Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammed Shehbaz Sharif has chosen to chart a different path from his two predecessors, Imran Niazi and his elder brother Nawaz Sharif, while engaging India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rather than use uncouth language of Imran Niazi against PM Modi, Shehbaz has sought meaningful engagement with India and is committed to maintenance of regional peace and security.
However, Shehbaz apparently has also learnt a lesson from the defeat of his elder brother Nawaz by raising the so-called core issue of Kashmir while at the same time talking about eliminating terrorism. After being sworn as PM, Shehbaz talked about the never implemented 1948 UNSC resolution on Jammu and Kashmir and raised the issue of Kashmir in his letter to PM Modi.
His supercilious predecessor Niazi also was focused on Kashmir and decided to call PM Modi’s names in desperation as the latter did not engage the former swing bowler during his entire term. A die-hard opportunist, Niazi changed tactics towards the end of his truncated tenure and used India as a tactic to criticise the Pakistan Army by calling the Indian Army honest and praising India’s foreign policy over Ukraine to pin-prick the Biden administration. But without the support of his mentors in Rawalpindi GHQ, Niazi failed in both Afghanistan and India and created a new adversary in the US by cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the day he invaded Ukraine.
