OVERWHELMING MATERIAL CAPABILITY IS A PRECURSOR TO LIBERATE THE PEOPLE OF MAQBOOZA KASHMIR AND SOLVE THE HOST OF OTHER PRESSING ISSUES FACING THE STATE: HABIB YOUSAFZAI, KASHMIR DIASPORA ALLIANCE

OVERWHELMING MATERIAL CAPABILITY IS A PRECURSOR TO LIBERATE THE PEOPLE OF MAQBOOZA KASHMIR AND SOLVE THE HOST OF OTHER PRESSING ISSUES FACING THE STATE: HABIB YOUSAFZAI, KASHMIR DIASPORA ALLIANCE

http://kashmirdiasporaa.blogspot.com/2013/09/overwhelming-material-capability-is_17.html

A private meeting between Kashmir Diaspora Alliance member Habib Yousafzai and Raghib Shah, Chairman of Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) took place discussing various challenges, threats, and opportunities facing the Pakistani state. More specifically, avenues of discussion surrounded electricity supply and Mr. Raghib Shah’s and WAPDA’s profound achievements in the operation of the Mangla Dam and its decades of success.

However, despite the Mangla Dam’s successful operation and WAPDA’s vehement efforts, still the Pakistani state is facing great impediments in the realm of development, over material capability and material potential, and prosperity due to the lack of electricity supply whose primary cause is the incomplete state of the Kala Bagh Dam. It is pertinent to understand and question; how can a sovereign state function or prosper in comparison to another state when it is constantly operating under less than 100% capacity? How can domestic investment and foreign direct investment ever be maximized when in some areas of the state load shedding is taking place half of the day? How can the people flourish without adequate energy supply?

Habib Yousafzai and Mr. Shah, Chairman of WAPDA both stressed that it is extremely important to depoliticize the issue of supplying power and more specifically the completion of Kala Bagh Dam. At the moment, the Kala Bagh Dam’s development is marred by a host of political actors from various different regions of the Pakistani state all vying for their selfish interests. All political actors must look past their immediate interests and look to the betterment of the entire state. Only through the development of the Kala Bagh Dam and adequate power supply within the state can the Islamic Republic of Pakistan move on to solve many of the pressing issues that it faces today.

Just one of these issues is the crisis in Maqbooza Kashmir. The Indian state has been occupying this region for over six decades now and currently has situated of 700,000 of its armed and civil personnel in the region. Undoubtedly the international community is largely to blame for the lack of action it has taken and its complicit attitude to the whole scale slaughter and grave human rights violations taking place in the region. However, it is Pakistan’s lack of material capabilities which is the single greatest factor in the inability to solve the Maqbooza Kashmir issue. Not only this, it is also limited in its reach within South Asian region and in the international sphere in general as it is unable to deter the regressive actions of the Indian state. India has a long history of committing state sponsored genocide against its Muslim minority population most recently witnessed in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. However, how can the Pakistani state aid its citizens in Maqbooza Kashmir, let alone minorities which are being oppressed in other states in India and internationally when it cannot compare in material capability? It is an embarrassing reality that the latter has built over 4700 dams whereas Pakistan is severely lacking in this department having built only 149 until today. Add on the fact that the Indian state has a land mass and populace which is many times that of Pakistan, in order for it to achieve its goals in the international sphere and domestic sphere, and, assert its rightful claim in areas such as Maqbooza Kashmir; adequate electricity supply is an elementary precursor.

In the end, the primary message which the Kashmir Diaspora Alliance and WAPDA Chairman Mr. Shah pushed forward is that sacrifice for the whole state at the expense of personal (and it is worth adding) illegitimate interests of the few is essential. All those which are vying for adequate and rightful compensation for the land which the Kala Bagh Dam is situated on must be recompensed. If this is not possible as a viable solution, any individual or group of individuals acting as a barrier to the completion of the Kala Bagh Dam must be taken care of in the best interest of the state. Above all; all those matters which are in the best interest of the entire populace must be buttressed away from the realm of politics, or depoliticized as this is the simple greatest impediment in the completion of the Kala Bagh Dam, the supply of adequate electricity to the Pakistani state, and ultimately, the cause behind the weakening of the overall material capabilities of the Pakistani state. This weakening of the Pakistani state is the fundamental basis behind the inability to solve a host of other pressing issues such as the dire situation of those suffering in Maqbooza Kashmir.