Swashbuckling Pakistani batsman Shahid Afridi believes Imran Khan must do more about Kashmir and, India and Pakistan should resolve the issue through a Kashmiri-owned, Kashmiri-led peace process.
He also asserts that Kashmir belongs to the Kashmiris. Notto Indians. Not to Pakistanis. That debate comes later. But first and foremost,Kashmir is for the Kashmiri people themselves.
Afridi has come out with his autobiography in which tellshis life story just the way he bats – instinctively, candidly and with no holdsbarred.
Game Changer is co-written with journalist Wajahat S Khanand published by HarperCollins India imprint Harper Sport.
Afridi says he is a big fan of what Khan’s Naya Pakistan isdoing with India.
From his peace overtures (I quote his first speech, aboutPakistan taking two steps towards peace if the Indians take one step – anapproach I personally believe in too) to opening the Kartarpur corridor andreleasing the Indian Air Force pilot shot down by the Pakistanis in February2019 – peaceful relations with India are essential. Both countries, even thesubcontinental region, will flourish, the all-rounder writes.
However, Imran Khan must do more about Kashmir. We have toresolve that issue. We have to save the Kashmiri people, and we must involvethem in the peace process. Nobody in the Indian subcontinent has suffered orstruggled more than Kashmiris, he says.
So much resources go into guarding this territory. So muchgoes into policing the Line of Control. So many mouths can get fed, so manyminds can be nourished, if India and Pakistan resolve the Kashmir issue througha Kashmiri-owned, Kashmiri-led peace process, he writes.
Afridi claims that Indo-Pak peace is a whole differentargument and boils down to one man: Narendra Modi. He also claims that Khan isrelatively more flexible than Modi ji and he has already proven this.
From his humble beginnings in the mountains of Pakistan’sunruly northwest to the mean streets of Karachi and the county parks ofsouthern England, Afridi sets the record straight once and for all.
In his career, Afridi has been many things – the lost kidfocused on pulling his parents out of poverty, the desperate captain trying notto snitch on his corrupt teammates, the gallant Pashtun centurion staring downa hostile Indian crowd, and the bad boy at the centre of a ball-tamperingscandal.