India and its neighbourhood stalker

Why is Pakistan so obsessed with India? According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Centre, 57% Pakistanis see India as the biggest threat to their country. A strange result for a country which has the Taliban breathing down its neck and a President who was once known as Mr Ten Percent.

India, on the other hand, has no pretensions of being obsessed with its not-so-friendly neighbour. We are more interested in knowing about rising prises, corruption scandals and Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan’s pregnancy. Sadly, Pakistan doesn’t have an Aishwarya. We did give them Sania, but she hasn’t proved a big enough distraction.

There was a time when India too was obsessed with Pakistan, till it found a new plaything to tinker with called the economy. In those days, the Inter-Service Intelligence or ISI was blamed for everything — from frequent power cuts, to rising malaria deaths, to B-grade Bollywood potboilers. For many Indians, the ISI was more powerful than CIA and Walt Disney combined. Of course times have changed and Disney is now way more powerful

But then Abbottabad happened and everything changed again. Osama bin Laden helped do what India could not. It put ISI in the global spotlight. Last I checked, that’s not a place intelligence agencies like to be in… particularly when you’re a notorious dollar-guzzling organization with a penchant for armed jihadis, diabolic dictators and suicide attackers. Maybe this is the reason only 14% Pakistanis feel Osama’s death is a good thing. Indians, on the other hand, like their terrorists in only one form — dead. In fact, another survey by another think-tank (Ipsos) says 95% Indians back Osama’s killing.

Of course if we can’t have our terrorists roasted and toasted, we choose the alternative and treat them like politicians, housing them in VIP jails. Kasab here being a case in point. (See post ‘No kabab for Kasab’)

The point is, India has moved on. The world has moved on. But Pakistan doggedly sticks to the one step forward, two steps back policy. America tries hard to displace us as the ‘favourite’ country for Pakistani jehadis, but in vain. The nation continues to obsess with its neighbor like a deranged stalker allergic to court orders.

These days Pakistan sees more blasts daily than Chinese mobiles in global grey markets. Pakistan, sadly, has become Terroristan. It’s time they started worrying about the ‘T’ word instead of the ‘I’ word.