Round The World
New Delhi, 29 July 2009
Forcing the “Balochistan Factor”
CREDIBILITY COMPROMISED?
By Monish Tourangbam
Research Scholar, School of International
Studies, JNU
The
genie is out of the bottle. Since the joint statement at Sharm-el-Sheikh,
India-Pakistan
relations is the toast of the media and the Opposition. Balochistan is the
buzzword now. The Manmohan Singh
Administration is on a damage-control mode. As the reference to the troubled
Pakistani province Balochistan spirals out of proportion and gets dissected in
the hands of analysts and politicians, the Prime Minister would increasingly
find himself in a precarious position to explain the rationale of the
Government’s position.
Undoubtedly, the Balochistan factor
has made the discourse between the warring neigbours dangerously
interesting. But, hyper actions and
reactions on this issue run the risk of hard facts and realities being
enveloped by emotional jargon.
Not only that. Various elements in Pakistan already seem to be intent on using this
“gem” of an issue to further spit venom on India
and malign New Delhi’s
image in the international community. In fact, Pakistan
has been in a mood of celebration ever since the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in
Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt.
The “Balochistan factor” got into
the limelight when the Dawn reported
that Pakistan’s Prime
Minister Gilani had handed over a dossier during his meeting with his Indian
counterpart Manmohan Singh at Sharm-el-Sheikh detailing comprehensive evidence
of India’s involvement in
terrorists’ acts in Pakistan.
Besides, focusing substantially, on New Delhi’s alleged assistance in the insurgency in
Balochistan, the newspaper report also said that the dossier detailed the
alleged involvement of India’s
External Intelligence Agency, RAW in the attacks on the Sri Lankan cricketers
in Lahore and
the Manawan police training school.
Accusing India of trying to foment
instability on their soil is not a new-found endeavour of the Pakistani
Establishment. It is been a deliberate part of Islamabad’s’ strategic and foreign policy
making. Pakistan has
continuously accused India
of interfering in the troubled Balochistan province and claimed that the Indian
consulates in Afghanistan
were being used for anti-Pakistan activities.
New Delhi has denied the report of receiving
such a dossier in Egypt.
The accuracy of the report was also questioned by Pakistani officials. But,
there was indeed a referenced to Balochistan in the joint statement stating
that “Pakistan
has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas.”
At this juncture, it would be wrong
and counter-productive to comment that the Indian Government consented to the
allegations made of New Delhi’s
involvement in its neighbouring country. But, the fact that it was a joint statement
and not a unilateral Pakistani document seems to have heated up the domestic
outcry against the Manmohan Singh Government.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister
Gilani seems to be extracting dividend out of the statement as he continues to
accuse India of interfering
in Balochistan even after his return to Islamabad.
He is also reaping benefits in Pakistan
for having successfully internationalized an internal insurgency problem.
The “Balochistan factor” would, in
most, probability be used as a card by the Pakistani Establishment to pressure
the Americans to demand more answers from India. In fact, Richard Holbrooke,
the US special envoy for
Af-Pak, is reported to have already asked his Indian interlocutors whether India would
stop its “activities” in Balochistan.
There are some well-placed concerns
that these allegations might be used as a bargaining chip in future
India-Pakistani negotiations. Even though Pakistani officials have denied the
reports in the Dawn, the Pakistani
Establishment has, at best, remained ambiguous about the allegations apparently
hoping to ride on the appreciation garnered lately.
The Pakistani media had reportedly
criticized the civilian Government time and again for not confronting India on the issue of alleged interference in Pakistan. As such, it appears logical for the Pakistani
Government to be making hay while the sun shines. The reports on the “illusive”
dossier however inaccurate or incorrect might help silence some of the
criticism.
Worse, the Pakistani military is intent
on making the most out of this issue. There is an unmistakable enthusiasm and
vigour in the Establishment after what they term as the success of Pakistani
diplomacy in inserting Balochistan in the joint statement. Reports in the US media have already quoted official sources
saying that Pakistan’s Army
Chief Ashfaque Kayani recently sought to link Pakistan's
actions against Lashkar-e-Toeba (LeT) with India putting a stop to its alleged
covert operations in Balochistan.
The American media reports said that
while Kayani had promised to “control” LeT, claiming “we are being more
vigilant”, he stressed that India
should halt its operations in Balochistan. "By the way, India has to
stop messing around in Balochistan," Pakistani officials were quoted as
saying.
Thus, efforts are seriously being
made in Pakistan to put the
RAW on the same pedestal as Pakistan’s
ISI. Whenever, any finger is pointed toward the ISI for engaging in anti-India
activities, the Pakistanis will most likely throw worse accusations against India’s
RAW.
The rapid developments in Pakistsan
regarding this issue give credence to concerns that the inclusion of
Baloschistan was no fluke but a well-calibrated strategy by Pakistan. At
this juncture, an effort is being made to force the “Balochistan factor” into
India-Pakistan relations. Such an effort threatens to curtail the credibility
of the Manmohan Singh Government and push India into a box with the least
freedom of maneuverability vis-à-vis India-Pakistan negotiations.
As far as the Indian domestic scene
is concerned, the Opposition is up in full armour to slam the UPA Government
for committing what is being projected as the one of the most serious blunders
of Indian diplomacy. Senior Government sources have reportedly urged a careful
reading of the text and said that India
would have no reservations about discussing an internal matter of Pakistan if it so wished because New Delhi had “a clear
conscience and clean hands.”
But, no rhetoric post the joint
statement is going to be of much use. If India had been more steadfast and
clear about some basic stands on which it could not compromise, a lot of the
trouble would have been mitigated.
Another major irritant in the joint
statement at Sharm-el-Sheikh has been the question of “delinking” of action on
terrorism from the composite dialogue between India
and Pakistan.
The BJP has accused the Government of “surrendering” and opined that a
composite dialogue made no sense without terrorism-related issues. The joint
statement said, “Action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite
Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed.”
However, regarding this, the
Manmohan Singh Government should be given the luxury of doubt. It can be argued
that Pakistan
should cooperate and take credible actions against the perpetrators of the
Mumbai attacks before any meaningful normalization in India-Pakistan relations.
But at the same time, continuing dialogue and engagement could be effective in
discouraging Pakistan from back-tracking and saying that it could not deliver
on its resolve to fight terrorism because of the absence of composite dialogue.
The present furor over the
India-Pakistan joint statement and its fall-out points to the lack of serious
internal debates and deliberations on foreign policy issues. There is a domestic audience to any foreign
policy decision that the Government takes. Hence, it helps to gain the
confidence of the domestic constituency before decisions are made abroad.
---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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