From atop the Red Fort, on Independence Day, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, in his speech to the nation, strongly raised the cause of Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Many Indian prime ministers, from Indira Gandhi to her son, Rajiv, to Manmohan Singh, had quietly supported contacts with Baloch separatists and anti-Islamabad elements in PoK. But none had come out in open support of these causes.
No wonder, Baloch separatists and similar elements in PoK have welcomed Modi's show of support. Hammal Haidar Baloch, the spokesperson of the Baloch National Movement (UK), made a major point when he said, "It is for the first time that an Indian Prime Minister has expressed his wish to support the Baloch people. And, I think it is a very crucial decision made by the Indian government..." Modi did not support the cause of secession as brazenly as some over-enthusiastic Indian media outlets reported. But he did promise to internationalize the Baloch and the PoK causes, especially the 'atrocities' perpetrated by Pakistan.
What did Modi say exactly? "I want to speak a bit about the people in Balochistan, Gilgit, Baltistan, and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir... The world is watching. People of Balochistan, Gilgit and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have thanked me a lot in the past few days." "I am grateful to them," he added. Modi had also said that it was time for Islamabad to explain to the world "why it has been committing atrocities on people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Balochistan." This was as blunt as it could get.
Cornered somewhat in the Kashmir Valley by unending protests and separatist violence that are clearly backed by Pakistan, Modi appears to have launched a fierce counter-attack against Pakistan's efforts to internationalize the 'Kashmir freedom struggle'. Modi's raising of the Baloch and PoK causes came a day after Pakistan decided to dedicate its Independence Day this year to the cause of 'Kashmir's struggle for freedom'. That both the Baloch government-in-exile and the Gilgit-Baltistan Society and its other affiliates are based in the United States of America is significant.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee had once warned Pakistan that " Jo mulk ekbar tuta hai, usse fir tora ja sakta hai (a country, once broken, can be broken up again)". He was a subtle man, but the frustration over Kargil-for-Lahore had upset him into making such a comment. Modi also started by inviting Nawaz Sharif to his swearing-in ceremony and, then, by visiting him at his home. But as Islamabad cries shrill on Kashmir and its agencies step on the gas by sending fresh batches of mujahideens into the Valley, the Indian prime minister has done what he does best - launched a counter-attack.
Both Vajpayee and Modi had started off by making a serious effort to befriend Pakistan only to be left feeling jilted. But while Vajpayee restricted himself to a conventional response to the Kargil challenge, even asking the defence forces to avoid crossing borders and violating Pakistani air space to prevent an unmanageable escalation, Modi seems to be signalling a vicious tit-for-tat response to the continuing unrest in Kashmir.
That is something Modi's national security advisor, Ajit Doval, seems to have always favoured. It is no secret that Doval has a much greater influence on Modi's neighbourhood policy than the ministry of external affairs. It is also no secret that Doval has sought to hit out hard at Pakistan's fault lines, and that he has the support of many in India's intelligence establishment in exercising this tactical option in Balochistan and PoK where huge protests have now erupted over the arrest of a local leader, Baba Jan. Pakistan has not handled the protests carefully, and the arrests of nearly 500 young people have fuelled the flames.
Pakistan's frequent threats to use tactical nuclear weapons have left India with very little option but to blunt Pakistan-backed terrorism in the Valley or elsewhere in India. A 1971-type conventional war is considered out of question and even limited cross-border thrusts with conventional military formations (articulated by the 'Cold Start Doctrine') seem to be out of favour because they could lead to unacceptable escalation. No major power would wish an open confrontation between two nuclear-armed neighbours. India's successful use of 'irregular assets' in Sindh during Rajiv Gandhi's time has continued to inspire the likes of Doval to fall back on 'insurgent crossfire'. (This has been affirmed by India's reputed spymaster, the late B. Raman, in his The Kaoboys of R&AW. Such a tactic had forced Pakistan to back off from interfering in Indian Punjab.) This is a familiar pattern of nation-states backing hostile armed separatist movements against each other in post-colonial South Asia that I had detailed in my 1996 book, Insurgent Crossfire. "You back separatists on my territory, I reciprocate", seems to have been the name of the game in post-colonial South Asia.
In the early 1960s, Tripura's first chief minister, Sachindra Lal Singha, had advocated this line not so successfully with Jawaharlal Nehru but very successfully with his daughter, Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi had asked Singha how to control the spiral of ever-spreading insurgencies in India's Northeast, to which the Tripura chief minister gave a simple answer - "Kick Pakistan out of the East". Singha had been in touch with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (detailed in my book, The Agartala Doctrine) since the latter's secret visit to Agartala in 1962 . He relentlessly lobbied for Indian support for an independent Bangladesh not merely because he was emotionally attached to the cause but also because he saw it as the only way to counter insurgencies backed by Pakistan in the Northeast.
The 'China factor' may have also spurred Doval and Modi to raise the ante on Balochistan and PoK (this includes Gilgit-Baltistan that has a Shia majority). Modi's Independence-Day speech was timed keeping in mind the visit of the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, to India. China gives considerable importance to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as part of its One Belt One Road and Maritime Silk Road initiatives. Since the CPEC starts in PoK and ends at the Balochistan coastline where China has funded the Gwadar port, Indian support to separatists with the threat of consequential violence would worry Beijing. All the more so because China is clearly uncomfortable with India's not-so-concealed teaming up with Japan, the US and Asean neighbours on the South China Sea issue. So any bait or threat that works on Beijing when Delhi is desperate to get its objections removed on India's NSG membership seems to be welcome. In fact, it is perhaps to embarrass China and defeat its land-to-access strategy via several corridors that the US may end up tacitly supporting India's threatened covert offensive in Balochistan and PoK.
But if Modi's expression of support for the Baloch and PoK struggles is not followed up aggressively by Indian agencies in building up armed movements in these areas, his Independence-Day speech will ring hollow in a while and India will come across as a toothless tiger whose threats are not to be taken seriously. After I.K. Gujral closed down the special Research & Analysis Wing units tasked to promote the covert offensive in Sindh, India has been left without critical 'small war capability' to offset the ISI's 'thousand cuts' policy against India.
Hopefully, Modi's comments on Independence Day come after some of that capacity has been redeveloped by Doval and his band of 'covert warriors'. But if that is not the case, it would end up defeating the tit-for-tat line that Doval has so relentlessly advocated since his days at the top of Indian intelligence. It remains to be seen whether he finds in Modi the kind of support that would have never come from Vajpayee, and, surely, not from the likes of Gujral. It is also important to ensure that a limited tactical vision does not overshadow India's larger strategic aims of neutralizing Pakistan, if not attempting to break it up again.
