India should persevere with Balakot-like strategy to bust Pakistan terror modules, actively take up Baloch, Pashtun causes

New Delhi: While Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was talking of peace in Parliament on Thursday, a terror outfit Al-Badr based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was holding deliberations with the leaders of its parent organisation, Jamaat-e-Islami to launch suicide attacks in India. Al-Badr is operating out of two large housing complexes in Malakand and Mansehra, owing to its close connections with Pakistan Army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Hours later, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Sami (JUI-S), a proponent of Taliban in Pakistan came out in support of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and offered its cadres for suicide attacks inside India. And, just before the release of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, Pakistani state put out a heavily edited propaganda video.

All of these developments lend credence to the idea that declaring the Pakistani establishment as peace loving is a preposterous idea. The history of sharing dossiers with Pakistan and even with other international forums did not change Pakistan’s stand on terror outfits which were nurtured over the years by successive Pakistani regimes. So, India must take advantage of unprecedented 26 February operation at Balakot, and uncover terrorist outfits’ plans and break up their cells. The Indian security and intelligence apparatus should target Pakistani seminaries, who are running large-scale training and terror recruitment programs. An intelligence-backed uninterrupted operation will allow the Indian forces to strike with great accuracy to disrupt terrorists safe havens. There are other long-term measures that should be part of arsenal.

Although the Indian security establishment has vowed to undertake only non-military operations while responding to terror attacks, they must also launch a campaign to expose the connection between terrorists and Pakistani leaderships that continues to rake up the issue of Kashmir while it has escalated the violence against Baloch and Pashtuns. A classified government note has suggested that the loss of Bangladesh created a new geo-political situation on the Indian sub-continent and that made Pakistan anxious to preserve the stability of its western part through brutal force. The note said : “It is difficult to deny the existence of the Pashtun movement, which represents the abstract consciousness of nationhood of people, who are predominantly tribal and nomadic and are divided between the neighboring states of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The geographical limits of the proposed state and its location have been ill-defined. While sometimes it is considered to constitute areas on both sides of the Durand line that forms the boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan, at others it is limited to Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (now renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and further there have been suggestion that Balochistan region of Pakistan should also form a part of proposed Pashtun state. The movement lacks cohesion but it has found sustenance from the support it has received.”

Indian leadership, barring on few occasions, has always treated the persecution of Pashtun and Baloch people as Pakistan’s internal issue, but it’s nothing short of an independence movement just like India’s and Pakistan’s.

To jog up the memory of decision makers, it is important to mention that originally three princely states of Chitral, Dir and Swat and the six agencies in the tribal territory lying between the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Durand line — which constituted the boundary between British India and Afghanistan — were included when Pashtun movement gained momentum. In 1929 Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan launched a movement for independence of the tribal territory. His red-shirts organisation treated the tribal territory as historically independent of British India and had demanded the setting up of an independent state of Pakhtoonistan.

While leaving, British regime had issued a statement saying that agreements with tribes of the NWFP will be re-negotiated by the appropriate successor authority. The subsequent events are tales of betrayal and brutality by Pakistan.

The history of this region is stained with blood since June 1949, when Pakistan Air Force decided to bomb the demonstrators in the tribal territory. Pakistan admits that arrogance displayed against the local tribal leaders led to anti-federation sentiments, resulting in armed struggle that goes on till today. New religious seminaries have been established by the Pakistan Army and ISI in this region for young recruits where they are trained and later transported to carry out Jihad in Kashmir.

A Pakistani defence journal quoting Interior Ministry said, in 1947, Pakistan had only 245 seminaries which has now increased to some 26,000 madarasas in the country with nearly 3.5 million students. Between 1988 and 2000, this increase was about 136 percent.

Pakistan fears that it is losing Balochistan and have even accused US of supporting Baloch freedom movement in confluence with other players since it aims to deny China’s ingress in the area through involvement in mineral exploration projects and socio-economic uplift of masses. Pakistanis are scared that brutality in Balochistan is harming them most. This is what a Pakistani Brigadier Sher Shah wrote: “Violation of human rights is the main concern shared by both, insurgents and the state security apparatus. Three Ds — deterrence by army, detainment and deaths — have irked the people of the province most, hence need to be addressed as a prelude to any conflict resolution effort. The issue of enforced disappearances continues to be the most reported case in media, hence judicial activism is seen questioning the role of state functionaries. This earns bad name to the security forces in general and army and ISI in particular.”

This is a candid admission from a Pakistani officer. He goes on to say that India is using this perhaps trying to teach Pakistan a lesson for its interference in Jammu and Kashmir. Shah said Pakistan has never been comfortable with India in view of its historic relations with its neighbour, that includes three wars.  He wrote: “Further Balkanization of Pakistan is also seen by some of the Indian strategists as their ultimate objective. Moreover, it has jumped into Balochistan affray to teach Pakistan a lesson in response to its involvement in Kashmir. India aims on checking China’s military ingress in Indian Ocean through Gwadar port. Use of force by Pakistan Army and ISI alone cannot bring sustainable peace in Balochistan.”

Since last many decades, inputs regarding torture and terror safe havens, have been known to Indian leadership but lack of will forced our hand. Even Narendra Modi government, except mentioning about Balochistan, Gilgit and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir in his Independence Day speech, did not do anything significant to change things. In order to defeat Pakistan’s false narrative on Kashmir, India in collaboration with friendly countries and using diplomatic channels, must expose Pakistan’s brutality in the region while continuing with non-military offensive against Pakistan based terror groups to exhibit capabilities and resolve. Also, the world should realize that Baloch movement is about a freedom struggle and even if India cannot invite them to set up base here, at least the leaders in exile should be provided a platform to counter Pakistan’s rhetoric. The government and top decision makers need to focus on twin aspects- put our house in order and continue operation against separatists in Kashmir and collaborate with friendly nations to expose the Pakistan brutality and terror safe havens in Balochistan.