The threat India poses

[Devil Soul]

The threat India poses
By Muhammad Ali Ehsan
Published: August 31, 2016
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The shift in India’s policy towards Pakistan is real. PHOTO: AFP

India may be the largest democracy on the planet and a state that showcases an egalitarian facade to the outside world but regionally it is a state that is non-conciliatory and hegemonic to the core. This has been amply demonstrated by the veiled threat that the Indian prime minister made in his speech while referring to human rights violations in Balochistan. This threat to Pakistan to ‘fall in line’ on the occasion of the Indian Independence Day and the stage from where it was generated, the Red Fort in New Delhi, which now symbolises Indian national power cannot be treated as mere political rhetoric. It is actually an official announcement of how India wants to proceed in handling the Kashmir issue — equating it with Balochistan and scapegoating Pakistan for India’s troubles.

India re-imposes curfew in Kashmir

This was an official statement of intent as it was embedded in the clearly defined objective of the Indian intelligence agency’s operations in Balochistan. “You do one more Mumbai and you lose Balochistan” was the narrative unfolded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s own National Security Adviser AK Doval just months after he was appointed in 2014. Since then, the Indian establishment and RAW have been at work, utilising our neighbouring countries as staging stations from where spies like Kulbushan Yadav infiltrate into our territory to conduct asymmetric warfare against Pakistan. There have been no more Mumbais but in the absence of any concerted effort by the international community to mitigate the suffering of Kashmiri people at the hands of Indian security forces, Modi was only encouraged to ‘give it back to Pakistan’ and remind it about the cost it may pay for highlighting Kashmir internationally — thus equating the call of self-determination in Kashmir with that of the situation in Balochistan.

There were two leaders who readily appreciated the comments made by the Indian prime minister. One was Hasanul Haque Inu, the information minister of the pro-India Bangladeshi government. He has said that “Pakistan learnt nothing from the defeat of 1971 and continues to practice the same policy …” The atrocities being committed by the Indian forces on the people of Kashmir are there for all to see but the Bangladeshi minister can’t see those. Why? Is it because he is a former leader of the India-supported Mukti Bahini that assisted the Indians in the dismemberment of Pakistan? He should know that neither is Balochistan like the former East Pakistan nor do former Mukti Bahini leaders represent the people of Bangladesh in their entirety.

The other leader who appreciated Modi’s comments was Hamid Karzai, the former Afghan president. In a recent visit to India he supported the ‘veiled Indian threat’ to Pakistan. His comments are significant as they came days ahead of the planned visit to Delhi by the Afghan Army Chief General Qadam Shah Shamim. The Hindu reports that the Afghan general will be carrying a wish list to India with the aim of acquiring military hardware. Over the years, Afghanistan has preferred the Indian lap more than the hand of friendship extended by Pakistan. To the dislike of the Pakistani establishment, this behaviour has shown no signs of abating. As long as Afghanistan’s growing ties with India were not at cross purpose with our national interest, there wasn’t much to be alarmed about but now the diplomatic vibes coming from our western neighbour are increasingly unfriendly. It is in this context that the authorities in Pakistan took the harsh step of closing the Chaman border after Afghan protesters burnt a Pakistani flag. The closure of the border crossing by Pakistan may be a necessary tactical counterpunch and a soft reminder to its neighbour to get its foreign policy bearings right.

At the tactical level, Pakistan’s response reflects the desire of the vast majority of the people in this country. At the operational level, too, Pakistan is doing what is needed — the raising of 22 new wings of the civil armed forces to protect the CPEC is a step in the right direction. We should also fast determine and identify how to reposition our security forces to ward off the likely enemy attacks that will now be a part of its asymmetric warfare on our western front. Strategically we need to finally determine on which side Afghanistan stands. Will it stop interfering negatively with our growing stability and security needs? If the assessment is that it won’t, then it is time to take a tough position against a neighbour that is doing everything to ally with our enemy.

Pakistan apprehensive of US-India defence deal

As long as the CPEC remains on the Indian radar, let there be no doubt that the Pakistan military and its intelligence agencies will continue to confront India-induced terrorist acts. The shift in India’s policy towards Pakistan is real and it means that it will utilise violent tools and means to impose asymmetric warfare on Pakistan. Our western front with an unreliable neighbour exposes us to an enemy coalition that is seeking to create trouble. We will not be able to ward off this trouble if we don’t retain the initiative. The political and military establishment needs to go into many a security huddle in the coming weeks and months to ensure that all needed resources are put to good work to create and then sustain a secure western front.

The currently disinterested international community should take notice of Indian atrocities in Kashmir and caution India that equating state tyranny in the valley with the situation in Balochistan is not wise. The international community has to come clean on how it views the Kashmiris’ movement for self-determination, which is part of the UN agenda. There is no better time than now for world leaders to ponder over this question with the UN General Assembly session just around the corner.

Lastly, it will be interesting to see how our prime minister responds to his Indian counterpart who continues to scapegoat Pakistan for his own failures in Kashmir. A mute prime minister is the last thing we want to see at this stage.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1st, 2016.

 

[Hellfire]

A bit late to react, ain't it?

Anyways few facts to ponder over: Indian MoS for Foreign Affairs goes to Saudi Arabia on 21 Aug 2016 and is there for a a few days.

29 Aug 2016 curfew being lifted in phased manner in J&K. Saudi Defence Minister arrives in Pakistan and holds discussion till early hours of the morning.

30 Aug 2016 curfew lifted. Valley peaceful. Kerry arrives

Now what am I missing here, I wonder? Anyone to explain this?

@MilSpec @anant_s @Spectre

 

[SarthakGanguly]

A bit late to react, ain't it?

Anyways few facts to ponder over: Indian MoS for Foreign Affairs goes to Saudi Arabia on 21 Aug 2016 and is there for a a few days.

29 Aug 2016 curfew being lifted in phased manner in J&K. Saudi Defence Minister arrives in Pakistan and holds discussion till early hours of the morning.

30 Aug 2016 curfew lifted. Valley peaceful. Kerry arrives

Now what am I missing here, I wonder? Anyone to explain this?

@MilSpec @anant_s @Spectre

Winter is approaching. September and October is the time people stock up. The capital will also shift for the winter to Jammu. Any protest in Srinagar then will lead to ... well, people vanishing. The RR will make sure that happens. There won't be any media to report either.

 

[nair]

This was an official statement of intent as it was embedded in the clearly defined objective of the Indian intelligence agency’s operations in Balochistan. “You do one more Mumbai and you lose Balochistan” was the narrative unfolded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s own National Security Adviser AK Doval just months after he was appointed in 2014.

I thought he made that speech as retired official....... Most probably that time he had no clue about he becoming NSA....

 

[Hellfire]

An attempt of some sorts to understand the new Indian policy.

Tough Love: Modi Doctrine for Pakistan

News18

Ayushman Jamwal

Since the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, for many years India has maintained a pacifist stance with Pakistan. Several Indian governments have repeatedly sought talks with Pakistan over numerous border disputes, trade ties and regional pacts, staying the course despite multiple insurgencies and attacks by Pakistan based terror groups. Indian armed forces have also maintained a state of ‘self-defence’, targeting infiltrators and terror cells but never launching pre-emptive strikes on Pakistani soil.

The Pakistan narrative from many Indian governments has been quite subdued, an effect of the ‘Cold Start’ military doctrine, which focuses on military buildup to spark economic instability in the rival nation, along with a focus on international and diplomatic levers to maintain pressure. India continues to adhere to this doctrine, yet under PM Modi’s guidance, there is an increased focus on optics with India waging a public relations battle on the diplomatic stage. The status quo remains the same between the two nations, but the Modi government has taken a more aggressive political stance. Modi has suspended talks over Pakistan officials meeting Jammu and Kashmir separatists, set the agenda for bilateral engagements namely removing Kashmir from the joint-statement at the Ufa summit, repeatedly raised the threat of terror from Pakistan on the international stage and most recently, highlighted atrocities of the Pakistan army in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and Balochistan via the forum of his Independence Day speech. Enforcing ‘red lines’ comes in conjunction with a highly emotive and globally recognised image of Pakistan as under siege and even controlled by terrorists and fanatics. It is a perception bolstered by news and images of multiple terror attacks, thousands attending rallies organised by extremists and the killings of secular activists and media personalities. It is an image that popular culture has latched on to, showcasing it in movies, TV shows and video games, feeding on the ‘civil war’ in the nation to sustain the terror narrative in the West.

At the same time, Modi made a historic move inviting Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif and other South Asian heads of state to attend his swearing-in ceremony. In December in 2015, the Prime Minister made an unscheduled visit to Lahore to attend Nawaz Sharif’s granddaughter’s wedding a week after both sides agreed to a Comprehensive Bilateral dialogue. Prime Minister Modi also invited a Pakistan probe team to survey the site of the Pathankot terror strike, even though India was denied permission to assess the probe across the border.

In the book ‘The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations’, academic Jan Melissen says that, “Both public diplomacy and public affairs are directly affected by the forces of globalisation and the recent revolution in communication technology, in an era in which it has become increasingly important to influence world opinion.” While maintaining and publicising outreach to Pakistan, Modi has toughened India’s position on multiple bilateral issues where earlier jibes from across the border would go unanswered. Modi understands and is capitalising on this public relations game, fitting neatly with the communication tactics and politics of neo-diplomacy in the 21st Century.

A different aspect of this strategy has been to de-legitimise separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir. Even as the state remains tense in the aftermath of the death of terrorist Burhan Wani, separatist leaders have been absent in the national dialogue. The notion of a separate state of Kashmir or union with Pakistan has been sidelined by the basic political squabble over handling of the violence in the valley. Many separatist leaders like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik have been behind bars or under house arrest during the violent protests in the valley. Their narrative has been isolated from the discussion to counter the impression that they are stakeholders in the Jammu and Kashmir debate, something created by the coverage they receive in the national media. Separatists in Jammu and Kashmir are a minor group who have gained prominence only because of the widely accepted narrative of the ‘disputed’ Kashmir region, but have almost no political power in the state. They are only active in 5 of the 22 districts in the state - Srinagar, Anantnag, Baramullah, Kulgam and Pulwama and their writ has some say only over 15% of the population of J&K. As the media tends to be their only source of power, the government is using police powers to target their movement to isolate them from the mainstream discussion on Kashmir, targeting Pakistan’s political narrative in the region. The government wants neglect to kill the ideological weed Pakistan planted in Kashmir.

The effect of Modi’s strategy has been that he has goaded the Pakistan government to become increasingly vocal about Kashmir. As the Prime Minister talks tough on Kashmir, highlighting human rights atrocities in Pakistan’s disputed territories, and strips the political power of separatists, Nawaz Sharif has stepped in to fill the void to maintain the friction. After his party the PML-N swept the legislative assembly elections in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Sharif gave an animated speech at a victory rally in Muzaffarabad where he pumped his fists and said, “Kashmir will become part of Pakistan”. In the wake of Burhan Wani’s death, Sharif declared him a martyr observing a ‘Black Day’ against India, and even offered to treat pellet gun victims in Kashmir. The re-focus on Kashmir also works to counter the heat the Pakistan Prime Minister is facing over the Panama Leaks scandal involving his children, but Kashmir is a tried and tested political pitch in Pakistan as it is central to the anti-India narrative

Prime Minister Modi’s Independence Day speech on Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan has also sparked protests in the two regions, with hundreds burning Indian flags and effigies of Prime Minister Modi. It is nothing more than a political tactic to counter Modi’s pitch, as the two regions are central to Pakistan and China’s newfound economic and diplomatic bonhomie, namely the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Not only has Sharif named Masood Khan, a former Ambassador to China as the new President of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, reports suggest Pakistan will soon shed its military-centric view of Gilgit-Baltistan, elevate it from the status of a ‘buffer zone’ and absorb it into the nation’s Constitution as well as grant representation to elected leaders. It is ironic that a nation yearning for Kashmiri liberation has for so many decades not given the region representation in its National Assembly. Clearly, the move comes to appease and maintain Beijing’s support, but it also smacks of how Islamabad used to view the people of Bangladesh, as second-class citizens, residents of a region nothing more than an economic colony.

Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” The optics surrounding India-Pakistan ties are far more malleable than tangible changes on the ground. Only military intervention has shifted the borders and the status quo, but in the nuclear age, war is the biggest enemy. The Modi government has used the world’s negative view of Pakistan over the rampant plague of terrorism to boost India’s narrative on the global stage, enforcing the red lines of engagement, even sidelining Kashmir as an international issue. For many years, the Kashmir debate has only focused on the region in India’s control, but Prime Minister Modi has expanded the debate to Azad Kashmir and Balochistan, re-directing Pakistan’s narrative against itself, putting a spotlight on human rights violations the Sharif government cannot hide, deny or ignore. At the same time, Modi has come across as magnanimous, reaching out to the Pakistan government to keep channels of engagement open.

'Shake and slap' is how one can describe the nature of Pakistan’s engagement with India for over 50 years. Prime Minister Modi seems to be returning the favour.

http://www.msn.com/en-in/news/newsindia/tough-love-modi-doctrine-for-pakistan/ar-AAiknwt?li=AAggbRN


@SarthakGanguly

@Spectre @Rain Man @anant_s @third eye @Aero @MilSpec

I thought he made that speech as retired official....... Most probably that time he had no clue about he becoming NSA....

No... other day there was a thread on digging trenches for Pakistan .... our friends across the border are good analysts .. they managed to join the dots

Winter is approaching. September and October is the time people stock up. The capital will also shift for the winter to Jammu. Any protest in Srinagar then will lead to ... well, people vanishing. The RR will make sure that happens. There won't be any media to report either.

No need for any vanishing ... it is winter .. too cold to go out ....

 

[nair]

No... other day there was a thread on digging trenches for Pakistan .... our friends across the border are good analysts .. they managed to join the dots

Any Info on the timing of that speech??? I thought it was in 2013......

 

[Hellfire]

Question comes: Does Pakistan now incorporate Gilgit-Baltistan officially as a part of its territory? Raising the question on GB has certainly upped the stakes for China.

As any sane nation, China would want to protect its investments, for that it needs to be sure of GB region. In the past too, China has asked Pakistan to take steps to incorporate GB into Pakistan as a state, a move being resisted by Pakistan on the larger issue of their stand on the erstwhile princely state of Jammu & Kashmir.

What are the options for Pakistan now? Will it continues to resist the increasing Chinese pressures over GB or will it finally incorporate GB into Pakistan as a state, fulfilling the long pending demand of the local people and Chinese themselves?

Has Modi's move, indeed, been designed in forcing a settlement on Kashmir?

Need to seriously ponder over this aspect now.

Any Info on the timing of that speech??? I thought it was in 2013......

Doval's? I think it was in Feb 2014.

I tagged you on chabahar thread .. did you muse over what point of view I put out?

A couple of years back I had posted on a shift likely to incremental costs for Pakistani state while keeping it below threshold of anarchy. Month and half back I had posted about Baluchistan issue being linked. People got offended on that. Now I have laid out another matrix. May I request you to give an opinion?

 

[nair]

I tagged you on chabahar thread .. did you muse over what point of view I put out?

i guess missed that tag......... Can you tag me or provide the link pls

 

[Hellfire]

i guess missed that tag......... Can you tag me or provide the link pls

https://defence.pk/threads/us-backs...-china-pakistan-gwadar-project.432213/page-11


PS: am going to bombard @Joe Shearer with mails to come back ... let's see what happens.

 

[nair]

https://defence.pk/threads/us-backs...-china-pakistan-gwadar-project.432213/page-11


PS: am going to bombard @Joe Shearer with mails to come back ... let's see what happens.

Got it thanks....... Gimme some time, will post my views there.......

 

[Pakistan First]

As has been the tradition of Express Tribune, a weak article written by an even weaker author.

Pakistan is not only well aware of Indian plans but has successfully neutralised their assets in our neck of the woods. The huge investments India made in baluchistan to cultivate its assets is now wasted.

The response from our side (ISI) has always been discreet and covert and it has already started. The rants that we hear these days from Indian side is because their plans went down the drawn thanks to the successes achieved during Zarb-e-Azb and which is still continuing, with focus now in urban areas. These rants are a result of this pain. India was silent when they were investing, scheming and executing those schemes, but now that all those efforts have gone wasted, they are frustrated and making noise.

Pakistanis, do not worry. Baluchistan and our northern areas have been cleansed and what we see now are the last efforts (Quetta blast) of the remaining few remnants which are also in the process of being cleansed. Starting from the North, going to the west (baluchistan) and now in Sindh (Karachi etc), the operation has already entered southern punjab. It's a 360 degree plan being executed anti-clockwise and WILL REACH ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION only once all remnants of these anti-state terrorists (militant and economic), are wiped off.

Let the dogs bark. They know they've been able to achieve nothing other than inflict temporary pain to us. Their plans to break up Pakistan have gone up in smoke. And we Pakistanis all know well, who to thank for keeping Pakistan safe, secure and united (after Allah SwT of course).

Pakistan Zindabad

 

[nair]

@hellfire

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/op-ed/210816/360-degree-balochistan-paks-untold-story.html

 

[Musafir117]

Biggest democracy

 

[Nalini]

Let me share one more analysis. According to MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) treaty, India doesn't have the authority or right to share or sell any missile above 300 km range as yet .

Brahmos Block-III is a joint Russian-Indian project, which is based on the P-800 Oniks missile, which is exported under the name ‘Yakhont’ which has a range of 600 km already. So Brahmos being an advanced upgraded version of the former & with already excellent missile development experience of India, this Brahmos should easily & ideally have minimum 600-800 km range. The Chinese fear it could be 800-1000 km or ever higher. Brahmos has been reported to have a range of 290-295 km though.

These missiles deployed now at Arunachal border & already on the way to Vietnam followed by Phillipines, Malaysia, Indonesia is nightmare for China.

We do have other missiles like Agni 5 & many more apart from this. But the deadliest is Brahmos among all in-spite of its short range due to it's speed & low flying capability. And another biggest achievement of India is they have developed all 3 versions of Land, Air & Water based attack.

Look how China's tone & words are changing in the above video. It's expressing the same concerns, which we have been putting across desperately to them for so many years. Every former leaders have told to not create unwanted tension with India, but China has been weaponizing its border & playing games at will with no respect. Now it's our turn

 

[4GTejasBVR]

It all took one sentence on independence day speech. And entire Pakistan establishments are running from pillar to post... And no one cared about Pakistan in India. All news media in Pakistan comparing with India and what India doing every inch of it. One says ban bollywood others says send mps for world tours. Army chief name calling Indian prime minister

Just chill

LOL, A retired MOD openely planning to spread Terrorism on Public Forum and have plan to ship weapons in Indian Kashmir.

FAT COW Modi -- He He Ha Ha -- The Fat Modi -- The Butcher of Gujrat with highest Civilian Award of Saudi Arabia.

Lage Raho Mamoo.

MAMOO RETIRE Q HO GAYE HO​

It's open media sources available to most of general public. People starting to realize the huge Gabriel between India and Pakistan.