Pak not sincere about improving ties, says RSS

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lahore visit to reach out to Pakistan has apparently not gone down well with RSS whose senior leader Dattareya Hosabale on Monday suggested that sincerity aspect of the other side needed to be kept in mind while making attempts to improve ties.

He said Modi’s unannounced visit to Lahore on December 25 last year had ended up in Pathankot terror attack, just like former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee's bus yatra to the Pakistani city had met a similar fate.

"I am not opposed to maintaining good ties ties with Pakistan but while making the attempts  (we have to see) how sincere the other side is in taking it forward," Hosabale said.

"The Lahore bus yatra (of Vajpayee in 1999) ended at the Agra Summit. The visit of Prime Minister to meet Pakistan Prime Minister at his Lahore residence ended in Pathankot. Whatever attempts you make, the problem is Pakistan's anti-India and anti-Hindu sentiment," he said.

Speaking at an event to launch "Pakistan Watch", a quarterly journal by Sangh-linked India Policy Foundation, Hosabale said that despite many talks, there has not been any movement of "even an inch" in resolving the problems between the two countries as Pakistan considers India as its "enemy".

"Atal ji started a bus to Lahore, but within 24 hours, there was a reversal (of the effort)," the RSS leader said in an apparent reference to Pakistani incursion in Kargil

Similarly, he said, Modi went to Lahore to improve ties with Pakistan but Pathankot happened.

He said India has no cultural ties left with Pakistan as it turned into a theocratic state, which he asserted that India "can and will never be".

When a nation's feelings are against another country, "then no nation can progress", Hosabale said.

"It has been rightly said that it is a nation-less state because its nation-hood could not develop for last so many years. That is why Pakistan remained a nation-less state, it is not a nation state.

"In that Pakistan, where street power overpowers the state power, State power where it buckled under the rogues' power, obviously it becomes a terror state...

"For so many years, Pakistan never developed manufacturing sector and never moved forward. It manufactured only Taliban terrorists and could not run any other factory," Hosabale said.
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Hosabale encouraged research on Pakistan as the need of

the hour and important for India's foreign policy.

He said for years there has been an allegation that India's foreign polcy has been Pakistan-centric, as if other countries do not exist.

"For being Pakistan-centric is due to the links with India since its inception," the RSS leader noted, adding that since its birth till today not a single day has passed when problems have not been there.

He said he would not give blessings for carrying this work of 'Pakistan Watch' for a long time as he cited the example of a similar journal 'USSR Watch" brought out in 1980s which had to shut down due to disintegration of USSR.

Earlier, retired diplomat Vivek Katju expressed apprehension over Modi government carrying out the same policies as that of UPA regime while dealing with Pakistan.

"It is not Nawaz Sharif who formulates policies in Pakistan with regard to India, it is (Pakistan Army Chief General) Raheel Sharif and we should focus on what he thinks and he considers India as an enemy," he said.

"I hope there is consistency in our foreign policy towards Pakistan," said Katju, who had headed the Pakistan Division in the External Affairs Ministry.

He said when Modi took oath as Prime Minister, there was great worry in Pakistan as he was a bold and strong Prime Minister.

Katju said after two years, the Pakistani generals have come to the conclusion that Modi is pursuing the policies that his predecessors did and they are quite comfortable with it. "They feel that he is no different from his predecessors because he has also pursued the path of flexibility," he said.

"There are a great number of successes in foreign policy, but I regret to say that on Pakistan, we don't see the same success. That is an obvious fact and the last two years have demonstrated that.

"In dealing with Pakistan red lines are drawn and then those red lines are vacated. Then the message that goes to Pakistani generals is that of weakness and such a message should not go to Pakistanis generals," Katju said.

Lauding Modi's initiative in not allowing Pakistanis to meet the Hurriyat leaders, he said that was the standard international practice as "no country allows foreigners to meet with their separatists" but lamented that it was reversed.

Retired Army Major General G D Bakshi said Pakistan should be dealt with in the same language as it understands and that is military language.

India Policy Foundation director Rakesh Sinha also spoke and spelt out the need for bringing out the journal.