26/11 shouldn’t decide Indo-Pak relations: Imran Khan

“Indians and Pakistanis,like water and oil,should not repel each other,but should be like milk and butter and mingle together,” he felt.

The two countries should now focus on resolving Kashmir issue to prevent Mumbai-like incidents in future,Khan said in an interview with Frank Huzur,who has written the former cricketer’s authorised biography “Imran Vs Imran”.

“We should resolve the Kashmir issue on a priority basis. A dynamic leadership committed to the cause can resolve it with intelligent planning and focused efforts.”

The Tehrik-e-Insaf party chief also called for harmonious relations between the two countries and said “all the stakeholders should be participants” in elections in Kashmir.

Commenting on the “trust deficit” that marked relations of the two countries post-26/11,he said with India blaming Pakistan for the incident “in less than 12 hours,over half-a-decade of goodwill and public harmony blown away. We began to slide into a cold war-like situation.”

Khan said: “I don’t see any hope at the moment. Remember the words of (Winston) Churchill,if we open a quarrel between the past and the present,we shall find that we have lost the future.

“In most quarrels,there is fault on both sides. A quarrel may be compared to a spark,which can’t be produced without a flint. These sporadic terror attacks are sparks and our stubbornness in turning a blind eye to the festering wounds of Kashmir provides the flint,” he said.

In the post Mumbai attack scenario,he said,”I expected Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seize the moment.”

“Earlier in November,I was there at Shah Rukh Khan’s birthday celebrations too. I condemn (the attacks) in the strictest terms. It was a barbaric act,act of cowardice.”

Asked how he viewed the growing alarm in India over the advance of the Taliban in Pakistan,he said: “I don’t know whether this frantic fear-mongering has to do with elections in India or anything.”

“The Taliban have risen through the dust and blood of the Afghan war,nurtured in the heap of rubble and unparalleled devastation. The solution to this crisis is not in moderate Islam,it is in political Islam,” he pointed out.

“Look at the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict – the solution doesn’t lie in Hinduism and Buddhism,it has a political solution. Similarly,a political solution is there for India and Pakistan’s problems,” he felt.

Khan said democracy cannot flourish in Pakistan when politics is hereditary. “This is quite an immaturity in our political process. Basically,it is anti-democratic. Democracy can’t flourish or merit-based leadership can’t emerge when politics is hereditary. Family politics should be discarded.

We have got to balance this. Political families and dynasties are dominating the political space in South Asia.”

In an apparent reference to the ruling Pakistan People’s Party’s decision to elevate former premier Benazir Bhutto’s son Bilawal to the party’s top position after her murder in 2007,Khan said: “If you are only 18 years of age and you become chairman of the party,ignorant of any ideas how the party functions,you have never contested any elections -¿ this is no democracy.

“At least,(Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi’s son) Rahul Gandhi is starting from the grassroots level. He is learning the curve. I can’t predict his future. I like his methods and political process.

“One learns real politics in the opposition. If you struggle in the opposition,you emerge stronger. Where there is no struggle,there is no strength. However,people in South Asia are not fearful of dynasties as Americans are,” he said.