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Posted by Harry-Wood in Afghan -Taliban-India Axis, India, India Hall of Shame, INDIA'S HINDUISM, ISLAMOPHOBIA, Makaar Dushman, Muslim Haters on August 20th, 2013
India is the largest country in South Asia and its leaders never tire of boasting that India is the super power of the region and a potential world power. Indira doctrine advocated India’s unrestricted influence over the whole region. India is past master in covert operations and propaganda war and habitually resorts to intrigues, economic coercion and blackmail. It never shies of threatening to use military option to overawe economically and militarily weak neighbors. India has disputes with all its neighbors because of which it doesn’t enjoy best of relations with any. Latter have no choice but to bear with India’s high-handedness. They take India’s barbs and excesses with a heavy heart.
It is part of history that after Partition in 1947, Indian Congress leaders instead of helping Pakistan in settling down had overloaded Pakistan with myriad of problems to smother it in its formative years. Indian military annexed Hyderabad, Junagadh and Manavadar whose Muslim rulers wanted to accede to Pakistan. It also forcibly occupied two-thirds Kashmir in October 1947 whose ruler was Hindu but great majority of population Muslims. War was thus forced on Pakistan. Soon after, Goa, Daman and Diu were also overpowered. All told, 565 princely states were made part of Indian Union. After creating Bangladesh (BD) in 1971, RAW supported Rakhi Bahini and gave it a preferential treatment over BD armed forces. Later on, RAW created Kadir Bahini to create trouble for Gen Ziaur Rahman and Gen Irshad Hussain regimes. Subsequently, Shanti Bahini was created to support Chakmas in Chittagong Hills.
RAW incited trouble in Sikkim in 1973 and in 1975 the kingdom of Sikkim was absorbed. Expansionist India’s next target was Bhutan. It was put under so much of pressure that it accepted India’s hegemony and agreed to act as its vassal to retain its independence. Landlocked Nepal which was a Hindu kingdom was terrorized to toe its line by halting food, medicines and oil supplies and instigating riots. Burma enjoyed excellent relations with Bangladesh but India strained their relations by fomenting trouble in Arakan Province and forcing 250,000 Arakenese to migrate to BD. The two neighbors are now arch enemies.
Maldives is also frightened through false flag operations. RAW trained the Tamils to bring about armed rebellion and carve a Tamil State out of predominantly Sinhalese Island. Of the many groups trained, LTTE was the deadliest. It took Sri Lankan military 30 years to crush the insurgency.
Pakistan has always aspired for peaceful and friendly relationship with all its neighbors based on equality and mutual respect and has resented overbearing attitude of India. It stands up to Indian intemperance and belligerence boldly. This stance is not to the liking of Indian leaders and in reaction they have been continuously devising strategies to make Pakistan a pliant state and make India a world power.
India is so intensely averse to the existence of Pakistan that it has gone to war with Pakistan thrice and two localized conflicts. From the book by Basant Chaterjee (Inside Bangladesh Today) we now know that Pundit Nehru had been scheming since August 1947 to reclaim East Bengal and make it an integral part of undivided India. After the demise of Quaid-e-Azam and Liaquat Ali Khan, regionalism raised its ugly head in smaller provinces particularly in East Pakistan where India started a whispering campaign to poison the minds of the youth and seculars against West Pakistan. India exploited the cultural affinity between East and West Bengal by underplaying Allama Iqbal and promoting poetry of Tagore.
Since over 90% posts of teachers and professors were held by Hindus, they played a key role in subverting the minds of students and making them hate West Pakistanis. History books of the subcontinent were distorted to paint Muslim rulers in poor light and ancient Hindu rule glamorized. Their hatred against Hindus was gradually mellowed and converted into amiability. Cultural programs and stage dramas enacted by Hindus helped in bringing a change in the mindset of the Muslim Bengalis. Bengali nationalism was stirred by agitating language issue. Politics of agitation was introduced through frequent strikes and mob violence.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman came into prominence in East Pakistan during the language riots in 1948 and in 1952. His rebellious stance against West Pakistan Establishment made him popular among Bengalis. He joined Awami League (AL) as a disciple of Suhrawardy. After the death of Suhrawardy in 1964, he maintained his pro-India stance and went astray.
RAW was established in 1968 with the primary aim of subverting East Bengalis and detaching eastern part from Pakistan. BSF under Brig Pande assisted RAW in its clandestine activities. Mujib was invited to Agartala in November 1963 where secession plan based on six points was finalized. The two surrogates of RAW, Tajuddin Ahmed and Nazrul Islam of AL were tasked not to let Mujib deviate from his course of secession.
After December 1970 elections in which AL swept the polls through manipulation, Mujib stance in the wake of political deadlock became uncompromising. He defied writ of the government, created a state within state and instigated ethnic cleansing of non-Bengalis. He was told by his patrons in India to force Gen Yahya to use force so that India could convince the world that it was Pakistan Army that had first denied them their constitutional right to takeover power and had now opted to crush them under their boots. Thus, AL would have a convincing case to pick up arms in defence and also gain sympathy of the world. Military action would pave the way for India to organize a civil war in East Pakistan leading towards secession. No sooner military action was launched on the night of 25 March 1971 to re-establish writ of the state, province wide rebellion was triggered by Indian military trained Mukti Bahini. 59 training camps were established all along the border to train and launch the rebels. After nine months of insurgency and cutting off the province from rest of the world, Indian military barged in.
After depriving Pakistan of its eastern limb in December 1971, RAW started hunting in Sindh where it fomented Sindhu Desh movement with the help of GM Sayyed. Terrorist camps were established at Ganganagar, Jaipur, Udhampur, Kishingarh, Bikaner, Barmer, Jaisalmir and Gandhinagar. Services of Hindus living in Sindh who had migrated to India during the1971 war and those still residing in Sindh were hired and made use of by a RAW cell at Jaipur.
Al-Zulfiqar established in 1979 after the hanging of ZA Bhutto was taken over completely by RAW in 1981 to carryout sabotage and subversion in Sindh. Its efforts were complimented by KGB-KHAD-RAW nexus using Afghan soil. PPP’s MRD movement in Sindh in 1983 was fully supported by India. After the creation of MQM in Karachi in 1984, the party was hijacked by RAW in 1986. It was helped to create militant wing and control Karachi and then follow Bangladesh model. NAP later renamed as ANP supported Kabul’s Pakhtunistan stunt and at the behest of Indian Congress opposed construction of Kalabagh dam.
None can deny that India has striven to keep Pakistan politically, economically and militarily weak and isolated. India’s seven strike corps and four RAPIDs are poised against Pakistan. Its entire military might was deployed along Pakistan border in 2002 and 2009. It is even now engaged in massive covert war in Balochistan and FATA and is also resorting to water terrorism by building series of dams over the three rivers flowing into Pakistan in violation of Indus Basin Treaty. Idea of balkanization of Pakistan was conceived by India. However, to its utter disappointment, it finds Pakistan as defiant as ever. It refuses to budge from its stated principle of relationship based on equality and mutual respect. It refuses to forgo its principled stance on Kashmir. Turn of events in the endgame in Afghanistan has put its plans to demolish Pakistan in jeopardy. In sheer frustration India resorts to false flag operations and its latest one is along the LoC in Kashmir but each time its falsehood gets exposed.
The writer is a retired Brig, defence analyst and columnist. asifharoonraja@gmail.com
India Reality Check
Posted by Haidery in CIA SUBVERSION IN PAKISTAN on August 20th, 2013
As Washington continues sending its development assistance aid in the form of drones to bomb civilians illegally inside Pakistan’s borders, allegedly to go after Taliban fighters, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently completed a trip to Beijing where he met Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, his first foreign visit after the May elections. The Pakistani Federal Cabinet subsequently approved the start of negotiations and signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on developing a “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor”long-term plan, and an action plan between the development ministries of the two countries.
A view of the Beijing-funded “megaport” of Gwadar, in southwestern Pakistan (AFP Photo)
Xinjiang is also the heart of China’s known oil resources and a transit area for major oil and gas pipelines. The development will cost billions of euros, which China reportedly has now pledged in the form of ‘soft loans’. The railway infrastructure will provide crucial links for transporting oil and gas from the Persian Gulf and minerals and food from Africa will be the heart of the newproject.http://axisoflogic.
However, in six months this area will “suddenly” become a major “terror ground” that conveniently will disrupt the rail infrastructure link. It reminds me of the German Berlin-Baghdad Rail link to the Ottoman Empire before WWI that was the major cause for Britain to ally with Czarist Russia and France in the Triple Entente that became WWI in 1914.
Gwadar is the world’s largest deep sea port. It lies in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan in the warm water Arabian Sea. The design and construction of the final stages of the port, which began in 2002, is being carried out in collaboration with China. It has an immense geostrategic importance at the entrance to the Persian Gulf and is a likely substitute for the Port of Dubai. In 2011 Pakistan invited China to build a Naval base at Gwadar, something the Pentagon is eyeing very closely. China has yet to respond on that.
China’s needs for energy resources, food and minerals from the Gulf and Africa have boosted trade between the regions in the recent years. China’s trade with the UAE alone has grown 15-fold since 2000 to reach $37 billion. It is expected to reach $100 billion by 2015. Some 2,500 Chinese firms have offices in Dubai. China’s largest bank ICBC and the Bank of China also have branches in the Gulf sheikhdom where they are beginning to transact bilateral trade in Chinese renminbi rather than dollars.
The Chinese are currently upgrading some 600 kilometers of the China-Pakistan highway. The KKH was built in 1986 from Kashgar through Pakistan and the upgrade will make it suitable for heavy container traffic and linking it to Gwadar Port. China and Pakistan are also working to link Gwadar port and Xinjiang through a new Chinese-financed railway network. This will turn Gwadar Port and the KKH into a trade corridor for China and other Central Asians countries and create in Gwadar an energy, transport, and industrial hub providing direct and economical access to the Arabian Sea for both China and resource rich Central Asian states.
On January 30 this year, Pakistan turned over the management and operation of the Gwadar Port Authority to a Chinese company at the same time the Pakistan government signed up to the Iran–Pakistan gas pipeline, tying Pakistan, Iran and China more closely, something that caused pain in Washington.
It will generate billions of dollars in revenue for Pakistan and likely create about two million jobs.
Pakistan and China have signed agreements to help energy starved Pakistan to utilize the hydro-electric potential offered by the area by constructing the Diamer-Bhasha and Bunji dams.
China also wants to import gas from Iran by joining the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline that will pass through Gilgit Baltistan on the Pakistan border to Xinjiang in China. Also Pakistan and China have signed agreements to develop entirely new industrial cities in various parts of Pakistan along the route of the rail link, including at Gwadar.
Close to the Straits of Hormuz, Gwadar has the potential to become the gateway to Central Asia and China. It’s at the junction of the world’s three most important strategic and economic regions–Middle East, South Asia and Central Asian states—giving it the potential, barring new wars, to generate billions in annual transit trade. As part of a shift in policy, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have recently been eagerly pursuing trade and economic links with China.
In 2006 the US Armed Forces Journal published an article by Colonel Ralph Peters titled Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look. In the piece, which appears to bear uncanny relevance to subsequent Pentagon and US State Department policy in the region, Peters calls for the creation of aFree Baluchistan.
His call was echoed by US Pakistan “expert” Selig Harrison, who reportedly enjoys strong ties to the CIA. In 2006 after Peters published his sensational article Harrison wrote in Le Monde Diplomatique and the New York Times that a Free Baluchistan movement was “simmering.” The call by Peters and Harrison for a Free Baluchistan began four years after China began building the first phase of the Gwadar Port.
The availability of a major alterative trade route that cuts distance and time from the present long and slow 8000 km route by ship from the Persian Gulf through the Malacca Strait to the eastern seaboard of China will give both the Gulf states, as well as parts of Africa where China is very active, and Asia, huge economic benefits.
Conveniently for Washington, which has no interest in fostering greater Chinese independence of energy supply, in recent months a growing militant separatist movement has erupted on the scene in Baluchistan, the Pakistan province where Gwadar is located. On June 15 this year, terror attacks including a suicide bombing of a bus filled with students and a gunfight in the city that left two dozen dead, hit the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a militant separatist group, claimed responsibility. The BLA wasn’t acting alone. As the injured students were being rushed to hospital, they ran into an ambush by the ‘Pakistani Taliban’, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ). The BLA has been involved in attacks on government oil fields and gas pipelines. The Pakistan government accuses India of being behind the BLA. India recently has been moving closer to the US and to Japan in a military alliance that has a distinct anti-China bent.
Further, on July 29, jihadist militants armed with rockets and heavy weapons launched a concerted assault on a major prison in Dera Ismail Khan, close to the South Waziristan tribal agency in northwestern Pakistan, along the route of the rail-highway-pipelines from Gwadar to Xinjiang, freeing an estimated 250 militants affiliated with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
Xinjiang has recently suffered from new rioting by separatist Muslim Uyghurs. In late June in Xinjiang, home to some 10 million Uyghurs, two terror attacks killed 35 people days ahead of the fourth anniversary of the July 5, 2009 riot in the capital Urumqi that left 197 people dead. The Jihadist Uyghur terrorists apparently are being recruited in Turkey by an Uyghur independence organization, sent to Syria for combat experience and, if they survive, sent back to Xinjiang to carry out terror deeds there. China’s official daily, Global Times, reported in early July that a Muslim Uyghur from Xinjiang, Memeti Alili was arrested in Xinjiang during the new wave of terrorist acts and riots.
The Chinese daily reported that the 23-year-old Alili confessed to police that he had been recruited as a student in Istanbul by something called the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Aili was arrested when returning to Xinjiang to complete his mission to “carry out violent attack and improve fighting skills.” He confessed that he had been assigned to return by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM is a terrorist group that aims to create an Islamist state in Xinjiang, which works alongside the East Turkistan Education and Solidarity Association (ETESA), an Istanbul-based exile group.
This picture taken on August 5, 2013 shows the shell of a burnt out bus being towed by a rescue vehicle along a street in Urumqi in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (AFP Photo)
Muslim Uyghur youth are being recruited to go to Istanbul to “study”, then recruited by ETIM and ETESA to fight as Jihadists in Syria with Al Qaeda and other jihad groups, according to China’s anti-terrorism authority. If they survive the Syrian battlefield training, the Uyghur jihadists are recycled back to Xinjiang in China, the end-point of the new Gwadar to China rail and road infrastructure “land bridge.”
The headquarters of ETESA, located in Istanbul include research, media, social affairs, education and women’s affairs departments. It aims to “educate and train Muslims” in Xinjiang and “set them free” by forming a Muslim state, according to a Chinese official. In 2004, in Washington Anwar Yusuf Turani established the East Turkistan Government in Exile. Washington seemed not to object, though many other countries did, including China. The Istanbul link of ETIM and ETESA is no accident. Istanbul’s Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly backed the Uyghur separatists in 2009 during the riots, calling them fellow Turkic peoples.
Meanwhile, as if to further underscore how vulnerable any China-Pakistani energy and trade corridor from Gwadar to Xinjiang would be, on the eve of US Secretary of State Kerry’s visit to Islamabad to meet Pakistan’s Prime Minister just after the China deal of Pakistan, the US made several drone attacks inside Pakistan in the North Waziristan tribal region. They killed at least six people. It was the fourth US drone strike since Sharif was re-elected as Prime Minister in June, all in the crucial North Waziristan en route to Xinjiang. Despite Pakistan’s strong protests Washington refuses to halt the CIA-run drone attacks.
With the CIA drone attacks, the Baluchistan attacks of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Baloch Liberation Army, as well as Jihadists being sent into Xinjiang from Turkey and Syria, we can expect unrest to increase in Baluchistan province and upwards to Xinjiang as the huge China-Pakistan infrastructure plans materialize in coming months.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Posted by Mahi Ali in India -US Joint Export to Pakistan: Terrorism on August 20th, 2013
Upright Opinion
August 17, 2013
As If Sikandar was a Hercules Unchained
By Saeed Qureshi
That mind boggling spectacle that the whole of Pakistan and the world beyond had witnessed on the Jinnah Avenue in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad on August 15, can be found only in action movies and in fiction books. The five hour’s standoff between the police and para military network on one side and a lone individual on the other is absurd, intriguing and mind boggling.
It defies any rational explanation by any stretch of imagination that a single person with a tiny short physique can prevail and defiantly kicks around for several hours in full public view. He roams about the vast space at his will brandishing two Kalashnikovs (sub machines guns) and firing at random periodically. It appeared as if the ionic warrior Hercules was chasing the defeated fleeing army. Or else he was a gladiator throwing gauntlets to his rivals in a Roman Colosseum.
If the objective of allowing a free hand to Sikandar to catch him alive then in that case this gory dram could have dragged on for several hours till he would have dropped on the gourd overtaken by fatigue and exhaustion. The standing order of the interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to not kill him and catch him alive was like the proverbial catching of duck by placing a burning candle on its head until it would turn the bird blind with the melting wax. Is there some logic in minister’s orders to negotiate with him and not kill him? Nevertheless the government and security forces looked paralyzed and dysfunctional.
The police, the elite forces, the paratroopers and the commandoes all were in a state of limbo over the daring frolicking of a miserable and dissipated individual keeping them at bay. Was it a rank cowardice and wishing for a providential help and miracle to happen to drive away the menace?
If that is the poor level of crisis management of the police and intelligence agencies and even army then what would happen if a group of die hard terrorists assails the capital and wreaks havoc. And such frightening possibility cannot be ruled out. If the bomb blasts and massacres are going on elsewhere in the country and particularly in tribal zones, how come Islamabad can remain immune from such dreadful incidents?
The police remained confused and stood by, Sikandar was unyielding and Zamurud Khan was stupid. The family of Sikandar consisting of two young children and the burqa-clad wife seemed to be caught in a weird and scary situation as one could figure out from the boy’s frightened eyes and shades of fears cast over his face. The tiny minds would not comprehend as to what was going on with their father running around in the arena and firing and hurling challenging epithets on the crowd gathered around him.
We have seen the snake charmers, the fake healers, the monkey dancing shows and the jugglers in cattle shows and public places amusing the crowds with their antics and tricks. Here on Jinnah Avenue, it was not different except that the magicians, the jugglers, the quacks perform for an hour or so and then move away. Yet this melodrama on the capital’s widest road continued for several hours while the public and the protectors of human life just watched it like dummies. They had no clue how long that thriller would continue and what would be the drop scene.
This incident is a matter of grave concern for the law and order enforcement agencies to ponder how drastically and miserably they failed to address a potentially serious threat with a matching fast track strategy and action. If it would be finally to shoot at his legs because of the physical scuffle between the daredevil Zamurud and the stubbornly defiant Sikandar, then it could have been done even in the first few minutes.
But the explanation from the authorities including the interior minister, that they did not want to hurt the offender’s’ family is as unconvincing and frivolous as it is ridiculous. The failure of an otherwise brutal police force to nab an outraged and defiant culprit posing persistent threat to the lives of the onlookers speaks volumes for the bizarre counter insurgency strategies.
Now the paramount questions staring right in the face of police, security and intelligence agencies would be how could an ordinary person carry with him two dangerous weapons and roam about in the red zone of the capital? What was the purpose of his being armed with such prohibited bores?
Was there a sinister plot behind the smokescreen of the family to use these weapons for a crime or to be hand-over to an intended person or party? The most incisive question is how to preempt or ward off such intrusions and incursions by the terrorists and public enemies for future?
The senior hierarchy in the ministry of interior should be sternly interrogated why such glaring and most horrendous security laps occurred, all the more in the vicinity of important government offices and buildings? Did Sikandar have license for these weapons and if so who issued him these permits for patently prohibited calibers?
Chief Justice of Supreme Court Honorable Iftikhar Muhammad
The writer is a senior journalist, former editor of Diplomatic Times and a former diplomat
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Posted by Shahroz Bashir in INDIA-AN EVIL NATION, INDIAN SABRE RATTLING BITS THE DUST, INEPT INDIAN NAVY on August 17th, 2013
Video of the catastrophe shows a fireball engulfing the dock where the Indian navy submarine was berthed. Emergency crews are working to rescue the sailors, but military officials have not released the number of sailors that may be trapped in the vessel.
MUMBAI – Eighteen Indian sailors were trapped and some were killed after an explosion and fire on a diesel-powered submarine berthed at a base in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Defense Minister A.K. Antony said crew members inside the Russian-built INS Sindhurakshak had died. He gave no details.
The explosion just after midnight was likely an accident, but an investigation was under way to establish the cause, the navy said.
“There are some people who are trapped on board, we are in the process of trying to rescue them,” navy spokesman P.V.S. Satish said. “We will not give up until we get to them.”
Kamal Kishore / Reuters
The Russian-built INS Sindhurakshak is seen here in 2006.
The incident raised memories of the explosion on the Russian nuclear attack submarine Kursk which sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea in 2000, killing all 118 crew members.
The Indian vessel, which returned from an upgrade in Russia earlier this year, had suffered a similar accident in 2010 in which one sailor was killed while it was docked in the southern port of Visakhapatnam.
Typically, such a submarine is fitted with torpedoes and missiles. Torpedoes are launched underwater to attack other submarines while missiles are used for long ranges above water. There was no immediate word on the status of the weapons on board the Sindhurakshak.
“Lot of things are in very close proximity, there is fuel, there is hydrogen, there is oxygen, there are weapons with high explosives on board,” said retired Indian navy chief Arun Prakash.
“So a slightest mistake or slightest accident can trigger off a huge accident. The question of sabotage – I mean, all possibilities have to be considered – but sabotage is probably the last possibility.”
Three people who were near the submarine at the time of the explosion were injured and being treated in hospital, spokesman Satish said.
Vikalp Shah / Reuters
Flames from the INS Sindhurakshak burn in Mumbai, India, late on Wednesday.
Posted by mansoor.syed in INDIAN SABRE RATTLING BITS THE DUST on August 17th, 2013
In an event Indian Defence Minister AK Antony has called a “shocking tragedy,” 18 sailors aboard an Indian submarine called the INS Sindhurakshak are feared dead after two huge explosions occurred on a submarine berthed in Mumbai after midnight on Thursday. No bodies have yet been recovered, as divers are currently working to refloat the partially submerged submarine.
The cause of the explosions is still being determined and sabotage has not yet been ruled out. “A board of inquiry will cover the entire spectrum of the incident, we cannot rule out sabotage at this stage but all the indicators at this point do not support that theory,” Navy chief Admiral DK Joshi said.
What makes this explosion even more tragic is that it occurred on the heels of two landmark events for the South Asian power’s naval ambitions. The Indian Navy recently announced progress in its efforts to build ahomegrown nuclear-powered submarine as well as an aircraft carrier in quick succession. After over two decades of research and development in a particularly challenging area of defense technology, India announced on August 12 that the nuclear reactor in its first indigenously built nuclear-powered submarine, the INS Arihant, had achieved criticality in a crucial step before becoming fully operational. With the move, India joins a select group of countries with the technology to build a nuclear reactor compact enough to fit into a submarine. Currently, only the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain possess nuclear submarines.
The Arihant will be fitted with K-15 nuclear-tipped missiles that will be able to hit targets 700km away, completing India’s nuclear triad – the ability to fire nuclear missiles by land, air and sea. India already has the ability to launch nuclear missiles from land, with the Prithvi and Agni missiles, as well as from air from its French Mirage and Russian Su-30 MKI fighter jets. Indeed, having a second strike capability from sea is considered critical for India which has a declared “no first use” nuclear policy. The possession of a submarine with nuclear-tipped missiles would enable India to develop a credible deterrence policy with the ability to launch a counterattack following a first strike. Nuclear submarines also have an edge over conventional diesel-powered submarines as they can stay under water for longer periods making their detection more difficult.
On August 13, India launched its first indigenously built aircraft carrier – the INS Vikrant – which will have a displacement of 37,500 tons when completed in 2018. With its launch, India becomes the fifth country after the U.S., Britain, France and Russia to have the capability to develop its own aircraft carrier. Built at the Cochin Shipyard in the southern state of Kerala, the Vikrant will carry Russian-made MiG-29K fighter jets and a set of helicopters. India already has the INS Viraat, a vintage British-built aircraft carrier, in its fleet and will acquire another Russian-made aircraft carrier, the INS Vikramaditya, in 2014, once the warship completes its sea trials.
The moves are part of India’s plans to develop a blue-water navy, with the ability to project power beyond the confines of the Indian Ocean into the South and East China seas. To achieve this, India is building three more nuclear submarines and two more aircraft carriers. India’s naval build-up coincides with growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in the South China Sea, where a slew of territorial disputes are ongoing between China and several Southeast Asian nations, as well as with Japan. With a more robust naval presence, New Delhi seeks to protect its commercial interests, including plans to jointly explore potential oil and gas reserves with Vietnam in the South China Sea.
India’s NavalIndia’s naval plans also coincide with the so-called U.S. pivot to Asia, wherein Washington has sought to boost its naval deployments to the Asia-Pacific. The U.S. has encouraged a greater Indian naval presence in the region, fueling concerns in China, which sees New Delhi’s naval build-up as part of broader efforts to contain Beijing. India’s latest progress in building indigenous aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines will further raise hackles in China prompting it to speed up its own naval modernization efforts.
While these developments are larger than any one event, the explosion at Mumbai’s dockyard in the early hours this morning nonetheless casts a shadow over the progress made by the Indian Navy.
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