General Zia was assassinated and General Musharraf was deposed. The Pakistani Army needs perpetual hostility against India.
Here is an insightful piece from the former head of RAW, AK Verma. Much before Manmohan Singh and Gen. Musharraf tried to resolve Kashmir, Gen Zia and Rajeev Gandhi had come even closer. Hours before his death in 1991, Rajeev said this in an interview about the progress during Gen. Zia’s tenure, ‘ India and Pakistan were close to finishing agreement on Kashmir. We had the maps and everything ready to sign.’ The Pakistani Army seemed to be fully on board.
But then Zia was suddenly eliminated, and key negotiator Lt. Gen Hamid Gul turned virulently anti-India and kickstarted the Kashmir Jihad to save his own skin.
Musharraf lost his dictatorship for his efforts and we got the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
This trend is not just restricted to the military side. Nawaz Sharif’s demise began when he hosted Modi in Lahore. We got the Pathankot strike. Earlier Musharraf himself launched the Kargil invasion when Nawaz Sharif and Vajpayee began to come some distance towards securing peace.
The plain truth is that the Pakistani Army neither wants to resolve Kashmir nor seek open warfare. Their power lies in the zone of insecurity… as the sole entity ‘protecting’ Pakistan from ‘existential threat’ India. Anybody who tries to swing the pendulum away from perpetual hostility with India is eliminated from the scene.
Without the India factor, the army cannot justify its huge military business empire. It is involved in everything from real estate to fertilisers at the expense of civilians. So, dominance over Pakistan gives the Army a seat in the international power table. It can leverage Pakistan’s geostrategic location to extract rent from multiple global powers. It was the USA and Saudi Arabia in the past. China and Turkey are the new paymasters.
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