New Delhi: The original document of the first National Security Policy (NSP) of Pakistan is yet to be released in the public domain, but the question already surfacing in New Delhi is whether the new document will reinvigorate Indo-Pak relations or continue to maintain the status quo, primarily the anti-India rhetoric.
With South Block making bold stances for the past few years to retaliate and counter the hostile actions of unfriendly neighbours, a query that remains pertinent for 2022 centres itself around the future of relations between the two South Asian powers.
Pakistan's first National Security Policy (NSP) document basically aims at guiding its defence and foreign policies.
Moeed Yusuf, Pakistan’s National Security Adviser (NSA), said: “It is a truly historic achievement; a citizen-centric comprehensive national security policy with economic security at the core.”
"To ensure this citizen-centric approach to security, the NSP put economic security at the core. A stronger economy would create additional resources that would, in turn, be judiciously distributed to further bolster military and human security," he further noted.
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Journalists feel that the situation prevailing in the country is not going to be changed by this policy.
While talking to ETV Bharat, Pakistani journalist Nusrat Amin says, "the recent development regarding the NSP is not likely to bring any substantive change or any kind of paradigm shift vis-a-vis the bilateral and diplomatic relations with India. But there are few possibilities that can in a way indirectly influence the Indo-Pak relations in an optimistic manner but it would be foolish to predict that this NSP would smoothen the bilateral relations between India and Pakistan."
Stressing on the layers that run Islamabad's establishment, Amin further says that it is not only the military that runs the nation.
"It’s not only the army. There are different kinds of layers; be it the political and war veterans, former diplomats and bureaucrats, business community, and of course the present-day politicians, current military establishment, and extremist factors, they all together influence and shape the Nation's internal and external policies," he says.
A Strategic Expert from India, who do not want to be named, wondered how would Pakistan want to be in a friendly relationship with us, when asked whether the new Policy would help strengthening the fading ties between the two countries.
"Imagine a war veteran or an ex-diplomat who has had witnessed Pakistan's fall in front of New Delhi after losing all the battles. But one needs to understand that Islamabad knows that its funds are drying up and in order to strengthen the economic sector, this NSP could indirectly re-shape or re-form the internal and external factors," he observed.
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The Military has had always claimed their first rights on the country's revenue and they haven't in the past ever released or have made public the amount of defence expenditure. So while the NSP may claim to achieve ''economic security'' for the people of Pakistan, the one question that cannot be ruled out is - Will this NSP mark a substantive alteration in Pakistan's deep state?
Amin adds that the people who walk the path of terror in the name of Jihad and blow themselves off for their extreme beliefs, are considered imminent threat to the security and socio-cultural affairs of the nation casting a doubt on democracy's ability to prevail in such conditions.
"On the contrary, Pakistan's Constitution is one of the best across the globe. Karachi is a vibrant and diverse City. The tolerance, diversity and coexistence of different cultures makes it one of the best amongst its sub-continent peers," Amin opines.
Sajad Anwar, another Journalist from Pakistan, while talking to ETV Bharat says that there would be no substantive change in Indo-Pak relations with this National Security Policy (NSP).
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"Until and unless both the states come together on a single platform for a purposeful talk, till then there would be no alternation in Pakistan's Foreign Policy to India," Anwar points out.
Thus, in this context, irrespective of what the NSP may want to gain, one thing is for sure and that is that the current establishment will continue to dominate their agendas over the people of Pakistan and would certainly not want to establish a state free of terror and extremism.
