Pakistan Needs Narrative Shift Amid Rising Hindutva Extremism Dividing South Asia: Gen (R) Zubair

Former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Zubair Mahmood Hayat on Thursday said that Pakistan needed a shift in its narrative amid rising Hindutva extremism putting the peace and stability of the region in peril and the Hindu nationalists creating a divide in South Asia

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 1st Jun, 2023 ) :Former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Zubair Mahmood Hayat on Thursday said that Pakistan needed a shift in its narrative amid rising Hindutva extremism putting the peace and stability of the region in peril and the Hindu nationalists creating a divide in South Asia.

He was addressing at the second day of Leaders in Islamabad business Summit concluding session titled "Changing Narratives".

General (R) Zubair Mahmood Hayat said changing the narrative was a difficult task as its spectrum was very long and complex."The narrative of the state is a new thing. Earlier in human history, there were different descriptions and narratives of kingdoms." He added that there was no good news coming from our east as the Rahstriya Swayem Sevaksangh (RSS) and Hindutva were controlling the state of India. " Nehru's ideology of secularism was buried in the Hindu Rashtra. We saw the second Akhund Bharat at the opening ceremony of the Indian Assembly. The world will forget Russian atrocities but they will not forget India for its ferocious violence against innocent Kashmiris and Muslims all over India," he said.

"In India, if a Muslim kills someone, that story goes viral and there is no Hindu story. Pakistan needs a change of narrative in which there was a need to change the narrative trend and its implications." The former CJCSC believed that technology, digitalization, innovation and women's rights should be the narrative as Pakistanis had to come out of their comfort zone and take big steps.

"The condition of Pakistan will not change with small steps, it will have to take a big leap. Pakistan must take ownership of the new vision at the governmental, institutional, and individual levels," he maintained.

He noted that Hitler was the epitome of hate speech whereas Abdul Sattar Edhi was the epitome of the narrative of humanity whereas Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah gave the narrative of a nation.

"One narrative is that of war. In which the environment of war is created by presenting individuals and the state as devils.

What I'm concerned about is fake accounts, because accounts can be hijacked by anyone. However, through technology, narratives can be delivered faster and to more people," he said.

A bomb made at home in the West was called a homemade bomb while in Arab countries, someone making a bomb at home was named as an improvised explosive device just to link it with terrorism, he said.

He underlined that rapid changes are taking place in Saudi Arabia as with the inclusion of women in Saudi Arabia it was changing the narrative in every sector. "Since 2016, Saudi Arabia's GDP has increased by 17 percent, with its non-oil income increasing. Saudi Arabia has become the fastest growing country among the G20 countries. It also indicates that how the narrative changes and shifts in five years," he said.

G7's share of global GDP fell by 14 percent from 44 percent to 30 percent and China's share of global GDP has increased from 7% to 20%, he ended.