India-Pakistan Thaw? No Scope for Any Kind of Reconciliation, Says Retd Major General GD Bakshi

Pakistan was on cloud nine when Bangladesh former premier Sheikh Hasina was forced to flee to India recently to seek refuge in India, said Retired Major General GD Bakshi. In an exclusive interview with ETV Bharat's Chandrakala Choudhury, Maj Gen Bakshi said the military ISI complex in Pakistan will never accept peace with India and that there would be no scope for any reconciliation whatsoever.

New Delhi: In an exclusive interview with ETV Bharat, Retired Major General GD Bakshi takes down heavily on Pakistan, saying 'Pakistan has some nerve trying to give India some olive branch or 'chutzpah''. Pakistan has been doing everything in its power to try and hurt India and cause a serious problem, he said. "It started a few years back with Pakistan trying to revive the terrorist movement south of the Pir Panjal. He noted that Pakistan has crossed its limits by trying to orchestrate a coloured revolution in Bangladesh", he added.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has invited his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to Islamabad in October for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of Government (CHG) meeting. Amid the strained India-Pakistan relations, the possibility of PM Modi's visit to Pakistan seems to be very low. On Friday, the Ministry of External Affairs said that India was invited to attend the Heads of Government Summit of SCO hosted by Pakistan. "As and when we have an update, we will share it with you", MEA said.

Islamabad will host the SCO summit on 15-16 October. According to reports, the event will be preceded by a ministerial meeting and several rounds of senior officials' meetings focused on financial, economic, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among the SCO member states. Last year, Pakistan's then foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto visited India for the SCO foreign minister meeting.

Islamabad will host the SCO summit on 15-16 October. The event will be preceded by a ministerial meeting and several rounds of senior officials' meetings focused on financial, economic, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among the SCO member states. Last year, Pakistan's then foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto visited India for the SCO foreign minister meeting.

"Pakistan recently was on cloud 9, when Sheikh Hasina was forced to flee to India to seek refuge in New Delhi as the mobs went about ransacking her house, creating chaos and mayhem in the streets of Dhaka. The simple fact is that Pakistan has been crowing that it has undone the strategic restructuring of the sub-continent of Southeast Asia that was affected by India in 1971 by breaking Pakistan in two, creating a new nation-state with the force of arms and forming Bangladesh- a new republic on the face of this earth. The same cast of characters that were trying to oppose the birth of Bangladesh has once again come together to try and turn the clock back - Pakistan, the US and hovering malevolently on the margins is China", General Bakshi said.

When asked if there can ever be a thaw in ties between India and Pakistan as the relations impact the broader South Asian region in terms of stability and development in the current geopolitical scenario, Major Bakshi said, "I would like to be hopeful and optimistic but if you view it realistically, there is the ground of extreme pessimism. The military ISI complex in Pakistan will never accept peace with India. The puppetmaster will put forth the piggy politicians who come for nothing in Pakistan, to try and start a dialogue with India. At the same time, they go ahead with business as usual in trying to stoke terrorism, create chaos and mayhem in India's neighbourhood, destabilise India, and wage Ghazwa-e-hind through asymmetric warfare. I see no scope whatsoever for any kind of reconciliation".

Commenting on the Bangladesh situation, Bakshi noted, "What has happened in Bangladesh is almost like a geopolitical earthquake in South Asia. The fact is that we had re-engineered the entire geopolitical landscape in South Asia by creating Bangladesh in 1971. It was a massive victory for India - It has emerged as the pre-eminent power in South Asia. The Americans and the Pakistanis have joined hands to try and undo their pre-eminence and create very grave security challenges for India in the neighbourhood".

"He went on to recall that last year, General Asif Munir had visited the US, and he had met Victoria Nuland - she has been the brain behind many of the coloured revolutions all over the world which the CIA is now specialising in. There is something very suspicious about the meeting", Bakshi added.