Crisis in PoK: Opportunity wrapped in risk for India

Raju Korti
As I watch events unfold across Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), it is clear that Islamabad’s control over the region has begun to crack. The massive protests that forced Pakistan’s government to accept a sweeping 38-point charter mark more than just civil unrest. They signify the people’s accumulated anger against decades of exploitation, neglect and empty promises. For India, which has consistently claimed PoK as its own, these developments carry serious implications, both as a potential opening and as a test of restraint.

The Pakistani military establishment clearly appears rattled. In recent months, its tone has grown more defensive, almost panicky. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that Operation Sindoor was only “paused,” and the unequivocal comments by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi, have unnerved Islamabad. Pakistan’s predictable response has been to issue its routine threat of “cataclysmic” consequences, invoking its nuclear arsenal as it has done many times before.

This nervousness is not without reason. The growing domestic anger in PoK has coincided with India’s aggressive diplomacy and clear articulation of its rightful claim over the territory. Posters calling for merger with India have emerged during protests in towns like Muzaffarabad and Rawalakot. Rajnath Singh’s remark that India may not even need to use military means to reclaim PoK carries symbolic weight. It suggests that Pakistan’s own citizens in the occupied territory may become the agents of change.

For Islamabad, the timing could not have been worse. The Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26 Indian tourists, was followed by India’s stern warnings and heightened military readiness. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s ruling elite seemed to misread the situation, buoyed by false perceptions of global support. US President Donald Trump cosying up to Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir, though transactional, has led Pakistan to believe it has regained international relevance. The defence pact with Saudi Arabia added to that illusion. Yet beneath this veneer of confidence, Pakistan’s internal rot has become visible, and the PoK protests have laid it bare.

The character of the agitation is worth noting. It is not externally instigated but locally driven. What began as anger over inflated power tariffs, food shortages and bureaucratic privileges has evolved into a full-blown civic movement demanding transparency, local rights and resource justice. The Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee has become the voice of this movement. The fact that Islamabad had to capitulate to most of its demands underscores how brittle its hold on PoK has become.

For India, this moment must be handled with both sensitivity and foresight. It is tempting to view Pakistan’s crisis as an opening for bold action, but prudence is key. India’s best move lies not in military adventurism but in narrative precision and diplomatic assertiveness. The unrest offers a powerful counterpoint to Pakistan’s long-standing rhetoric about human rights in Kashmir. India can use this to expose the hypocrisy of Islamabad’s position, preaching self-determination while denying the same to those living under its administration.

New Delhi should take this opportunity to amplify the issue in multilateral forums, highlighting the denial of rights and economic exploitation in PoK. By maintaining diplomatic pressure and moral high ground, India can reinforce its legitimacy without crossing lines that might trigger reckless responses from Pakistan. It is equally important not to mistake turbulence for collapse. Pakistan’s security apparatus remains formidable, and its leadership could easily resort to diversionary tactics, including cross-border provocations, to unify a restless population.

That said, India must not let the moment slip away. The people of PoK have begun to see the stark difference between their stagnation and the visible development across Jammu and Kashmir after Article 370’s abrogation. Their demands for accountability and equitable resource distribution are, in essence, demands for dignity. India can quietly acknowledge and morally support these aspirations without overt interference.

If India plays this phase with composure and strategy, it can strengthen its position both diplomatically and ideologically. The unrest in PoK underscores that Pakistan’s narrative on Kashmir is collapsing under its own contradictions. For India, this is not just a vindication of its long-held stand but a reminder that patience, not provocation, will yield the greater reward.

The winds of change in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir may not yet be a storm, but they are unmistakable. India must watch closely, act wisely and prepare for a future where the people across that line may one day decide their own destiny, and perhaps, align it with India’s. 

A chat with Tony Greig: Chronicling the man who made Cricket talk back!

Raju Korti
My first glimpse of Anthony William Greig, better recognised by cricket buffs the world over as Tony Greig, dates back to 1972-73 when I was among the countless school-going boys hysterical about the game. The Englishmen were led by another Tony, Lewis, who looked more like a Hollywood star and became an instant hit with the Indian media for his impeccable manners. On that tour of India, however, the scene stealer was Greig with his six feet seven-inch frame and infectious energy. That was not his only claim to fame. Greig, with his aggression and crowd-friendly antics, was lustily cheered wherever the teams played. My most abiding memory of that tour is of Greig protecting the boundary and catching oranges thrown at him by exuberant spectators with the same practiced ease as he caught cricket balls.

Tony Greig (Wikipedia grab)

Greig was a revelation on that tour with his all-round performance. As a batsman, he would stride out boldly to the Indian spinners and hit them into the stands. As a bowler capable of bowling gentle medium pace and cutters, he could extract awkward bounce even from the placid Indian pitches. Greig had both height and stature, if you know what I mean. Thanks to Wisden Almanack and Sports and Pastime, which carried articles by the likes of Neville Cardus, Jim Swanton, Jack Fingleton, and Richie Benaud, we youngsters were very well informed. We knew how Greig, who could never have played international cricket because of the Gleneagles Treaty, was pitchforked into the English team due to his Scottish parentage. The Treaty barred South Africa and its players from international cricket because of apartheid, and had it not been for his ancestry, Greig would have been condemned to play alongside greats like Ali Bacher, the Pollock brothers, Eddie Barlow, and Mike Procter in domestic cricket, since the Pretoria regime remained adamant on its racial policies.

In a way, Sunil Gavaskar, who strode like a colossus on the cricketing firmament during the historic 1971 Caribbean tour, was partly responsible for introducing us to those South African giants. Garry Sobers, whom I consider the game’s greatest of all time, picked Gavaskar for the Australia versus Rest of the World series, and that team included several South Africans whose names were already legends to us.A couple of years later, Greig’s antecedents came in handy for media tycoon Kerry Packer, who used him to recruit the best of West Indian, Australian, Pakistani, and South African talent for the World Series of Cricket, derisively dubbed the “Packer Circus.” It turned out to be just that in letter and spirit. All the cricketers were banned by their national boards for their “betrayal.” For all the interest and hoopla generated by the Packer Series, the matches were largely low scoring and became little more than statistics in record books. The point, however, is that Greig’s leadership qualities had surfaced even before he was formally inducted into the MCC’s Test eleven. His role in that colourful venture later cost him England’s captaincy, which he had inherited from Mike Denness, and exposed him to criticism and bitterness.

During the home summer of 1974, England faced three Tests each against India and Pakistan. Greig averaged 42 with the bat and took 14 wickets, his hundred against India at Lord’s being the highlight. It was good preparation for the Ashes tour of Australia, where the Englishmen, uncharitably called “Poms”, were the favourites. As it turned out, they were made to hop, skip, and jump by the blistering pace of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. While most of his teammates were clueless about what had hit them, Greig stood tall with a gritty 110. He was a standout character in a losing team and won the admiration of the “hard-playing” Aussies who respected his approach to the game.

When Greig toured India again in 1976-77 as captain, he justified the mantle by winning a series in the subcontinent against the best spinning attack in the world. I was then a college-going youngster who realised how thoroughly he had done his homework. I remember watching the tall Greig holding his bat almost chest-high against pacers and then adjusting his stance quickly to bring the bat down against the Indian spinners.

By 1987, the equations had changed. I was now a journalist with The Hindu, and Greig had taken on a new role as writer and commentator. In the Press Box, I was fortunate to be seated between Greig and another commentator I deeply admired, Trevor Bailey. I was working on an in-depth feature on Bailey. Greig, who overheard our conversation, tapped me on the back and said warmly, “That was wonderful, mate.” That little boost led to an interview with him at his hotel. He was amused to know that he had once caught an orange I had thrown at him during the 1972-73 series.

By then, I knew how brutally blunt he could be. His ebullient oratory had created quite a flutter when he commented that the West Indian players wilted under pressure. He said, “I like to think that people are building these West Indians up because I am not really sure they are as good as everyone else thinks they are. People are forgetting they were beaten 5-1 by the Aussies and barely survived against the Indians. Sure, they have a couple of fast bowlers, but I do not think we will run into anything faster than Lillee and Thomson. The West Indians are magnificent when they are on top. But if they are down, they grovel, and I intend to make them grovel.

”There was a furore as expected. The word “grovel” carried sinister connotations for the West Indians, many of whom had slave ancestry. At a time when apartheid and the Gleneagles Agreement were live issues, a white South African using the word “grovel” was bound to be explosive. Stung to the quick, the West Indian bowlers took special delight in targeting Greig, and he became their prized wicket. True to his nature, he expressed no remorse.

By then, Greig had made a smooth transition to the commentary box. As a commentator, he was expressive, animated, and sometimes theatrical. You could visualise his intense face and the excitement of the game through his words. He probably knew, and perhaps even revelled in, his enduring popularity in India whenever he commentated in matches involving the Indian team.

Partly because he had seen me chatting at length with the likes of Bailey, Henry Blofeld, and Peter Roebuck (who would later take his own life), Greig spoke with complete candour when I interviewed him. “I still think of the West Indians in the same breath,” he told me. I did not mince words either. “As a commentator, your bias often showed. You spoke as fluently as the BBC greats like Brian Johnston, Don Moseley, Jenkins, and Blofeld, but you sometimes overplayed your hand. Was it exuberance or design?” I asked. “Oh, they are all seasoned veterans and peerless,” he said with a smile, “but I am what I have to be.

”That same flourish often coloured his commentary, whether he was describing the cricket or the jewellery worn by ladies in the stands. His narration could swing from extreme to extreme, sometimes carried away by his own passion, never overly concerned about the fallout. Yet, whether one liked him or not, he remained in a league of his own.

In that conversation, Greig spoke freely. Sometimes criticising Indians, sometimes admiring them unabashedly. He was always candid, never cautious. When he later spoke matter-of-factly about his lung cancer and its inevitability, there was no trace of self-pity. Compare that with our own Yuvraj Singh, whose bout with cancer was endlessly revisited by the media and public.

In his last lecture at the Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey, Greig said, “I have never had any doubt I did the right thing by my family and by cricket.”

He truly epitomised that.

When retirement becomes a rehearsal for freedom with no quests!

Raju Korti
I have worked for donkey’s years in a profession that offered little by way of gratitude, much by way of unpredictability, and almost nothing by way of respite. The hours were odd, the demands incessant. Life was one long haul of fulfilling expectations, both spoken and unspoken, from people who rarely paused to ask: how are you doing?

In my salad days, I looked at retirement as a faraway mirage. A land meant for the weary, the spent, the purposeless. Not for me. I was so consumed by motion and meaning that I genuinely wondered what kind of soul would voluntarily hang up their boots. Of course, like many others, I too grappled with the unsettling question, Would I be able to sustain myself financially? But that anxiety soon faded when I turned to the larger ethos that had always guided my choices.

Age has its own silent curriculum. It doesn’t scream lessons into your ears, it whispers them. Softly, steadily, until the truth seeps in like light through curtains left ajar. And now I know: perhaps those who retired before me had simply walked the same spiral of realisation. You don’t suddenly become tired. You simply begin to know. In your bones. That it is time.

There comes a time when you realise you have nothing left to prove. Certainly not to those perennial auditors of your life. The naysayers, the disappointed, the hypercritical, the ones who sniff out flaws like bloodhounds. For years, I played host to their expectations. I stood by them: in their thick, in their thin, in their mess. I offered trust like one offers water to the thirsty. And like most such offerings, it was taken for granted. Sometimes spilled, sometimes thrown back.

But something shifted. Rancour, that old rusted emotion, eventually wore out. And in its place, I discovered a calm relief. I do not miss those who walked away. I do not mourn those who failed me. In fact, I silently thank the invisible hand of nature for taking out the emotional trash. Good riddance is not an act of bitterness. It is ecology. A defence mechanism that helps you survive with grace.

So here I am, looking at retirement not with dread, but with curiosity. Perhaps even glee. I turned 70 on August 31 last. A milestone, not of age, but of arrival. I looked forward to announcing, not with fanfare but with quiet satisfaction. The over-riding thought was: I am done. The race is run. The boots, finally, are hung.

Idleness does not scare me. I have walked enough to now enjoy sitting still. The mind, thankfully, has not retired. It reads, it writes, it stirs a pot of curry every now and then. These small acts of creation are what keep me gently tethered to the world.

I have no doubt that solitude will embrace me like an old friend. Not the cloying loneliness people dread. This is something more elegant. It is space, it is silence, it is sovereignty. I do not count regrets anymore. I do not run a ledger of things left undone. I live simply, perhaps invisibly. And that, to me, is liberation. Almost like nirvana where even your own identity becomes irrelevant.

Retirement, I have observed, is often viewed through a lens of reinvention. The bucket lists, the travel plans, the long-postponed passions. Others see it as a void to be filled. But I feel neither. I seek not activity, nor reinvention, nor reflection. I seek simply being. A slow, intentional existence with no badges to wear, no scores to settle, no self to sculpt.

There is life after retirement. Mine will be modest. No pension, no windfall. Just a gentle clamour within that says: Go get a life. And that is what I intend to do.

In retreating, I will not disappear. I will arrive. Into myself.