India’s Pakistan policy comes home to roost
The terrorist attack on the Indian Army base camp at Uri in the early hours of Sunday gives a sickening feeling that the asymmetric war with Pakistan, which began tapering off a year ago, is restarting. (here) What has happened to our Pakistan policy?
There are always ‘red lines’ in diplomacy and the most important ones are always the self-imposed ones. I can ‘declassify’ a vital information, namely, that in the a priori history before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014, we took care not to violate the ‘red lines’ – crying hoarse over Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan or hobnobbing with Baluchi secessionists.
The present government has breached those ‘red lines’. The National Security Advisor in the government Ajit Doval openly threatened to ‘do another Bangladesh’ to Pakistan by splitting Baluchistan province. PM has now tacitly acknowledged that that threat is actually his government’s policy.
The PM’s admirers are cheering wildly. They are thrilled he is taking a leaf out of Chanakya to put Pakistan in its place – ‘Samam, Danam, Bhedam, Dandam’, et al. They are speculating in the social network sites where our training camps for Baluchi rebels could be located. Some say Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, bordering Sindh, is ideal.
Whoever advised PM to ride the Baluchi tiger must be a moron of the first order. Make no mistake, the attack on Uri army base is an act of retaliation from across the border.
I wrote only two days ago that Americans could be in possession of intelligence regarding likelihood of a terrorist strike. (See my blog Washington’s Modi blues.) There are obviously grey areas that need explaining by the government. Couldn’t the security establishment anticipate that a Pakistani retaliation was inevitable?
The public opinion should comprehend how dangerous is this shift in our country’s policies. The Indian policy consistently factored in that a realistic solution to the Kashmir problem would somehow devolve upon international recognition to the Line of Control.
Not even mavericks thought it was within the realm of possibility to annex Azad Kashmir. Equally, we knew that even if public sentiments in Azad Kashmir turned critical of Islamabad, that didn’t mean tilt favouring integration with India. As for Gilgit and Baltistan, chances of annexing those remote regions are simply non-existent.
Nonetheless, we did invoke Azad Kashmir now and then – never Gilgit and Baltistan, though – whenever we needed to nail Pakistani propaganda. Period. We secretly hoped for the integration of Azad Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan as full-fledged Pakistani provinces (similar to the process currently under way with regard to FATA), hoping that would erode Pakistan’s locus standii on Kashmir. (Smart thinking today should be to encourage China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.)
However, government legitimised our propagandistic stance as India’s official policy. And it took a great leap into the dark by making Baluchi nationalism the stuff of our prime ministerial diplomacy.
Had PM ever visited Pakistan, even once, he’d have known how deeply scarred that country’s psyche is even today, after four decades, that India cut open its womb once and took away one half. No matter the sound rationale of our ‘humanitarian intervention’ in East Pakistan, the fact of the matter is that no country ever did such a thing to a neighbouring country in all of modern history.
Yet, the ruling elites are strongly signalling that India planned to team up with Afghanistan to dismember Pakistan. The Indian Express newspaper commented editorially that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s recent visit to Delhi marked the launch of an interventionist policy similar to the saga in Sri Lanka in the eighties. (here) The Uri attack came 5 days after Ghani’s visit.
Unless there is a careful course correction, the ensuing entanglement with Pakistani ‘non-state actors’ threatens to become full-time job for Doval – and PM Modi. Now, do we want to fall into Hafeez Saeed’s trap? What happens to ‘Make in India’ and Swaatch Bharat and Yoga? How do we bring J&K back to normalcy?
If the government does nothing by way of a response to the Uri attack, the Hindu nationalists will feel let down. On the contrary, if India responds militarily, it is 100% certain UN Security Council will meet in New York to discuss Kashmir. The UN Commissioner for Refugees has just condemned the situation in the Kashmir Valley.
The PM’s secretariat in Islamabad on Saturday issued an ominous statement – that Nawaz Sharif left for New York on his “most important foreign visit”, intending to invoke UN Security Council’s resolutions on Kashmir, and underscore the imperative need to settle the “longstanding Kashmir dispute which is among the oldest items on the UN agenda”. (Xinhua)
[Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001). He writes the “Indian Punchline” blog and has written regularly for Asia Times since 2001.]
http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/
The terrorist attack on the Indian Army base camp at Uri in the early hours of Sunday gives a sickening feeling that the asymmetric war with Pakistan, which began tapering off a year ago, is restarting. (here) What has happened to our Pakistan policy?
There are always ‘red lines’ in diplomacy and the most important ones are always the self-imposed ones. I can ‘declassify’ a vital information, namely, that in the a priori history before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014, we took care not to violate the ‘red lines’ – crying hoarse over Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan or hobnobbing with Baluchi secessionists.
The present government has breached those ‘red lines’. The National Security Advisor in the government Ajit Doval openly threatened to ‘do another Bangladesh’ to Pakistan by splitting Baluchistan province. PM has now tacitly acknowledged that that threat is actually his government’s policy.
The PM’s admirers are cheering wildly. They are thrilled he is taking a leaf out of Chanakya to put Pakistan in its place – ‘Samam, Danam, Bhedam, Dandam’, et al. They are speculating in the social network sites where our training camps for Baluchi rebels could be located. Some say Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, bordering Sindh, is ideal.
Whoever advised PM to ride the Baluchi tiger must be a moron of the first order. Make no mistake, the attack on Uri army base is an act of retaliation from across the border.
I wrote only two days ago that Americans could be in possession of intelligence regarding likelihood of a terrorist strike. (See my blog Washington’s Modi blues.) There are obviously grey areas that need explaining by the government. Couldn’t the security establishment anticipate that a Pakistani retaliation was inevitable?
The public opinion should comprehend how dangerous is this shift in our country’s policies. The Indian policy consistently factored in that a realistic solution to the Kashmir problem would somehow devolve upon international recognition to the Line of Control.
Not even mavericks thought it was within the realm of possibility to annex Azad Kashmir. Equally, we knew that even if public sentiments in Azad Kashmir turned critical of Islamabad, that didn’t mean tilt favouring integration with India. As for Gilgit and Baltistan, chances of annexing those remote regions are simply non-existent.
Nonetheless, we did invoke Azad Kashmir now and then – never Gilgit and Baltistan, though – whenever we needed to nail Pakistani propaganda. Period. We secretly hoped for the integration of Azad Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan as full-fledged Pakistani provinces (similar to the process currently under way with regard to FATA), hoping that would erode Pakistan’s locus standii on Kashmir. (Smart thinking today should be to encourage China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.)
However, government legitimised our propagandistic stance as India’s official policy. And it took a great leap into the dark by making Baluchi nationalism the stuff of our prime ministerial diplomacy.
Had PM ever visited Pakistan, even once, he’d have known how deeply scarred that country’s psyche is even today, after four decades, that India cut open its womb once and took away one half. No matter the sound rationale of our ‘humanitarian intervention’ in East Pakistan, the fact of the matter is that no country ever did such a thing to a neighbouring country in all of modern history.
Yet, the ruling elites are strongly signalling that India planned to team up with Afghanistan to dismember Pakistan. The Indian Express newspaper commented editorially that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s recent visit to Delhi marked the launch of an interventionist policy similar to the saga in Sri Lanka in the eighties. (here) The Uri attack came 5 days after Ghani’s visit.
Unless there is a careful course correction, the ensuing entanglement with Pakistani ‘non-state actors’ threatens to become full-time job for Doval – and PM Modi. Now, do we want to fall into Hafeez Saeed’s trap? What happens to ‘Make in India’ and Swaatch Bharat and Yoga? How do we bring J&K back to normalcy?
If the government does nothing by way of a response to the Uri attack, the Hindu nationalists will feel let down. On the contrary, if India responds militarily, it is 100% certain UN Security Council will meet in New York to discuss Kashmir. The UN Commissioner for Refugees has just condemned the situation in the Kashmir Valley.
The PM’s secretariat in Islamabad on Saturday issued an ominous statement – that Nawaz Sharif left for New York on his “most important foreign visit”, intending to invoke UN Security Council’s resolutions on Kashmir, and underscore the imperative need to settle the “longstanding Kashmir dispute which is among the oldest items on the UN agenda”. (Xinhua)
[Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001). He writes the “Indian Punchline” blog and has written regularly for Asia Times since 2001.]
http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/
