea-changes in ideological perception? Overnight! But when we say it's time for a change of mind on Kashmir, both sides throw up their hands and say, 'Hold on, this can't be done.' These are two candidates who change their ideologies and their policy positions quicker than a fickle man changes his garments to be noticed. How is it that Kashmir policies become so insubordinate to change, and we can't resolve Kashmir, but we can change everything else in our ideology, thinking, strategy, intelligence agencies, even in our morality – how is it we are able to accomplish this? I think this is the key question that needs to be addressed.