Two nations, two approaches.

The current military tension in South Asia is not just worrying for the participants of the conflict, Pakistan and India, but also for the regional countries, and the global community. 

If you follow the mass media reports from Pakistan and India, what you notice is unabated war hysteria, fueled by irresponsible statements by functionaries, especially in India. 

What triggered this conflict? Well, the simplest answer is, the Pulwama terror attack. But, as always the simple answers are for simple situations, which the current conflict is not. So we need to dip deeper into the circumstances, which led to this heightened military tension across the Line of Control (LOC) in the disputed Kashmir territory.

According to open source information, a terrorist rammed an explosive laden vehicle into a bus carrying Indian paramilitary personnel. The resulting explosion killed the attacker and 40 odd Indian personnel. I will 

not delve into the technical details of Indian incompetency in the field of personnel security and troop movement protocols. But what interests me is the reaction of the Indian media and governing political elite. 

A few minutes following this attack, miraculously the Indian media and political functionaries already knew that the terror attack was carried out by an extremist outfit (Jaish-e-Mohammad), which is supposed to be based in Pakistan.

Responsible Indian politicians, including the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narindra Modi, started fueling war hysteria and beating the battle drums against Pakistan. Pakistani political leadership offered the Indian side to work together to uncover and eliminate any extremist elements that might be operating out of Pakistan. 

For the purpose Pakistan asked India to provide evidence of involvement of any Pakistan based organization. 

India turned a blind eye towards these offers of cooperation, and opted for violating Pakistani air space, despite clear warnings from Pakistan against any military action by India. To better understand the difference 

of approach and difference of mentality, between Pakistan and India, let us take a look at another resounding terrorist attack, which took place in Pakistan.

On the 16th of December 2014, a terrorist group attacked Army Public School in Peshawar. This terrorist attack resulted in the death of 147 innocent Pakistanis, nearly all civilians, including 136 school children aged 5 to 15 years. The death toll in the 2014 terrorist attack was nearly 4 times greater than the death toll in Pulwama, and most importantly it was school children, who were targeted. 

Following that heinous attack Pakistani security agencies conducted initial and then deep investigation of the 

incident. It was soon established that the attack was carried out by an extremist terrorist outfit based in Afghanistan. Pakistani media reported this Afghan connection, when they were briefed by the official sources.

A couple of days after this inhuman terror attack, on innocent children, a high raking Pakistani delegation visited Kabul to meet the Afghan President and other high ranking security officials. The Pakistani delegation provided the Afghan authorities with the evidence that they had about the presence of terrorists 

and their leaders in Afghanistan.

In the weeks that followed, Pakistani and Afghan forces carried out operations in southern Afghanistan and 

successfully eliminated the terrorists and their infrastructure.

The thing to be noted here is that although Pakistan has superior military capability, as compared to Afghanistan, but Pakistan did not act circumventing Afghan authorities. It is also to be noted that the Southern Afghan territory, bordering Pakistan, is mostly patrolled by Pakistani forces and the Kabul government has little or no control over the said territory.

What Pakistan did in 2014, was a show of respect for Afghan sovereignty. Pakistan did not beat the battle drums against Afghanistan and did not mobilize its people against Afghanistan. Why? Because, Pakistan understood that it was not the Afghan government or Afghan people at large, who were responsible for the terrorist attack on innocent Pakistani children.

On the contrary, India lost touch with reality. Sanity took a flight to oblivion, and 12 days after the Pulwama attack, Indian air force conducted a coordinated (multi pronge) raid into Pakistani air space. And once this attempted air raid failed, India turned to black propaganda, and did not seize its war mongering. 

The Indian authorities, using strictly controlled Indian electronic media, started spreading baseless information, trying to motivate and mobilize Indian public to support war. We can understand this official 

untruthfulness by looking at another example, of similar misuse of mass media to spin facts.

On the 8th of August 2008, Georgian forces decided to attack the breakaway Republic of South-Ossetia, counting on the weak military state of South-Ossetia. Around 10 PM on 8th of August Georgian military started its blitzkrieg. But on the TV screens what they were showing was that Russia had attacked Georgia. 

They showed the Grad batteries, which were in fact shelling Ossetia, to be Russian batteries bombing Georgia. These spun images and reports soon appeared on international screens and a global condemnation campaign took off against Russia. 

But lie has no base. A few days later, after the Russian forces had pushed the Georgian aggressors out of South-Ossetia, when international journalists were taken to the scene, the world started understanding the 

facts. 

Similarly, India resorted to, not yellow, but orange journalism, to force its untrue into global minds. And to some extent it succeeded. But until now any Indian claims of successful operation against terrorist camps in Pakistan, have not been substantiated with any imagery, or other type of material evidence. 

On the other side, Pakistani Prime Minster, even after Pakistan Air Force had shown its capability by downing 2 of IAF planes, offered peace and called for sanity. 

Dear readers, all of the preceding information only indicates to one thing. There are two different nations in the Sub-Continent. One, which is conservative, traditionalist, and unfortunately still standing on the lower 

levels of the evolution ladder. These are the proud citizens and leaders of India, who are using early 20th century propaganda techniques. These are the people, who still believe that lies can sustain. These are the people, who still think that beating ones chest turns a lie into a truth. They still think that loud noise can 

overcome facts. People, who are captives of wishful thinking. People, who still think that a cow is more valuable than a human being. A country, which calls itself secular, but its primitive natives and leaders persecute people on the basis of their beliefs. 

On the other hand is the nation, which is progressive in thought. The people, who welcome evolution of human intellect. People, who treasure sanity. People, who understand that truth must be substantiated. 

People, who are courageous enough to accept their short comings. People, who revere peace and humanity. People, who populate Pakistan.

Looking at the current situation, I once again cannot restrain myself from appreciating Quaid-e-Azam 

Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s political far sightedness, because he could see this difference of approach, between these two different peoples, more than 80 years ago. Thanks God that these two nations were given separate 

homelands in 1947, because conservative and progressive thoughts cannot live together.