WHY MODI PLAYED THE B-CARD

It is no coincidence that Beijing's much touted China Pakistan Economic Corridor which cuts through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, also traverses through Balochistan and includes the strategic Gwadar port

It’s official now: India is turning the Balochistan lever against Pakistan. After decades of keeping itself at an arms’ length from the issue, it is now changing tack, with the express aim of paying back Pakistan on its own coin. As Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu explained on Tuesday, “Pakistan lectures us about Kashmir, that’s why we have told them what is happening in Balochistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit”.

Since Indian security forces killed Hizbul Mujahideen operative Burhan Wani last month, there have been large-scale protests in Kashmir Valley, which according to New Delhi have been engineered by Pakistan. Pakistan has retorted that the protests are a popular uprising against an occupying force.

Without diminishing the fact that there is at least some genuine discontent and disillusionment in the Valley, it is also hard to ignore that the unrest in Kashmir comes at a time when Pakistan has been effectively isolated on the international stage. There has also been some chatter that Pakistan’s intelligence agency itself may have had a hand in Burhan Wani’s death.

Even if that wasn’t the case, there is no denying that Pakistan has played up the issue, ostensibly hoping to distract attention from its own problems at home and abroad. This, however, has had only a limited impact globally (even though it will not be a stretch to say that Kashmir is worryingly close to a third wave of militancy). This, in turn, only strengthens the argument that what was once Pakistan’s most potent weapon to flog India on the global stage has now been blunted beyond repair.

The results are there for all to see: From India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi fired the first salvo from an all-party meeting convened to discuss the Kashmir issue. He then brought out the big guns on Independence Day —From the ramparts of the iconic Red Fort, with a billion eyes and ears trained on his every word and gesture, Modi noted that the people of Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have thanked him in recent days (he didn’t go into details but the reference to Pakistani atrocities in these regions was obvious), and then, with just about every foreign diplomat that India hosts in his audience, warned that the “world is watching”.

Experts have dubbed this as a game-changer in the India-Pakistan relationship — that will be true if India keeps up the pressure, but for now, what we have is a change in tone and tenor. Technically, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has always been part of India’s official narrative though Modi has brought it centre-stage and put the spotlight on Pakistani excesses in the region. This is as it should be.

Balochistan, though, is a new ballgame altogether because unlike PoK it is not disputed territory that India claims as its own. India recognises Balochistan as Pakistani territory and, therefore, it could be argued that bringing up the issue violates India’s principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.

But while such principles et all make for good speeches and even compelling academic discourse, the demands of realpolitik require us to craft a different approach. Simply put, this was why India went into East Pakistan and midwifed Bangladesh.

Now, this is not to suggest — at least not at this point, anyhow — that the Modi Government is planning a similar operation in Balochistan. But only to underline the fact that if in 1971, India, still a poor country that was struggling to stand on its own two feet, could carry out a foreign military intervention on humanitarian grounds, there is no reason why India, today in 2016, as an economic powerhouse that seeks a seat at the global high table, cannot at least draw the attention of the world to the situation in Balochistan. There is both, a strong moral case and, of course, an equally strong geo-political case for India to speak, and firmly so, about Balochistan.

Perhaps, the question to be asked is: Why is India bringing up the issue now? The easy answer is Modi himself and his confident, self-assured approach to diplomacy. But there is more to that — apart from changes in regional alignments (think Iran which has its own minority Baloch population to deal with or Afghanistan where India supported the Northern Alliance through its Zahedan consulate in Iranian Balochistan or even Iraq which once sent weapons to Baloch leaders, hoping the insurgency in Pakistan would fan out to Iran), there is the China factor that India must grapple with.

In this context, it is no coincidence that Beijing’s much touted China Pakistan Economic Corridor which cuts through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, also traverses through Balochistan and includes the strategic Gwadar port (notably, India has also upped its game in Chabahar which is to serve as the foil to Gwadar). 

Some concerns have been raised that doing so would push India off the moral high ground it has held vis-à-vis Pakistan, that it would add credence to Pakistani claims that India has been fuelling the insurgency in Balochistan, and that in turn would dilute India’s cross-border terrorism case against Pakistan in Kashmir.

One can argue endlessly on these issues but the fact of the matter is that these are essentially perception battles that have limited impact on the ground and are ultimately decided by hard power. Look at, for example, how Pakistan has spun an anti-India Kashmir narrative for its public that is irrespective of the realities in the valley or how China is rarely censured for its oppressive policies in Tibet or against the Uyghurs.

The more important question here is: Can India take the Balochistan issue (which also Pakistan has sought to exploit for against India) and effectively use it as a lever against Pakistan? No doubt, like in Bangladesh, Pakistan’s own excesses in Balochistan make India’s job easy but, it is still to be seen if India will keep up the pressure, particularly if there if a different dispensation comes to power in New Delhi in 2019.

(A shorter version of this article was published on the Stimson Centre’s South Asian Voices platform)