Senator Mushahid Hussain
Senator Mushahid Hussain is Chairman of Pakistan’s Parliamentary Committee on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and founding Chairman of the think tank Pakistan-China Institute. This is an abridged extract of an article which was first published in the Pakistan Army Green Boo 2020. The views expressed do not represent the views of IMR
After the annexation of Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IOJK), it is clear that Modi has bitten off more than he can chew by spawning a crisis that is hitting at the heart of the Indian State, transforming its very character in a manner that it’s narrow-minded, bigoted Establishment could never have anticipated.
Consider the consequences and far-reaching implications of this decision:
• Modi has divided India on political and communal lines that can have grave implications for Indian national unity and domestic stability.
• Kashmir has been internationalized in a manner that was never done to this extent not since the 1965 India-Pakistan War, with wholesale condemnation of the Indian action from Beijing to Brussels.
• The Kashmir dispute has been discussed for the first time in the UN Security Council since the 1998 nuclear tests, when the UN Security Council, on June 6, 1998, passed the last unanimous Resolution # 1172, mentioning Kashmir by name: ”Urges India and Pakistan to resume dialogue between them on all outstanding issues… and encourages them to find mutually acceptable solutions that address the root causes of those tensions, including Kashmir”.
• Modi’s move has galvanized separatists within India ranging from the Nagas who are now setting new pre-conditions in their talks with New Delhi, for example, seeking their”separate flag and constitution” as part of broader autonomy, while the Sikhs are actively campaigning for a Khalistan Referendum in 2020.
• China has been alienated since China, now like Pakistan and the Kashmiri people, is directly a party to the dispute because of Modi’s action to partition IOJK and declaring Laddakh a Union Territory. It was, therefore, not surprising that high-powered Chinese Military Delegation that visited Pakistan on August 26, included the People’s Liberation Army Commander for ‘Southern Tibet’, the area on the Chinese side bordering India.
• The worst possible consequences have been within IOJK where resistance to repression has been rising, with an unprecedented curfew and complete lockdown, complete cutoff of all communication, a situation that did not even prevail during the height of the siege of Stalingrad or Leningrad during World War II. 6000 Kashmir is have been arrested without any charges and sent outside IOJK to jails in India ranging from the octogenarian former Chief Minister Dr. Farooq Abdullah to young teenage girls whose only crime has been to talk of ‘Azadi’ (freedom).
• While there is a lot of bluff and bluster in Indian posturing, even nuclear sabre-rattling with the August 16 statement of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh questioning the utility of India’s professed “No First Use” policy on nuclear weapons. The fact is that, deep down, the Indian Establishment, particularly the RSS gang led by Modi, combines a curious mixture of hatred and fear of Pakistan. They have what can be termed as a “Mehmood of Ghazni Complex”, in other words, a fear of the Muslim inclination to ‘go against the tide’ to challenge injustice and wrong irrespective of an unequal size or strength! Sultan Mehmood of Ghazni has always been a very fascinating figure for the Hindutva ideologues, who, for them, symbolises what they view as “Muslim hordes from the North” with the Pakistan State seen as his contemporary potential ‘successor’.
Modi, who is from Gujrat, also knows that the famous Somnath Temple, located in his State, was a favourite target of Sultan Mehmood of Ghazni. A deep-seated loathing of Sultan Mehmood is embedded in the Hindutva mindset. In 1978, when the then BJP Chief and Foreign Minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee, went on an official visit to Afghanistan, the only special request he made was to visit Ghazni. His Afghan hosts were surprised, they said ”Ghazni is just a small town, it’s not a tourist spot, it has no 5-star hotels, why would you wish to go to such a place?” Vajpayee said ‘Ghazni is like a thorn that continues to hurt us as Sultan Mehmood, the marauder who looted India several times, came from there!” Conversely, Allama Iqbal, who was invited by King Nadir Shah to visit Afghanistan in 1933, also requested for a special visit to Ghazni to pay homage to the memory of Sultan Mehmood, in whose honour he penned a few famous couplets. It is thus no accident that Modi declared his intention to “free India from1200 years of slavery” in his speech to the Indian Parliament on June 12, 2014. Clearly, Modi’s reference is to the period of Muslim domination in India as the British rule lasted for only 200 years.
For Pakistan, it should be clear that an existential threat is posed by Modi’s India as the annexation of IOJK is the most important development for South Asia since 1971, given that the geography of the region has been changed. Modi and his RSS gang are also fervent believers in the notion of “Akhand Bharat” (Greater India). So a fascist India will likely become more aggressive with Pakistan through low-intensity conflict, proxy wars, covert operations, threat of war and nuclear blackmail.
This situation should also be viewed in the context of the new global scenario where the balance of economic and political power is shifting from the West to the East. The 21st Century is an “Asian Century”, particularly China’s transition from a regional to a global power. Then there are makings of a New Cold War with the US National Security Strategy of 2018 terming China and Russia as a “more serious threat than Al Qaeda or ISIS”.
Therefore, Pakistan needs to understand the nature of the challenge posed by Modi’s move:
• The challenge is multi-dimensional: military, diplomatic, media, legal, all of which require sustaining a long-term strategy over a protracted period for the rest of Modi’s term, at least 3-5 years.
• 70% of the battle is in the domain of public diplomacy and propaganda, the battle of narratives, the ‘battle of ideas’, through media, think tanks, NGOs/civil society, human rights groups, parliamentary diplomacy, keeping up the Kashmiri morale while promoting a cohesive and credible Pakistani narrative, which we can sell at home and abroad.
• Clarity about the kind of enemy we are facing: this is the die-hard ideological Hindutva crowd who hate Muslims and Pakistan, who presided over the ethnic cleansing of over 2000 Muslims in India’s Gujrat State in 2002, who actually believe in ‘Akhand Bharat’, and who are proud successors of the killers of Mahatma Gandhi. They will give no quarter and we should have no illusions about them either, as they will goto any extent to damage Pakistan.
Given this context, Pakistan needs to pursue a multi-pronged strategy with a kind of clarity and commitment that Pakistani policy makers demonstrated while building the Nuclear Bomb. Once the decision was taken in 1974, the Bomb project was pursued to its logical conclusion in a relentless, single minded manner, irrespective of any pressures and it achieved success when Pakistan detonated its own homemade nuclear device on May 28, 1998, undoubtedly, Pakistan’s finest hour. Such a strategy should target Modi and his RSS gang, and separate them from the broader Indian society and polity that opposes Modi, along with a united front of all Kashmiris and the linkup of the Kashmiri resistance with other insurgencies inside India. Close coordination with China and the rest of the international community through a strategy sustained by national stamina are the need of the hour.
A good example of an unconventional approach is the legal initiative taken by the Kashmir-Khalistan Referendum Front in an American court of law. The 73-page law suit accuses Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah as well as IOJK Commander, Lt Gen Kanwaljeet Singh Dhillon, of carrying out “extra judicial killings, wrongful deaths, crimes against humanity” against Kashmiris. The law suit against the Indian Prime Minister was filed under a Federal American statute, Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, which allows civil suits on US soil against foreign officials who have violated Human Rights. Similar law suits in European courts, which also have a universal jurisdiction on Human Rights, can embarrass and damage the Indian leadership and expose the crimes that are being committed by them in the IOJK.
For starters, the focus should be on a Pakistani narrative. Indian writer Arundhati Roy’s classic article in The New York Times of August 15, 2019,”Silence is the Loudest Sound” provides some useful pointers, since it says it all:
• Modi’s annexation of IOJK has a “distinct whiff of colonialism in the air”.
• ‘RSS is the State’ in Modi’s India.
• ‘An Architecture of Indian fascism is quickly being put in place’ by Modi and the RSS gang.
• “There has not been a single year since 1947 when the Indian Army has not been deployed within India’s borders against its ‘own people’. The list is long: IOJK, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Hyderabad, Assam,…”
To meet this existential threat, Pakistan needs single-minded determination with clarity and commitment. Luckily, Pakistan has got strategic space to pursue the Kashmir cause for the next couple of years due to changes in the regional scenario:
• Pakistan’s timely ‘course correction’ on the flawed Afghan policy of the past, reinforced by a clampdown on domestic extremism and militancy, Pakistan will no longer be caught in a ‘nutcracker’ like situation of being tied down both on the Western and Eastern borders.
• President Trump has linked his re-election in2020 with the Afghan peace process in which Pakistan’s role is pivotal, hence, he feels that the road to the White House lies through Pakistan. Sooner than later, the Afghan peace talk will have to be revived.
• Thanks to China, which is providing strategic “air cover” to Pakistan through CPEC, the Pakistan-China alliance will be further strengthened for the common cause of a joint strategy to counter India.
• With the Gulf in turmoil and tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the last thing the International Community will want is a conflict between the two South Asian nuclear neighbours.
After India’s annexation of Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the future course of events will depend on three factors. First, while the Indian attempt is to seek a semblance of ‘normalcy’ through the diktat of their bayonets and bullets, with almost a million men under arms trying to enforce the annexation as a fait accompli. The Kashmiri determination to seek “Azadi” which is undeterred by any kind of force, will certainly supercede India’s ‘might is right’ approach as historically ‘right is might’.
Second, Pakistan, as the principal defender of the Kashmiri people and leading exponent of the Kashmir cause, must maintain the resolve and stamina to sustain a long term strategy of supporting the Kashmiri people and resisting Indian hegemony so that the status quo, which is untenable and unacceptable to the Kashmiri people, is changed. Third, the China factor would be key in any strategy as China, being Pakistan’s strategic partner provides Pakistan an entry into the international system, especially the UN Security Council, the G-20 and the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
China’s leadership role in world affairs is a plus for Pakistan after having made the successful transition from a regional power to a global power. As Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi stated on March 18, 2019 during his meeting with his Pakistani counterpart: “no matter how things change in the world and the region, China will firmly support Pakistan in upholding its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and dignity”.
The China factor is also pivotal for two reasons in the context of Kashmir. China’s voice matters in the councils of power globally and when China speaks for Kashmir, that voice is heard loud and clear. An assertive China now has a global voice that resonates in key world capitals. As President Xi Jinping told the Communist Party Congress in Beijing on October 18, 2017 that “China has now become a great power in the world and it is time for us take centre stage in the world and to make a greater contribution to humankind.”
The other factor is China’s growing military might which was on display during the massive October 1, 2019, Chinese National Day military parade in Beijing, which shows that China now has the military prowess as well as the political will and the economic clout to pursue its interests in the region and the world. A key component of those interests is China’s strategic partnership with Pakistan which, as the China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said on September 24, 2019, is “unbreakable”.
The biggest challenge for Pakistani policymakers is going to be on the military front as India’s international image has suffered badly because of Modi’s August 5 blunder and for the first time in30 years, the situation in IOJK is not being blamed on Pakistan, rather the onus is on Indian actions alone. The Indian Establishment, including their military high command and the RSS gang might wish to divert attention away from their own follies and crimes in IOJK and shift the onus on Pakistan either via a “false flag” operation or even a tactical military move on the Line of Control. Such threats have been openly hurled by the Indian military brass. For example, General Bipin Rawat, the Indian Army Chief told the Indian media on September 30 that “if we have to go across (the LOC), we will through the air or the ground route or both. The red line has been very clearly drawn as to what will be the future course of action” and in the same interview, he repeated the canard about “Pakistani terror training camps in Balakot”.
History teaches us that military might cannot crush a people’s will to be free. Vietnam, Afghanistan, racist South Africa and America’s own experience of ‘shock and awe’ in the post 9/11 period are instructive examples of failures of brute force to subjugate a people determined to resist. On August 5, Modi used a tried, tested and failed formula, deploying 900,000 armed men to browbeat 8 million defenceless but resilient and defiant Kashmiris. He assumed, like the Americans did in Iraq in 2003, that it would be a ‘cakewalk’.
Like others of his ilk, that decision has boomeranged and Modi’s India is bound to get stuck and sink in the Kashmir quagmire. This action is a precursor of new challenges and opportunities for Pakistan to seize and to pursue a clear doable strategy that best preserves, protects and promotes the interests of Pakistan and the Kashmir cause that we as a Nation are committed to espouse. Above all, it is a test of our leadership and the mettle of our people. As the Quaid-e-Azam said: ”Let it not be said that we did not prove ourselves equal to the task”.
