SINCE 1947, India has been using terrorism as a tool to advance its domestic and foreign policies. Internally, India has been using state terrorism in its nine states to suppress their freedom movements. In the Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K), India has been using above 700,000 security forces since 1989, to crush the freedom struggle started by the people of the state, who have carried out immense HR violations, murders/killings and raping of women.
And, on 5 August 2019, Modi-led Indian government had crossed all norms of morality and international politics and illegally divided the IIOJ&K into two union territories, in total violation to the UNSC resolutions on J&K state and it has tried to permanently absorb the IIOJ&K into India. Prior to doing that, the Indian security forces had carried out wide range arrests/abductions and HR violations/killings to preempt peoples’ reaction.
In the Indian Punjab, the worst event of the Indian governments’ terror since 1947 to crush Sikhs’ freedom struggle was committed in 1984, where the Indian security forces had stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, to eliminate Sikh leaders and freedom fighters taking refuge there, killing hundreds/thousands of innocent people in the clash. Likewise, India is using similar state terrorism to crush freedom movements in its seven north eastern states since 1947.
Also, since 2014, Modi government’s state terrorism to suppress and forcefully pressure the Indian Muslims and the Christians to convert themselves to Hinduism is well known. In this regard, numerous killings of the Muslims by the Hindu mobs on the pretext of cow slaughtering, burning of the Muslims houses in New Delhi in 2019 and recent slaughtering of the Christians carried out in the Manipur state are eye opener incidents for the world.
Apart from the domestic state terrorism, India has also been sponsoring/using terrorism as a tool to advance its foreign policy, particularly inside South Asian neighbours to establish its hegemony in South Asia. For example, India has been trying to establish its political control over Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives through covert intelligence operations, economic embargos and military interventions.
India has also carried out its military interventions in Sri Lanka in 1980s and in East Pakistan in 1971,where it dismembered Pakistan through direct military intervention in support of the Bengali separatists in November/December 1971.Also, India has been and is still covertly using the Afghan and Iranian soils to sponsor/support terrorism in Pakistan. In this context, Indian naval officer Kalboshan Yadev’s arrest from Balochistan in 2016 is an undeniable evidence.
Recently, India has also started using state terrorism even in the western world, like Canada to eliminate some Indian origin Sikh leaders. As published in the New York Times, dated 18 September 2023, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said on 18 September 2023, that “agents of the government of India” had carried out the assassination of a Sikh community leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia in June 2023.
Mr. Trudeau told the lawmakers, “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty”. Moments later, the Canadian minister of foreign affairs office announced it was expelling Indian diplomat Pavan Kumar Rai, identified by them as the head of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s foreign intelligence agency, in Canada.
According to the CNN, the US Ambassador to Canada, David Cohen, told CTV’s Question Period with Vassy Kapelos in a interview, “I am confirming that there was shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners that helped lead Canada to making the statements that the prime minister made”.
According to the Nikkei Asia, dated 30 September 2023, the brazen attack on Hardeep Singh Nijjar, continues to reverberate around the globe, pitting America’s nearest ally, Canada, against one of its most important Indo-Pacific partners, India. As per the CBC news, dated 28 September 2023, Dheeraj Paramesha Chaya, author of India’s Intelligence Culture and Strategic Surprises, says, the RAW, which mostly focused on South Asian countries, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Afghanistan, has also collaborated with Israel’s Mossad, which is open about its killings of people in foreign countries.
The CBC further writes that Yogesh Joshi, a research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies of the National University of Singapore says, there have been recent signs that RAW’s reach has expanded and that India has in recent years made clear its shift in policy in terms of using force on the international stage to go after what it might deem to be terrorists. Joshi says, that the current government of Narendra Modi has increased RAW’s funding and Modi’s national security advisor being a former spy, also suggest that there is greater leeway for intelligence operations now.”
The above discussion leaves no doubt that India uses terrorism as a tool to advance its domestic and foreign policy objectives, especially in IIOJ&K and relating to Pakistan. In view of India’s brazen terrorist act done in Canada, it can now be expected that in future, the western governments and the media will hold India responsible for sponsoring terrorism in this region as well.
However, while being aware of India’s support of terrorism emanating from its western borders, India’s major power syndrome and its displayed covert intelligence capabilities abroad, it should fight out and handle the terrorism issue with a well thought out and a robust politico-military strategy, keeping in view the likely long time negative role of India. At the same time, to counter Indian designs against Pakistan in the region and beyond, Pakistan has to focus on achieving long term political and economic stability and strength, with in a shortest possible time.
In the above context, Pakistan should aim at achieving and maintaining its CPEC supported economic growth rate more than India and earning/maintaining above 100 billion US dollars forex reserves, to enhance and preserve its national power and sovereignty. At the same time, Pakistan should have a balanced friendly foreign policy with all major powers and the Muslim world to offset India’s exterior diplomatic manoeuvring against it.
—The writer is also a former Research Fellow of IPRI and Senior Research Fellow of SVI Islamabad.
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