India complains like a village old woman

Asif Haroon Raja

India being an imperialist power wants to become super power of South Asia and a world power. Mired in dozens of insurgencies it considers Pakistan as the lone stumbling block in the way of her imperialist ambitions. Indigenous freedom movement in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) has become a bleeding wound for India and a cause of embarrassment that despite deploying such a large force in a small Valley and using excessive force, rape and torture as tools to crush the movement for over 22 years, it has failed to extinguish the flame of liberty. Maintenance of 750,000 security forces since 1989 in IOK is a huge drain on India’s economy which is slowing down. So is the burden of 700,000 troops employed for fighting dozens of insurgencies and separatist movements in various parts of India.

Once India jumped out of the lap of former Soviet Union and slid into the warm lap of USA in 1991, it started working feverishly to create permanent wedge between USA and Pakistan – the two erstwhile allies – by coloring the perceptions of US leaders against Pakistan. India’s main propaganda plank was ‘cross border terrorism by Pakistan in IOK’. 9/11 gave a godsend opportunity to India to restore its lost influence in Afghanistan and to operationalize its plan of destabilizing, denuclearizing, encircling, isolating and balkanizing Pakistan through proxy war using Afghan soil. For the achievement of their common objectives, the Indo-US-Afghan nexus commenced covert war against Pakistan in 2002 with a view to cripple Pakistan economically, politically, socially and militarily.

Their sustained efforts have made FATA and Balochistan highly restive and Pakistan’s economy fragile. More the difficulties encountered by Pakistan on account of foreign sponsored insurgencies in the two turbulent regions and disorder in Karachi, more the closeness between the three strategic partners grew. So much so that Indo-Afghan and Afghan-US strategic partnership agreements were signed. At the same time, hostility of the trio against Pakistan also intensified. India was over the moon seeing Pakistan in dire strait and breathlessly waited to use its military instrument to axe it for good. Karzai regime didn’t lag behind in keeping Pakistan in the dock.

Not only the Indian political leaders have maintained an aggressive posture against Pakistan, Indian senior military officers also have been flexing muscles to overawe Pakistan, and have been looking for a 1971 like opportunity to strike Pakistan. Apart from offensive deployment of troops along Pakistan’s border in 2001-02 and 2008-09, former Indian Army chiefs Gen Kapoor and Gen V.K. Singh and even the current chief Gen Bikram Singh have been bragging about India’s much hyped Pakistan-specific Cold Start Doctrine, which in Indian military view has nullified Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence. Ex Army chief Gen V.K. Singh had set up a secret intelligence unit called Technical Services Division (TSD) without the knowledge of Ministry of Defence. Purpose was to carryout clandestine operations against officials of Ministry of Defence, IOK and Pakistan. He misused secret funds to destabilize Omar Abdullah’s government in Kashmir and spent Rs 1.19 crore for this purpose.

Gen V.K. Singh justified his act in Kashmir on the plea that use of secret funds has been in practice since 1947. He also admitted that the TSD had conducted eight successful missions inside Pakistan. He used his moles for phone tapping, eavesdropping officials of Ministry of Defence. V.K Singh had a tainted tenure and was accused of corruption. He submitted a petition to Ministry of Defence to adjust his date of birth so that he could serve for another ten months in office. When his petition was rejected by Supreme Court, he became a laughing stock. While in uniform he started hobnobbing with BJP leaders and soon after retirement he joined BJP. He attends Narendra Modi’s rallies and BJP is giving full support to him. Modi whose hands are soaked in the blood of Indian Muslims have been tipped as future Prime Minister of India by BJP. His sole forte is to raise the emotions of Hindus against Indian Muslims and Pakistan and make them hysteric.

Indian Army under Gen Bikram Singh who took over the reins of Indian Army on May 31, 2012 heated up the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir in January 2013 on a false pretext that Pak Army soldiers were involved in beheading of two Indian soldiers on January 8. It led to unprovoked firing by Indian military. After Manmohan Singh’s stern warning to Pakistan, Gen Bikram on January 14, asked his commanders in Kashmir to be aggressive and offensive against Pakistan. He said, “We reserve the right to retaliate at a time and place of our choosing”. In August 2013, yet another drama of killing of five Indian soldiers by Kashmiri Mujahideen backed by Pak Army was cooked up. The incident led to prolonged ceasefire violations in the form of firing and shelling. The guns had not silenced when another stage-managed terrorist attack on a police station and military base in Samba onSeptember 25 was enacted in which a dozen people were killed. This false flag operation was timed with Manmohan Singh’s address to the UN General Assembly Session in New York on 27^th and his scheduled meeting with Nawaz Sharif on September 29. LoC was activated at the behest of BJP which wanted to scuttle Manmohan-Nawaz meeting and the peace process.

Unprovoked firing by Indian soldiers across the LoC and working boundary in Sialkot Sector in which scores of civilians as well as soldiers and cattle were killed became a daily routine from August to first week of November 2013 till Sartaj Aziz met Manmohan Singh and Indian Foreign Minister Salman in Colombo and both sides agreed to respect 2003 ceasefire agreement. Military coercion and jingoism spearheaded by Indian military-BJP combine are aimed at playing Pakistan card to win next elections in 2014. Indian military and BJP nexus aims at establishing Hindutva in India.   

India’s dangerous plan conceived in 2001 to destroy Pakistan has run into difficulties because of NATO’s and ANA’s inability to defeat Afghan Taliban. From 2008 onwards, the wind started to blow against occupying forces because of Taliban’s resurgence. When nothing worked in favor of USA, a stage came when the US was forced by circumstances in 2010 to employ its political prong to induce the Taliban to hold peace dialogue. At the same time, Obama announced that the US-NATO troops would quit Afghanistan by December 2014. This unpalatable step was taken in spite of opposition from Pentagon and CIA as well as from India, Israel and Afghanistan. It dawned upon Obama’s Administration that all the strategic allies on whom the US had leaned heavily had no influence over the Taliban and were ineffectual. On the other hand, Pakistan which was all along seen as part of the problem was the sole country which could help in arranging talks and arriving at a political settlement.

Increasing intimacy between USA and Pakistan is happening at a time when Indo-Pakistan relations are sailing through murky waters. This change in the outlook of USA trying to remove the distrust accumulated over a period of time and to rebuild friendly ties with Pakistan is vexing India. Not knowing how to disrupt growth of Pak-US ties, India is continuing to play the terrorism card. During his meeting with Obama in New York in September last, Manmohan Singh had a single point agenda of bad mouthing Pakistan. Throughout the meeting he kept complaining like a village old woman that Pakistan was indulging in cross border terrorism in Kashmir and disturbing the peace. Even during his address to the UN he dubbed Pakistan as epicenter of terrorism. Indian officials are propagating that there is sharp increase in LoC-crossing attempts into IOK which has led to increase in ceasefire violations and resurgence of terrorist attacks against Indian forces in Kashmir. While craving to become a world power, Indian leaders have a bad habit of putting their sins in the basket of Pakistan and then moaning like a village woman that they are the victims of terrorism.          

The writer is a retired Brig and a defence analyst. [email protected]