By Haider Abbas
It did not come as a surprise at all that Pakistan, yet again, took to centerstage of BJP electoral campaign, all the while as the general elections are underway. It is now almost five years, when on August 5, 2019, BJP annulled the Article 370 from JK&L which had given it a ‘special status’, and any geo-political analyst knows it well, that PM Narendra Modi, had done it with a solid-understanding from US, as the then US President Donald Trump, had uttered the ‘Kashmir’ word twice, in July 2019, which finally helped PM Modi to jump-the-gun. The last five-years have been marred with India allegedly involved into dozens of targeted killings in Pakistan and Canada, as reports from The Guardian have unveiled, thus, living to the ‘Ghar mein ghus ke marenge’ ( Will kill you in your house) doctrine of PM Modi.
Why did India abrogate Article 370, apart from it being the cardinal issue of BJP, is solely for the ‘unanimity’ with US that China’s most ambitious plan of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor should fail, as CPEC, through Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) goes through Gilgit-Balitistan, a part of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, which India considers, as its internal part. This POK is right now on the boil, both inside Indian polity as well as on the Pakistan side. Actually, this Pakistan thing is a double-whammy for BJP, as it nails Pakistan into its rhetoric to discredit Pakistan on international level, but BJP’s mention of Pakistan is always measured by extension to Muslims of India. It generates hate for Pakistan, which it wants to translate towards Muslims of India, despite the façade of Sabka saath Sabka vikas.
What is that mires POK right now? There have been perhaps, the first time in the last several decades, protests on a massive scale in POK against electricity tariffs, flour prices etc , and there is no doubt that the general public holds a resentment against Pakistan ruling elite and establishment, but this time the protests are being considered, in India, as an opening for repetition of 1971, when Pakistan was dismembered and Bangladesh was created with an overt support from India. Will India consider the same help it accorded then? All the while as PM Modi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah, have made it clear India would soon take POK back!
Perhaps, the time is quite opportune as Pakistan is in its worst crisis ever. Its outgoing PM Imran Khan languishes in jail: Courtesy its army. Its economy has nosedived and faces International Monetary Fund (IMF) ever growing conditions, Financial Action Task Force (FATF) baton hanging large, despite in the white list, apart from the increasing bitterness after the heavily rigged elections in favour of Sharifs and Bhuttos, is what all the morass Pakistan is right now into. But, surely, the impetus did come, after Iran President Ibrahim Raisi visited Pakistan, and instead of isolation, was accorded a grand welcome by the supposedly only nuclear state in the Muslim world. Ibrahim Raisi visited after the attack of Iran on Israel.
The festivities after Raisi’s visit, however, have remained short-lived, as Pakistan despite having signed eight MoU with Iran, could not dare ‘go-ahead’ with them, in the wake of the threat of sanctions by US, and instead Iran ended up signing a deal at Chabahar port with India, leaving Pakistan red-faced. What matters here also is that Iran, did not ‘go public’ about the incomplete Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, which Pakistan did not complete from its side and faces 18 billion USD as penalty. Pakistan another brutal hurt had also come as the Saudi crown prince MbS has also postponed his upcoming visit.
What may be now India’s gameplan? India relies heavily on US, despite the ‘fanfare’ of US sanctions on India buying the heavily subsidized Russian oil and the ‘deal’ of Chahbahar. India knows it too well, that US wants to put India as a wall against China, and here, India wants to clinch the deal! India, as shown by way of belligerence from top BJP leadership, in all probability will send its army to PoK, after elections, and then later invite US to make its base there, this would kill all the birds in a single shot, as India would stop CPEC, turn all the US eyes on China and make Pakistan sit in a squalor-for all times to come. India plans to grab China by snapping the Straits of Malacca, to halt China’s economy and not let China’s goods reach the whole world. This is where India finds all consonance with US and the entire Europe. How the situation is set to unfold is what is awaited.
However, China is where all the bells have got-ringing, and as a tit for tat to the world, specially US and NATO-which are heavily involved from the Ukraine side of war against Russia, invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to Beijing, to ‘do-the-talking’ with India as Russia holds a relationship of more than seven decades with India. What however, China has done more is that it has put its army on the alert mode, scrambled its S-400 missile system on the Ladakh border, in a way, that China has come forward to bat for Pakistan! If there is now to be any initiative from the Indian side, on PoK, it is very likely to find a Chinese backlash apart from Pakistan. Will India, on the backing of US, go for a war? Face a two-side war? Is all what is to be disclosed?
China is from a long time, already embroiled with India in border disputes in Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand etc . There is of course an eyeball to eyeball between India and China, but even if India does not go ahead inside PoK, BJP has successfully upped the ante for its political rhetoric, to garner the popular vote, by the usage of the ‘Pakistan’ word. Pakistan may implode all by itself due to the compounding of its internal problems etc. Yet, India is also keeping a close-watch, on the deteriorating relations between Afghan-Taliban and Pakistan, particularly when Abdul Waheed Khurasani, from Panjsheer valley, has threatened to flex muscles on Pakistan.
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The writer is a former UP State Information Commissioner.