It’s complicated
India continues to play a provocative game in its territorial disputes with Pakistan, China and Nepal
PHOTO: AFP
All too often, nations large and small get caught up in a vortex of their own hubris, prompting them to take such decisions, or precipitate such events which they find difficult to extricate from, subsequently. All too often, this is because of self-delusion or arrogance – or simply, stupidity.
As the largest country of the region it has traditionally been identified with – South Asia – India is definitely the elephant in the room. Because of its size, population and economic clout, it figures out prominently in every discussion and calculation of the politico-security, fiscal and socio-cultural matrices within the surrounding SAARC countries. Over a period of time, this has perhaps led to a sense of self-importance within India, which may have been further inflated by the patronage and support of the US and Israel, who view its ultra-nationalist regime and outlook as being a convenient bulwark against resurgent Islam, or as a counter-weight to the behemoth that is China.
And that last word is receiving a lot of air time in India, nowadays. “China”.
Recently, the Indian media has erupted in sound and fury over what it has termed a Chinese “incursion” into the remote and barren Ladakh region, an eruption that has been largely-met with stony silence from around the globe. While the world continues to look askance, there has been much indignation in India over this aspect. The overly-vociferous Indian media – which, in today’s turbulent times of ultra-nationalism, jingoism, a frenzied quest for higher and higher viewership leading to more and more shrillness, and by way of habit from beating war-drums with Pakistan at every given opportunity – has been particularly animated over this Chinese “transgression”. Of course, they conveniently gloss over how this may have been a case of “just desserts” for India, by it having possibly provoked this action to begin with.
The Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China runs for approximately 4,000 kilometres, from north-west to south-west, with Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh on the Indian side, and Tibet on the Chinese side. Generally, Ladakh is a barren area that is sparsely inhabited, and accessible only after great difficulty. Towards the north-western end of the LAC lies the Karakoram Pass between Pakistan and China.
The current imbroglio arose after Indian troops had attempted to carry out defence construction and improvement of logistics-related infrastructure in the area, thereby threatening the Karakorum Pass, which India actually claims. The Chinese responded by passing over 6,000 troops comprising two brigades, across the LAC, at eight points. Four points were occupied in Ladakh, three in the Galwan Valley, and one at the Pangong Lake.
This sort of provocation – resulting from entirely uncalled-for unilateral action by India – though, is nothing new. Some examples of this are the occupation of the disputed IOJK by Indian troops immediately after the partition in 1947; the invasion of the then-independent Hyderabad Deccan in 1948; the incursion into, and annexation of, the then-Dutch areas of Goa-Daman-Diu in 1961; the Sino-Indian war of 1962; the war of 1965 against Pakistan, India’s training-funding-intelligence support to insurgents – coupled with active military participation – against the erstwhile East Pakistan in 1971; the forcible amalgamation of then-independent Sikkim into the Indian state in 1975; the “creep” into the formerly-unoccupied areas of the Siachen glacier in 1984; a host of military actions in the Jaffna area of Sri Lanka between 1987 to 1988; and military intervention in the Maldives in 1989. These are just land operations; there are an equally large number of belligerent acts carried out by the Indian Navy, and the Indian Air Force.
More worryingly, the list does not end here.
Its knee-jerk response to anything happening within India has been to accuse Pakistan of culpability, and steadily whip up a war hysteria coupled with a clamour for “retribution”. To further this, in the past, it has launched surgical strikes – which, admittedly, may have been imaginary, with zero effects, and more-attuned to stoking the imagination of its domestic audience – against Pakistan. The last such endeavour managed to neatly dovetail into the last Indian Elections of 2019. We all know how Indian warplanes crossed the international border as a reaction to the Pulwama incident that year, and how one of the pilots – one Squadron Leader Abhinandan Varthaman – was shot down and captured; and later released by Pakistan, as a goodwill gesture to lessen India’s war-frenzy at the time. He was awarded the Vir Chakra – India’s third-highest wartime award – essentially, for being shot out of the sky. In the process, he may have been infinitesimally instrumental in propelling the BJP government to success in the 2019 elections where being “tough on Pakistan” was its sole elections manifesto. Our good friends at Wikipedia tell us how he’s also stoked a fashion revival of the “handlebar” moustache in India. A film, glorifying his awe-inspiring “descent” to fame, is also on the cards, reportedly.
As recently as August 2019, the Indian government repealed articles of its very own constitution to attempt to “grab-and-snatch” IOJK which the entire world has viewed as disputed territory since the Partition of 1947. Several UN resolutions support this fact. Four wars, and countless border skirmishes between India and Pakistan, attest to it. But still, that gung-ho sense of false bravado and bellicose posturing before an increasingly-intolerant, ultra-nationalistic populace continues, with little internal dissent – if any. One is tempted to wonder whether this behaviour by India is because of the average Indian citizenry, for them, or despite them.
And that is why, having gone unchecked – and uncensured by the world – for so long, India continues to play a provocative game in its territorial disputes with Pakistan, China and Nepal. It has had – or continues to have – disputes with Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Maldives. Not quite the good neighbour that India portrays itself as, after all, one might be forced to think.
With yet another “spy-pigeon” incident having been reported by the Indian armed forces and media, one is also forced to think whether the provocation in Ladakh – which may have been further hyped to distract from the Modi regime’s economic failures, its increasingly draconian laws, and persecution of its own citizens – might lead to a repetition of the Abhinandan-headed action against Pakistan. To...kind of...distract, from Ladakh. It’s complicated. But not entirely inconceivable, you know.
Stranger things have happened.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 15th, 2020.
As the largest country of the region it has traditionally been identified with – South Asia – India is definitely the elephant in the room. Because of its size, population and economic clout, it figures out prominently in every discussion and calculation of the politico-security, fiscal and socio-cultural matrices within the surrounding SAARC countries. Over a period of time, this has perhaps led to a sense of self-importance within India, which may have been further inflated by the patronage and support of the US and Israel, who view its ultra-nationalist regime and outlook as being a convenient bulwark against resurgent Islam, or as a counter-weight to the behemoth that is China.
And that last word is receiving a lot of air time in India, nowadays. “China”.
Recently, the Indian media has erupted in sound and fury over what it has termed a Chinese “incursion” into the remote and barren Ladakh region, an eruption that has been largely-met with stony silence from around the globe. While the world continues to look askance, there has been much indignation in India over this aspect. The overly-vociferous Indian media – which, in today’s turbulent times of ultra-nationalism, jingoism, a frenzied quest for higher and higher viewership leading to more and more shrillness, and by way of habit from beating war-drums with Pakistan at every given opportunity – has been particularly animated over this Chinese “transgression”. Of course, they conveniently gloss over how this may have been a case of “just desserts” for India, by it having possibly provoked this action to begin with.
The Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China runs for approximately 4,000 kilometres, from north-west to south-west, with Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh on the Indian side, and Tibet on the Chinese side. Generally, Ladakh is a barren area that is sparsely inhabited, and accessible only after great difficulty. Towards the north-western end of the LAC lies the Karakoram Pass between Pakistan and China.
The current imbroglio arose after Indian troops had attempted to carry out defence construction and improvement of logistics-related infrastructure in the area, thereby threatening the Karakorum Pass, which India actually claims. The Chinese responded by passing over 6,000 troops comprising two brigades, across the LAC, at eight points. Four points were occupied in Ladakh, three in the Galwan Valley, and one at the Pangong Lake.
This sort of provocation – resulting from entirely uncalled-for unilateral action by India – though, is nothing new. Some examples of this are the occupation of the disputed IOJK by Indian troops immediately after the partition in 1947; the invasion of the then-independent Hyderabad Deccan in 1948; the incursion into, and annexation of, the then-Dutch areas of Goa-Daman-Diu in 1961; the Sino-Indian war of 1962; the war of 1965 against Pakistan, India’s training-funding-intelligence support to insurgents – coupled with active military participation – against the erstwhile East Pakistan in 1971; the forcible amalgamation of then-independent Sikkim into the Indian state in 1975; the “creep” into the formerly-unoccupied areas of the Siachen glacier in 1984; a host of military actions in the Jaffna area of Sri Lanka between 1987 to 1988; and military intervention in the Maldives in 1989. These are just land operations; there are an equally large number of belligerent acts carried out by the Indian Navy, and the Indian Air Force.
More worryingly, the list does not end here.
Its knee-jerk response to anything happening within India has been to accuse Pakistan of culpability, and steadily whip up a war hysteria coupled with a clamour for “retribution”. To further this, in the past, it has launched surgical strikes – which, admittedly, may have been imaginary, with zero effects, and more-attuned to stoking the imagination of its domestic audience – against Pakistan. The last such endeavour managed to neatly dovetail into the last Indian Elections of 2019. We all know how Indian warplanes crossed the international border as a reaction to the Pulwama incident that year, and how one of the pilots – one Squadron Leader Abhinandan Varthaman – was shot down and captured; and later released by Pakistan, as a goodwill gesture to lessen India’s war-frenzy at the time. He was awarded the Vir Chakra – India’s third-highest wartime award – essentially, for being shot out of the sky. In the process, he may have been infinitesimally instrumental in propelling the BJP government to success in the 2019 elections where being “tough on Pakistan” was its sole elections manifesto. Our good friends at Wikipedia tell us how he’s also stoked a fashion revival of the “handlebar” moustache in India. A film, glorifying his awe-inspiring “descent” to fame, is also on the cards, reportedly.
As recently as August 2019, the Indian government repealed articles of its very own constitution to attempt to “grab-and-snatch” IOJK which the entire world has viewed as disputed territory since the Partition of 1947. Several UN resolutions support this fact. Four wars, and countless border skirmishes between India and Pakistan, attest to it. But still, that gung-ho sense of false bravado and bellicose posturing before an increasingly-intolerant, ultra-nationalistic populace continues, with little internal dissent – if any. One is tempted to wonder whether this behaviour by India is because of the average Indian citizenry, for them, or despite them.
And that is why, having gone unchecked – and uncensured by the world – for so long, India continues to play a provocative game in its territorial disputes with Pakistan, China and Nepal. It has had – or continues to have – disputes with Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Maldives. Not quite the good neighbour that India portrays itself as, after all, one might be forced to think.
With yet another “spy-pigeon” incident having been reported by the Indian armed forces and media, one is also forced to think whether the provocation in Ladakh – which may have been further hyped to distract from the Modi regime’s economic failures, its increasingly draconian laws, and persecution of its own citizens – might lead to a repetition of the Abhinandan-headed action against Pakistan. To...kind of...distract, from Ladakh. It’s complicated. But not entirely inconceivable, you know.
Stranger things have happened.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 15th, 2020.