Dr. Manzoor Ahmad Naazer
Assistant Professor, International Islamic University, Islamabad
India-Afghan Nexus:
India used the Pakhtunistan issue to challenge Pakistan’s territorial integrity in two ways: using Pakhtun nationalists within Pakistan and encouraging Afghanistan to repudiate the ‘Durand Line’ and raise the Pakhtunistan issue.
‘It was in the nature of a last gesture of despair’ on the part of India’s leadership that it promoted the issue of Pakhtunistan that affected its alliance with Afghanistan.
With apparent Indian and Soviet backing, Afghanistan refused to accept the Durand Line as a legitimate border with Pakistan and raised the issue of Pakhtunistan at global forums aimed at infuriating Pakistan and undermining its stance on Jammu and Kashmir.
Moreover, it diverted Pakistan’s attention and military resources towards its Western border to the advantage of India. After Soviet withdrawal and beginning of civil war in Afghanistan, India supported the Ahmad Shah Masood-led Northern Alliance which was hostile to Pakistan.
In the post 9/11 scenario and the US invasion of Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance grabbed power in Kabul which provided India the much awaited opportunity to play against Pakistan’s security.
India had close ties with several key government dignitaries, including a few ministers and then President Hamid Karzai, whom New Delhi successfully used against Pakistan’s interests.
In disguise of development and reconstruction work and diplomatic activities, India created an adequate ‘diplomatic and intelligence network’ in Afghanistan in order to ‘monitor’ and ‘curtail’ Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan.
India built road networks including the one on the Pak-Afghan border that could serve, besides other purposes, to ‘pursue intelligence-gathering operations or espionage’ against Pakistan.
India has established several consulates apparently to issue visas to Afghan nationals, but, Pakistani officials believe, 14 Indian consulates in Afghanistan (besides the 12 in Iran) are fanning terrorism in Pakistan.
India used some of these consulates as ‘meeting places of Baloch separatists and operation centres for their terror operations’ in Pakistan. The Indian consulate in Kandahar was ‘actually a control room of all the terrorist activities organised by the separatist Balochistan Liberation Army.’
Several Western scholars and leaders endorsed Pakistan’s claim that India was sponsoring terrorism in the country.
Christine Fair of Rand Corporation observed that it was ‘unfair to dismiss the notion that Pakistan’s apprehensions about Afghanistan stem in part from its security competition with India.’
She maintained that some of India’s consulates such as those situated in Mazar-e-Shareef, Jalalabad and Qandahar in Afghanistan, besides the one in Zahedan in Iran were ‘not issuing visas as the main activity.’
Some officials working in these consulates confided privately to her that they were ‘pumping money into Balochistan.’
Laura Rozen cites a former US intelligence official, who served in the past in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, as saying:
The Indians are up to their necks in supporting the Taliban against the Pakistani government in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The same anti-Pakistan forces in Afghanistan also shooting at American soldiers are getting support from India. India should close its diplomatic establishments in Afghanistan and get the Christ out of there.
Harsh Pant notes that India’s embassy in Kabul was involved in spreading anti-Pakistan propaganda and its consulates in Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Jalalabad and Qandahar were sponsoring activities to create unrest in Pakistan.
In 2011, Chuck Hagal, who later became the US Defense Secretary, stated in a speech that India had ‘financed problems for’ and sponsored terrorism in Pakistan by using Afghanistan as a second front for many years.
Quite recently, an India analyst endorsed Pakistan’s view:
TTP is useful as an Indian counterpart of the various militant groups operating against Indian forces in Indian held Kashmir… Severing relations with TTP will mean India surrendering an active card in Pakistan and a role in Afghanistan as TTP additionally provides access to certain Afghan Taliban factions.
This statement also explains India’s motives behind supporting TTP in Pakistan.
RAW collaborates closely with Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) and both use TTP and other militant groups including Baloch separatists for terrorism in Pakistan.
Connections of RAW and NDS with TTP were also disclosed by the captured terrorists and would-be-suicide attackers.
Such connections were confirmed by a former TTP senior commander Latif Mehsud who was captured in Afghanistan by the US forces, and later, handed over to Pakistan.
He was collecting funds and instructions for RAW. In his confession, he confirmed India’s role in fomenting terrorism in Pakistan.
Quite recently, Ehsanullah Ehsan, the former spokesman of TTP also confirmed Indian and Afghan role in sponsoring terrorism in the country by providing travel documents and establishing ‘committees in Afghanistan through which they communicate and coordinate with RAW.’
Before moving anywhere in Afghanistan, TTP leaders contact Afghan and Indian security officials, who ‘grant them passage and guide their infiltration attempts into Pakistan.’
In 2016, Pakistan security forces captured Kulbhushan Jadav, a senior Indian intelligence officer from Balochistan, who in his confessionary statement confirmed his and RAW’s involvement in the subversive activities, mainly in Karachi and Balochistan.
In 2015, a letter from the Sindh Home Ministry revealed that RAW had provided PKR 20 million for sponsoring terrorism in Karachi.
In 2016, Aftab Sultan, Director General of the Intelligence Bureau informed the Senate Standing Committee that ‘Out of the 865 terrorists arrested during the last three years, a significant number had connections with India’s RAW and the Afghan NDS.’
Earlier, in 2009, a Pakistan military spokesman informed the media that ‘large caches of weapons of Indian origin’ were recovered from the TTP militants during a military operation in Mingora, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
RAW also used the LTTE for an attack on Sri Lanka’s team in Lahore in 2009 that closed the doors of international cricket in Pakistan.
Since 9/11, Pakistan has faced serious problems of militancy and terrorism in tribal areas, in which it has lost over 80,000 civilians and over 5,498 military personnel.
Pakistan also suffered over USD 123 billion in losses till June 2017 due to Indian financed terrorism in the country. As of today, more than 200,000 troops are deployed in tribal areas, to curb terrorist networks supported, funded and nurtured by India from across the border.
Successive Pakistani governments have raised this issue with India as well as at several global forums by providing dossiers containing evidence of Indian interference in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Balochistan and Karachi to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-mon in 2015.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has also provided evidence to the Afghan government and demanded dismantling of RAW’s training camps and other terrorist network on its territory.
India has multiple motives behind sponsoring terrorism:
# to undermine its security and territorial integrity by dismembering it and imposing hegemony in the region;
# to keep Pakistan weak and transient and damage the process of economic development such as implementation of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and other mega projects;
# to divert the country’s resources and attention towards its Western border to avoid pressure on its various political disputes, including Jammu and Kashmir;
# to engage militant groups in Afghanistan to relieve pressure in IHJ&K; and,
# to create trouble in Balochistan to force Pakistan to compromise its stance on IHJ&K.
Conclusion:
Being multi-religious, multi-cultural, and multi-ethnic countries with diverse political and ideological orientations and competing interests of domestic political forces, particularly minority groups, poses serious challenges of national integration to SACs in general and SRCs in particular.
The latter being less resourceful and having weak political institutions remain vulnerable to internal dissent, political violence, armed rebellion, terrorism and civil wars.
They have the most fertile spaces that can give rise to internal conflicts, such as weak states, religious divisions, ethnic rivalries, exclusionary national ideologies, inequitable political institutions, unequal economic systems and discriminatory social structures.
Mounting economic problems and perceived or real disparities, inequitable distribution of power and resources, intensification of socio-cultural discrimination, and concentration of political power aggravate the problem further.
Failure on the part of the leadership of SRCs to adequately address the genuine concerns and grievances of minority groups ultimately gave rise (among the latter) to feelings of political exploitation, economic deprivation, social estrangement and identity deterioration triggering widespread unrest, political violence, insurgencies and terrorism of varying scale and intensity.
India, being the most powerful and highly resourceful state, and mainly because of its huge size and central position could have played a positive role to help SCRs resolve their internal problems.
As this article has shown, India has pursued the course of exploiting their weakness to its advantage in order to extract concessions and impose its dictates on them.
She has played the role of an opportunistic state or a ‘bad neighbor’ by exploiting, cultivating and inflaming the domestic disorder, turmoil and instability of SRCs by various means in order to advance its political and strategic interests in the region.
India’s leadership did not miss any ‘window of opportunity’, and instead created many more by using the country’s secret agency RAW that played a notorious role in several SRCs since its inception to breed, export and sponsor terrorism in its neighborhood.
Since direct military intervention is quite expensive and highly unacceptable internationally, India used different terrorist groups in SRCs to advance its vague national interests in the region.
Through coercive means, RAW created, financed, trained, and equipped terrorist groups such as SB in CHT, Bangladesh; LTTE besides three dozen other Tamil terrorist groups in Sri Lanka, and; TTP and Baloch terrorist outfits in Pakistan.
It also co-opted Maoist insurgents in Nepal who had initially launched their so-called ‘people’s war’ on the slogan of ‘anti-Indianism.’
India used terrorism and coercive means as tools of its foreign policy to establish and perpetuate its hegemony in South Asia.
RAW supported the Chakma insurgency in CHT for decades after the pro-India government of Sheikh Mujib was overthrown in a military coup that had significantly reduced Indian influence in Bangladesh.
The main purpose was to weaken and to keep the new rulers in Dhaka under pressure to force them to accept India’s big-brotherly role in various matters; extract concessions on different matters; and to undermine territorial integrity of the country.
India used Maoists and other militant groups over the years to undermine incumbent governments in Kathmandu to force it to change foreign and security policies such as the latter’s relations with China and Pakistan; extract political and economic concessions of diverse nature; conclude unequal and unjust treaties such as those signed in 1950, 1965, 1991 and 1996; impose its dictates and increase political and economic influence in the country.
In case of Sri Lanka, RAW supported LTTE and other Tamil groups in order to, (besides some domestic political consideration of the ruling political party), punish Sri Lanka for its pro-West policies and ties with China and Pakistan, and force Colombo to accept some ‘ground rules’ that could decrease ‘external influence’ in the region and increase India’s own sway in Sri Lankan affairs and also help fulfill the latter’s long desire of playing the role of regional ‘policeman’ in South Asia.
New Delhi also sought to weaken Pakistan to widen the power gap and keep the latter preoccupied with its domestic problems mainly by opening ‘two-front war scenario’ by using Afghan territory to divert its attention, and resources away from India as well as to force Islamabad to change its support for the Kashmir cause.
India generally strove to shield its true intentions under the cover of some noble causes.
For instance, it declared its support for democracy in Nepal, and political empowerment and regional autonomy in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
It took actions portrayed in ‘self-serving’ disguise of protective, defensive and humanitarian measures such as plight of Bengalis (1971), Chakma (1975-97), Tamils (1983-2009) refugees on its territory and its adverse implications for its national security.
Given its Machiavellian policies, it generally tries to hide its despicable activities by blaming others particularly Pakistan of cross-border terrorism.
India’s close relations with global powers including the United States of America and (in the past) former Soviet Union helped New Delhi to broaden its agenda.
For instance, in 1971, it signed the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation with the former Soviet Union that deterred either China or the USA from helping Pakistan when Indian forces invaded East Pakistan.
In the past, USA and its allies supported Sri Lanka against Tamil rebels as well as the Nepalese government against Maoist insurgency.
Now, however, Washington seems less concerned about India’s interventions and interference in neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan because of growing Indo-US ties that have evolved into a strategic partnership.
In order to destabilize Pakistan, India uses Afghan soil where thousands of the US troops are deployed and it does not seem logical that New Delhi does so without US approval.
Pakistan raised this issue with Afghan and American officials but to no avail.
On the other hand, New Delhi uses the terrorism-card in its bid to isolate Pakistan regionally and globally.
It strove to build alliances with various countries including China, Russia, Israel and the US by exploiting the threat of ‘Islamic militancy’ or terrorism. It mainly accuses Pakistan of harboring terrorism in its bid to camouflage its own activities and intervention in the neighboring countries.
It also strives to project the ongoing freedom struggle in Indian held Kashmir (IHK) as Pakistan sponsored militancy in order to malign Pakistan on the one hand, and also to cover its massive human rights violations.
India generally advises its neighbors to grant political and economic autonomy to their minority groups but it neglects such demands within its own borders.
There are several separatist movements going on in in its various states with people struggling for political and economic rights.
New Delhi has been suppressing such movements through military means, such as in Indian Punjab, Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland, Orissa, besides other territories in the Union. Ironically, New Delhi does not practice what it preaches.
Muslims in all parts of India are relegated as second-class citizens and they are among the most backward segments of society.
Instead of putting its own house in order, New Delhi suggests ‘noble solutions’ to SRCs, which it has no right to do until it improves the human rights situation and political and economic conditions of religious and ethnic minorities who are politically alienated, economically deprived, and socio-culturally discriminated by its own communal Hindu majority.
SRCs also need to take practical steps to close the window of opportunity opened for India to intervene in their internal conflicts and domestic political affairs.
They need to improve governance, administration and their judicial system in order to integrate all segments of society in their respective countries.
They need to accept wholeheartedly the religious and ethnic diversity of their territories and refrain, for example, from imposing a monolithic culture and language on the citizenry.
SRCs must take concrete measures in order to accommodate the genuine demands and allay the concerns and grievances of minority groups.
The religious, cultural and ethnic identity of minorities must be respected and their political and economic rights guaranteed bringing them at par with the majority groups. Internal political problems must be solved politically and domestically through peaceful means.
SRCs are going through the difficult task of nation-building and prudent policies on the part of their leadership can make this process achievable more quickly so that no space is afforded to any regional or extra-regional state for interference.
Acknowledgement:
The author is indebted to the Department of International Studies, University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), North Carolina, USA, and the library staff for their dedicated assistance in completion of this research during post-doctorate research at the university.
# The author is Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
# Article Published with the permission of the distinguished author (2018 by Islamabad Policy Research Institute).
# Thanks the author and IPRI (Islamabad Policy Research Institute).
Concluded.
# Author’s article on Nepal will follow soon: Upadhyaya.
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