India makes comeback in Pak electoral politics

NEW DELHI: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari gesticulated and air punched as he assailed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s “love” for Narendra Modi at an election rally in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK)’s Bagh.

He urged voters to reject Sharif’s party for his friendship with Modi, which he called “an insult’’ to them citing the Indian Prime Minister’s role in “Muslim massacre’’ and “state terrorism’’ in Kashmir. He alluded to “Indian agents’’ arrest from Sharif’s mills, saying “no eyebrows were raised’’ while India even “calls a pigeon from Pakistan an agent".

Bilawal recalled denial of visas to Modi and blamed Sharif’s pro-Modi policy for conferment of highest Saudi award on the Indian Prime Minister. He attacked Sharif for attending Modi’s inauguration and inviting him to Lahore while ignoring Jinnah’s birth anniversary.

Bilawal’s aggression marks a throwback to the cold war era when his grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had threatened a thousand-year war with India for truncating Pakistan. It broke with the broad political consensus that has sustained Sharif’s conciliatory policy towards Delhi despite the parity-seeking military establishment’s reservations.

Sharif’s policy has continued in his third term and dates back to the 1990s when he realized his economic liberalization would not succeed without peace with India. The policy culminated into the 1999 Lahore declaration, the omission of Kashmir from which provoked the Kargil offensive and Sharif’s ouster.

An undeterred Sharif ended his exile ahead of the 2008 election and promised “to accord special priority’’ to a peaceful settlement of issues with India in his manifesto. Sharif proposed to link India with Afghanistan in his 2013 manifesto even as Pakistan has seen any Indian presence there suspiciously. The consensus on building bridges with India among the mainstream parties, including PPP, strengthened Sharif.

It was reflected in their conciliatory approach toward India in 2013 and 2008 manifestos. The consensus has been rooted in the blowback Pakistan faced since 9/11 for signing up for the anti-terror war. The establishment, too, encouraged reconciliation as it battled the Taliban and even dropped insistence on the UN Kashmir resolutions. The overbearing military kept the Sharifs and Bhuttos together in the corresponding period. With the first democratic transition and unlikeliness of an overt coup, the two families are back to being at each other’s throats. Bilawal’s call for “giving the final push to falling Sharif’’ along with his anti-Modi rhetoric at the rally should be seen in this context.

Sharif is in the middle of his worst crisis following the Panama leak that confirmed his family’s owns offshore companies. The PPP sees an opportunity in Sharif’s woes as it tries to resurrect itself. Stigmatizing Sharif’s rapport with Modi could be a force multiplier while it tries to regain the ground lost in the 2013 election. Bilawal’s aggression is linked to PPP’s immediate goal to retain power in POK and make a comeback in Sharif’s Punjab stronghold, where it would like to appeal to the conservative voters upset with Sharif's Kashmir soft-pedalling. This dovetails with Bilawal’s earlier statements on reclaiming Kashmir.

PPP has simultaneously rallied opposition parties against Sharif over the Panama leak to steal Imran Khan’s thunder while the ex-cricketer has replaced PPP as the national challenger to Sharif. Khan has done so with more effective anti-corruption agenda, which has a pan-Pakistan resonance, unlike Kashmir. Moreover, PPP’s core liberal supporters, who have long admired India’s secularism and aspired for its replication, are uncomfortable with Modi’s rise. They believe it could strengthen Pakistan’s electorally-marginal conservatives. The PPP has capped it all by bracketing Sharif and Modi as pro-rich birds of a feather to reclaim its image as the ideological roti, kapra, makan party.