EDITORIAL: Adhering to expediency rather than principle the joint statement issued at the conclusion of the third annual India-US 2+2 ministerial dialogue, recently held in Delhi, led by on the US side by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defence Marker Esper, and India by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, contains gratuitous references to Pakistan. Among other things, it calls on Pakistan “to take immediate, sustained and irreversible action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for terrorist attacks”. As expected, Islamabad has taken strong exception to “Pakistan-related assertions made in the selective and one-sided joint statement”. Putting things in perspective, the Foreign Office spokesman said that “by seeking to project itself as a ‘victim’ of terrorism, India cannot divert attention from the gross human rights violations being perpetrated by Indian occupation forces and the resulting humanitarian crisis in IIOJK [Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir]”. Partner countries, he averred, should take an objective view of the issues of peace and security in South Asia and refrain from endorsing positions that are one-sided and divorced from reality.
In reality, Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval - and some other official - is on record to have publically stated his country’s “offensive defence” strategy of destabilizing Pakistan through acts of terrorism, of which the RAW operative, Kulbhushan Jadhav, caught red-handed in Baluchistan in March 2016, is a living proof. He has confessed: “… I have been directing various activities in Baluchistan and Karachi. My purpose was to hold meetings with Baloch insurgents and carry out activities with their collaboration. These activities have been of criminal nature, leading to killing of or maiming of Pakistani citizen.” That is not the only case of India’s nefarious activities in this country. In his recent interview with an Indian journalist, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Adviser on National Security and Strategic Planning Moeed Yusuf revealed that India was involved in the December 2014 Army Public School massacre, as well as attacks on the Chinese consulate and Pakistan Stock Exchange building in Karachi and a five-star hotel in Gwadar. Last year, he said, Indian embassy in Kabul used more than a million dollars to effect the merger of four TTP groups, creating an organization to kill Pakistanis. It was last year also that three Baloch insurgent groups joined hands to form a new outfit, BRAS. The result is a sudden upsurge in terrorist violence in Baluchistan as well as tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, even Peshawar.
None of these, of course, is obscure from the prying eyes of American intelligence networks. Yet Washington is willing to look the other way because of the lure of India’s vast market; and more than that, to use India to curb China’s growing influence. To that end, the country gets to become an Indo-Pacific partner under the US-India Framework Agreement. That may help New Delhi evade international censure over its crimes in IIOJK as well as broad-spectrum anti-Muslim violence and discriminatory laws. But if Pakistan’s experience is any guide, in the longer run playing sidekick to the US in its adventures in this part of the world holds disastrous consequences. India therefore would be wise to resolve issues of conflict with its neighbours, paving the way for peace and good progress of this region, and beyond.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020