Jaishankar’s low dims hopes of détente

India’s External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar’s May 5 spiteful outburst against Bilawal Zardari (read Pakistan) reminded me of a remark a former Indian High Commissioner had made during our conversation several years ago in Islamabad.

“I don’t know when our leaders will get out of this college student mindset.”

And Jaishankar did exactly what the High Commissioner had said.

The invectives that Jaishankar deployed before the press made him look like a political activist rather than an experienced and eloquent foreign minister of a big power. The rhetorical response loaded with demeaning expressions (a promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry which is the mainstay of Pakistan) was shocking, though not surprising even to a person like myself; I had been thoroughly impressed with Jaishankar’s record as a diplomat and his excellent book The India Way but was left shell-shocked after listening to Jaishankar’s diatribe after having invited and sat with the Pakistani “terror-apologists” under the same roof?

It was extremely unfair for Jaishankar, known for his composure and precise articulation, to offload a policy position born off a number of events in the past (the short-sighted Kargil conflict in summer of 1999; the hijacking of the Indian passenger Flight IC 814 to Kandahar Airport on December 31, 1999; the attack on the Indian parliament; and the November 2008 Mumbai carnage linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba i.a.).

Pakistan’s foreign minister had risked his political capital by agreeing to attend in person. During the SCO conference he only advised states against “using terrorism for diplomatic point-scoring”. This he said on the heels of a stringent Financial Action Task Force (FATF) action plan that Pakistan struggled with but eventually successfully implemented. That also meant a lot of correction at home. Puncturing deep-seated dogmas and undoing consequences of socio-politically damaging policies is not easy. The mobbing, lynching and oppression of non-Hindu minorities including Muslims and Christians at the hands of BJP-RSS goons manifests that scary phenomenon also underscored in the latest Human Rights Watch 2023 report. “The BJP-led government continued its systematic discrimination and stigmatization of religious and other minorities, particularly Muslims. BJP supporters increasingly committed violent attacks against targeted groups. The government’s Hindu majoritarian ideology was reflected in bias in institutions, including the justice system and constitutional authorities like the National Human Rights Commission.”

Agreed Pakistan has had its low points, triggered by short-sighted policies that have piled misery on its people, particularly in the past two decades or so. But does this mean slaughtering that country’s image on every occasion — even when you are hosting guests from that country?

In an overdrive of one-upmanship, the Indian external affairs minister — oozing arrogance — glossed over some of the most significant outcomes of the FAFT Action Plan, and a clear departure from old policies. Instead of acting like an experienced statesman, Jaishankar chose to blurt out the BJP contempt for Pakistan which appeared to be part of the “teach Pakistan a lesson” campaign that India had adopted since entering into the anti-terror strategic dialogue with the United States in January 2000, immediately after the Kandahar Hijacking.

Shouldn’t Pakistanis assume that the kind of systematic proxy terrorism their country has been facing since December 2007 (birth of TTP) is part of counter-measures, an Indian response to Pakistani policies on Kashmir and Afghanistan?

Isn’t the proxy terrorism currently hitting Pakistan in synch with the proposals that National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s Defensive Offence? Also, most of the recommendations at a Group Discussion that India Today magazine had organised back in November 2009 (https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20091109-the-big-threats-741203-2009-10-29) hit Pakistan inside and exploit the ethnic, sectarian, sub-nationalist fault lines.

Doval and G Parthasarathy, a former High Commissioner to Pakistan, were part of the group. The latter proposed that “covert and overt actions need to be essential ingredients of India’s policy. India must exploit fault lines within Pakistan.”

And once he became the NSA, Doval began peddling the “teach Pakistan lesson with its own medicine” — clearly pointing to the use of proxy terrorist groups for destabilisation and project the country through the terrorist lens. This was a conscious decision taken by PM Vajpayee-led government immediately after the Kargil and Kandahar Hijacking episodes.

Dr Amarjit Singh, a regular security writer at Indian Defense Review, recommended the same in December 2014.

“…short of an invasion of Pakistan, an Indian proxy war inside Pakistan must be expanded. Whereas a proxy war by Pakistan in two Indian provinces merely affects less than 10% of all Indian provinces, a proxy war by India in two Pakistani provinces can affect 40% of Pakistan. ( http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/how-to-make-proxy-war-succeed-in-baluchistan/)

No surprise also, that back in 2014/15, India issued a visa to Switzerland-based Brahamdagh Bugti within 24 hours for a tour of India. Bugti ended up spending nearly four months, mostly with BJP cadres at seminars and consultations, accompanied by the controversial writer late Tariq Fateh, who had been assigned to write a book, India not My Enemy.

PM Modi had been so “concerned” that he mentioned Balochistan even in his August 2016 Republic Day speech, the year an in-service Indian navy commander Kulbhushan Jadhav was captured from Balochistan. What was he doing there, Bilawal Zardari had asked in one of the interviews.

“In the past few days people from Balochistan, people from Gilgit, people from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the people of these areas, they have thanked me and have expressed gratitude towards me, people sitting very far away and from places that I haven’t seen; when they respect me, then it is respect for 1.25 billion Indians. And so I want to thank the people of Baluchistan, Gilgit and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir,” Modi said after indirectly taking a dig at “state-sponsored oppression” in Balochistan.

A policy very much anchored in Ajit Doval’s “defensive offence” approach; “working on the vulnerabilities of Pakistan — it can be economic, internal security, political, its isolation internationally by exposing their terrorist activities. It can be defeating their policies in Afghanistan — making it difficult for them to manage internal political balance or internal security.”

If that is not at work in Pakistan at the moment, how else is the “defensive offence” being pursued to marginalise Pakistan?

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2023.

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