In a recently conducted seminar on Balochistan unrest, held in Washington, a dominant theme emerging was an alignment between the US and India in favour of a free and sovereign Balochistan. That the US welcomes Balochistan as an independent American client state with the Baloch leadership exhibiting a distinct US bias is apparent, but the fact that the clandestine role of the Indians in the Pakistani province is being legitimised in this new emerging debate which needs to be looked at very closely.
What is the true Indian design in behind the Indian support of the separatist movement? Are the Indian concerns, as advocated by the US as being genuine in Balochistan, truly linked to the need for eradicating terrorism from the region?
Or is it something more sinister? Should we leave it up to the Americans to decide who is a genuine stakeholder or not? If it is then how should Pakistan react to the growing saffron terrorism that threatens the regional peace with its Pakistan centric focus?
No debate on the issue, however well argued, can legitimize the Indian involvement as a major source of disturbance in Balochistan. Pakistani authorities ought to wake up to this realization that a politico-economic solution is inevitable and that people demand action over verbal pacifiers that they have been fed since eternity.
PROF KABIL KHAN
Peshawar
