OVER the last few months, the main political opposition, which was ousted from power through constitutional means, has conceded a string of ‘mistakes’ and ‘blunders’ that it made during its time in power. Even the stance on ‘regime change’ and ‘imported government’ has changed, and now the party is making efforts to mend fences with the United States.

And, yet, there remain many more blunders that the opposition has to concede. On Feb 5, 2021, in a public meeting in Kotli, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the party leader offered to make Kashmir an independent state.

It was probably a slip of tongue, or maybe the moment got the better of him. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to immediately issue a rejoinder that there was no change in the stated position on Kashmir, and that the issue was to be decided as per the relevant United Nations resolutions. That blunder needs a public apology.

According to the partition plan, there was no provision of third option and that on the basis of history, geography, culture, religion as well as the principle outlined in the partition plan of June 3, 1947, Kashmir belongs to Pakistan, and any other option will not be accep- table to both the people of Kashmir and Pakistan.

Moving on, the party also has to confess its mistake of making the wrong choice of personnel in Punjab one after the other.

And the same is the case with all the matters related to the selection of new army chief, which was most unne-cessary and a completely futile exercise.

Having said that, politicians and political parties in Pakistan are not likely to learn from their mistakes. In fact, they love to repeat them at the first available opportunity. The idea of learning from history seems to be alien to our politicians.

Lt-Col (retd) Syed Iftikhar Ahmed
Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2023