India’s moral advantage is at risk

Foreign secretary S. Jaishankar set off a verbal duel with Pakistan on April 6 at Carnegie Endowment’s India Centre opening when, after characterising Pakistan “in a category by itself”, he asserted that India has managed to keep the focus “firmly on the issue of terrorism”. Pakistan’s high commissioner Abdul Basit in Delhi reacted publicly that the Indian National Investigating Agency’s team could not proceed to Pakistan as reciprocity could not be assumed and, moreover, the dialogue process with India stood suspended. Surprisingly, the Indian ministry of external affairs sought solace in a slightly earlier statement from Islamabad that seemed to keep the door open.

The Modi government’s relations with Pakistan have oscillated between dramatic engagement and recriminating exchanges. The current phase commenced with the national security advisers of the two countries meeting early December 2015 in Bangkok. A two-track mechanism was created, by-passing the stand-off over India not having received Sartaj Aziz, the then NSA, disagreeing over the agenda which India wanted terror-centred. Pakistan reacted by appointing a recently retired corps commander covering Balochistan, Lt. Gen. Naseer Khan Janjua, as NSA. The implication was that if Indian NSA Ajit Doval was terrorism-fixated, theirs would steer it to Indian links to the fifth Baloch uprising, simmering since 2005.

On paper, the two-track proposal made sense as the NSAs could grapple with terror while the foreign secretaries could reshape the two-decade-old “composite” — now renamed “comprehensive” — dialogue to better reflect current realities, hopefully reviving the peace process. Many issues amongst the eight boxes of the old format were mature for clinching.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi moved with surprising diplomatic alacrity, stopping in Lahore on Christmas Eve, ostensibly for the wedding of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s grand-daughter. In three weeks, a new dynamic was emerging in relations with Pakistan, replete with possibilities. The absence of the new Pakistani NSA at Lahore hinted at the Army being unimpressed by Modi-Nawaz socialising. Within days, on January 1, 2016, a well-planned attack was executed by fidayeen of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) on the sensitive airbase at Pathankot — perhaps anyway in the works which its sponsors refused to abort.

Pakistan did not, this time, automatically deny trans-border links. Some conflicting reports emerged of action against JeM, including its leader Masood Azhar. Pakistan agreed to send a special investigating team (SIT) to collect evidence. On balance, India, despite serious reservations amongst many, allowed it to visit even the airbase.

However, warning signals existed that all was not right with India-Pakistan relations. Pakistani analysts bandied Mr Doval’s warning to Pakistan at the 10th Nani Palkivala Memorial speech in February 2014 that, “You may do one Mumbai; you may lose Balochistan”. Pakistan had been seeking moral equivalence with India since their complicity in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks of 2008 was globally acknowledged. In international think tank meetings, Pakistan’s counter-allegations that Indian consulates in Afghanistan were abetting terror against Pakistan used to raise eyebrows.

Pakistan’s Army is, however, convinced of Indian aid to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a Taliban splinter that is rabidly anti-Pakistan establishment and Army, and Balochistan insurgency. The allegations about an Indian “hand” in terror resumed seriously last year in April 2015 when the Pakistani Army began degrading the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) political machine in Karachi. Conveniently, a BBC report in June 2015 quoted MQM sources confessing to British authorities Indian financial aid to MQM head Altaf Hussein, self-exiled in London.

With 46 per cent of Pakistan’s area and only five per cent of the population, Balochistan is now undergoing a fifth uprising, exacerbated by the Army killing Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006. The 1971 break-up of Pakistan and Bangladesh’s secession triggered the previous serious uprising when President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, under Iranian prodding, dismissed an elected government and started military action. This was because Balochis, speaking a language related to Persian, spill into Afghanistan in the North and Iran in the West. The rise of the Kurds today in West Asia also fires their aspirations. A Brahui minority speaking a Dravidian language is their ally. Balochistan has large known reserves of gas, gold and copper, and perhaps likely reserves of oil and uranium. The announcement of the $45 billion Gwadar-pegged Pakistan-China economic corridor has only heightened Baloch feeling of exploitation without development. Pakistan employs brute force to tackle regional aspirations, having forgotten its East Bengal lesson.

Pakistan’s arrest of an alleged R&AW agent and former naval officer, Kulbhushan Jadhav, said to have crossed into Balochistan from Iran, takes what Mr Doval calls “defensive offence” to a new dimension. Because Indian diplomats have been denied access, it is impossible to confirm how he landed in Balochistan. It is possible he was lured or kidnapped by state or non-state entities before being handed over to Pakistani intelligence. This adds a dangerous new dimension to the terror game Pakistan has played since the 1980s, first in Punjab, then Jammu and Kashmir, and finally all across India.

Two consequences are self-evident: One, that NSAs must not or be seen as running operations as that blunts their ability to engage Pakistan diplomatically. Two, such stories, real or contrived, will cost India its moral advantage over Pakistan, generally perceived as a nation sponsoring terror. The Chinese may be testing that when thwarting the listing of JeM by the relevant UNSC committee. The Modi government wants terror addressed before meaningful dialogue. The Doval doctrine may have supporters who preach eye-for-an-eye and think this can deter Pakistani sponsors of terror. Let them first reflect on what it cost India in Sri Lanka — the lives of brave soldiers and the assassination of a former Prime Minister.

The writer is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry. He tweets at @ambkcsingh