He also said it would be naïve of Indians to think that greater people-to-people contact between the two countries would encourage moves for peace.
“It’s not going to change the predominantly Pakistani contempt for Hindus. The widespread education of over two generations is not just disgust, but hatred or a superiority complex; that they ruled India for a thousand years, and they will go back and conquer Delhi again. The only reason that (feeling) has lessened today is because of Arab money flowing into Pakistan. The Arabs want them (Pakistanis) to hate America more than they do India,” he said.
He added: “As long as Pakistan is in its current form, as a militarised state, the military is not going to give up its wealth creating machine by saying we should have peace with India. No, there is a need to have war with India to sustain the military-civilian establishment. Number two as long as Pakistan’s Punjabi majority, which has a serious inferiority complex about their own identity, is unwilling to acknowledge the fact that they are Punjabis of Indian ancestry, not of Arab, Turk or Persian, this identity complex will play out in hostility towards India. The moment hostility towards India stops, there is no reason for Pakistan to exist. So to sustain Pakistan, you have to hate India, and to hate India, you have to demonise Hindus.”
Asked what would be the situation prevailing in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of foreign troops, he said that it all depended on who formed the next provincial government in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“If the Pashtun nationalists lose the elections, there is 100 percent certainity that Taliban will take over Afghanistan, if in the next Pakistan elections in May, the secular nationalist Pasthun wins, there is less of a likelihood,” he said.
He concluded by saying that elections in the NWFP will be of significance for the whole world, because, “the moment secular nationalists lose, the Taliban will win”.
He described Pakistan as the Taliban and the country’s armed forces as Al Qaeda.
“The enemy that the world is fighting is not the Taliban, Al Qaeda, it is the Pakistan armed forces, it is the Americans who fund the Pakistan armed forces, and it is the Indians who pay respect and do trade with those who seek to destroy India. It doesn’t matter who wins in Islamabad, it is who wins in NWFP that will matter,” he said. (ANI)