Shishir Gupta

In October 2017, Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa used the Chambers of Commerce platform in Karachi to convey to Islamabad’s neighbours on either side that their destinies are inextricably linked. “We are making a deliberate and concerted effort to pacify the western border through a multitude of diplomatic, military and economic initiative. We have also expressed and demonstrated our genuine desire to have normal relations with India; however, it takes two to tango,” he said.

The much-feted Bajwa doctrine on Islamabad’s pacifist approach towards its neighbours exploded on three consecutive days this month, posing serious questions on the nature of the Pakistani state itself. On February 13, a car borne suicide bomber belonging to anti-Shia Jaish al-Adl group, which has its Sunni roots in Pakistan, targeted a bus transporting Iranian revolutionary guards in Sistan-Baluchistan province, killing 27 troopers.

The next day, Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammed group used a brain washed car borne bomber to target a CRPF bus in Lethpora, Kashmir in Pulwama killing 40 personnel and injuring many others. On February 15, the Afghan government wrote to the United Nations to complain that the Imran Khan government was trying to hold talks with the Taliban behind its back. The three separate incidents reveal that Pakistan based groups and their ISI handlers are out to wage Sunni jihad against their neighbours while talking about peace for the region.

There is a deliberate attempt by these groups, aided, abetted and nurtured by the Pakistani Army and its sword arm, to destabilize the country’s neighbours through bloodletting and force an international crisis. The groups involved all have international Islamic jihad links through Al Qaeda with a history of spilling innocent blood in the name of Sunni dominance. It is evident that Pakistan is out to target three out of its four immediate neighbours, while looking the other way on the suppression of Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region.

Pakistan’s relationship with iron brother China is clearly tactical with no ideological or religious basis barring Beijing’s antipathy to India. With the global community refusing to address the malignancy in Pakistan, neighbouring Afghanistan will never see peace in the near or distant future as Taliban insurgents will continue to attack Kabul and then retreat for R&R across the Durand Line. When we blame Indian agencies for missing out on Pulwama attack, it is rather sobering to see what Taliban insurgents and their Salafist friends have done to powerful US and coalition forces in Afghanistan through targeted bombings and asymmetric warfare.

The future prospects for the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India are no different as Pakistan based groups will be used alternatively to bleed the state while Rawalpindi GHQ through its civilian proxies will talk peace and harmony. To add to this bloody mess will be the targeting of Iran by Sunni groups with roots in Jundallah to gain brownie points with the west, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Israel by default.

The inconvenient truth is that the entire region and the world at large is held hostage to a group of people from Punjab province of Pakistan with keys to a nuclear arsenal provided by the most powerful as also the rogue regimes of the world in the 1990s.

The recent escalation in the region has been brought about by the introduction of vehicle borne IEDs and sniper rifles, which were used by US forces in Afghanistan. With the Pakistani state reduced to penury due to poor economy and over ambitious projects, the jihadi beast is now being used by the country’s military masters as leverage – “come to our aid or else…”. The Pakistani gun and RDX will ensure that all political solutions initiated by the Indian government is sabotaged by their proxies; just as the Taliban shura or high council in the hands of Rawalpindi will turn Afghanistan again into a feeder factory of jihad in the region and beyond. The security situation in the region and Pakistan’s current posture is virtually a mirror to the events and situations during the dawn of 21st century and just before the dastardly 9/11 attack.

This was also Jaish’s first active years. It used a car borne suicide bomber to target the Chinar corps in Srinagar, and the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, and then launched an attack against the Indian Parliament – before going into R&R mode for the following four years with Lashkar-e-Tayebba holding the jihadi flag in the interregnum.

Back then too, the same doctrine of hypocrisy prevailed with the Pakistani leadership; the then military dictator offered to solve the so called Kashmir issue in one sitting. While nothing in Pakistan has changed, there has been a change in India with a majority government in power and enough money and boots to power the worst-case scenario. The India of 1990-2000 was where a lowly US joint secretary was feted as a rock star with the entire leadership on Raisina Hill ready to come to terms with the swagger of the official. That can never happen today. The time has come for Pakistan to take Prime Minister Narendra Modi very seriously post-Pulwama.

Modi, as even his worst detractors will affirm, has an uncanny knack of delivering. And he has repeatedly said the time for action has come.

Courtesy:Hindustan Times, Feb 21,2019