India jeopardising security in the region
It is matter of grave concern that India continues with its attempts to malign and isolate Pakistan notwithstanding the fact that all such antics have failed miserably. It is also involved in sponsoring and supporting terrorist attacks within Pakistan directly through its operatives like Kalbushan Yadav and indirectly through its proxies like TTP and its splinter groups who have proven links with RAW and Afghan intelligence agency NDS. It clearly showed that India was pursuing a well calculated policy to destabilise Pakistan and consequently jeopardise security in the entire region. Regrettably the Indian leaders fail to understand that they are traversing a policy option that is fraught with disastrous consequences for itself as well as the entire region. Its continued hostility towards Pakistan and intransigence not to resolve the disputes with her, including the Kashmir issue is going to undermine her own interests more than any other country in the region because a war like state is bound to disintegrate, as proven by the history.
Pursuing the path of peace is the only available option in the region which has four nuclear powers in geographical proximity to each other and where outside powers are also vying to pursue their strategic interests at the cost of the interests of the countries of the region. The Indian leaders need to recognise the fact that the geo-strategic situation of Pakistan is such that no country or power in the world interested in peace in the region and Afghanistan can afford to neglect or isolate her. Its pivotal role in promoting peace and security in the region has invariably been recognised. The US which has developed and is pursuing a strategic partnership with India and trying to prop it as a counter balance to the burgeoning Chinese influence in the region and has a big stake in the Afghanistan has acknowledged indispensability of Pakistan for establishing peace in Afghanistan notwithstanding its ‘do more’ mantra.
India has failed to isolate Pakistan is amply demonstrated by the recent naval exercise in which 37 countries of the world including US, Russia and China participated reflecting the trust of the participating counties in Pakistan’s role in fighting terrorism and efforts to promote peace in the region. The successful holding of ECO summit in Islamabad was yet another ranting proof of the failure of Indian attempts to isolate Pakistan and the success of the efforts of the latter to have its status as economic hub for promoting shared economic prosperity in the region.
The trilateral dialogue between Pakistan, Russia and China held on 27 December 2016 in Moscow where they deliberated on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and ways and means to re-start the stalled Afghan Peace Process and underlined the need to intensify efforts in this regard besides calling for removal of names of some Taliban leaders from sanctions list also confirmed the fact that the major countries of the region who have an abiding stake in peace in Afghanistan are intensely aware of importance of Pakistan as a harbinger of peace in Afghanistan and are very much willing to work with her in this regard. The meeting also recommended inclusion of Afghanistan in the next round of talks. The Taliban welcomed the move. The Afghan government rued its exclusion but the US which expressed concern over the meeting nevertheless welcomed the talks in these words “we welcome any talks to discuss secure, safe and prosperous Afghanistan that we all want to see”.
However in spite of the Indian failure to isolate Pakistan through different overt and covert initiatives it does not seem to have given up on the idea. In regards to the trilateral dialogue between Russia, China and Pakistan a deliberate attempt is being made to create doubts about the motives of the dialogue. A consultant with RAW’s propaganda arm International Relations Strategic Affairs Dr Subash Kapila in his recent article published in the Indian media has cautioned US to make sure that the pious political intervention by China-Pakistan-Russia was not allowed to morph into an eventual quasi-military troika. The author also advised the US not to abandon Afghanistan. That surely makes it clear that India was not interested in peace in Afghanistan. It wanted Afghanistan to remain in a perpetual state of instability having its negative fall-out on Pakistan.
The ultimate loser in this chess game will of course be Afghanistan. The Afghan leadership needs to wake up and instead of making it a common cause with India to malign and isolate Pakistan try to mend fences with her and earnestly cooperate in the efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan and warding off the lurking dangers to peace and security in the region. The arrival of IS in Afghanistan has made the situation more convoluted and challenging which warrants cooperative efforts on the part of Pakistan, Afghanistan and all the regional countries who are affected by the scourge of terrorism and have stakes in peace and security in the region.
But for any meaningful effort in this regard there is a need to remove the ambience of mistrust between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan leadership must make sure that the TTP operatives and other terrorist outfits based on its soil which are carrying out terrorist attacks within Pakistan are denied the space to continue with their activities. It also needs to respond positively to Pakistani initiative to manage the borders to stop cross-border movements of the terrorists.
It is really regrettable that the recent flurry of terrorist attacks in Pakistan – including that on the shrine of Sehwan Sharif – were carried out by the groups based in Afghan territory, which forced Pakistan to take retaliatory action against them and also close the borders with Afghanistan putting further strain on relations between the two countries. Afghanistan instead of taking appropriate measures in this regard has been indulging in tit-for-tat blame game. Its failure to recognise the ground realities and reciprocate the efforts by Pakistan to check the terrorists in their tracks has further encouraged the terrorists to strike targets within Pakistan. On Monday night terrorists belonging to Jamaat ul Ahrar, a splinter group of TTP attacked three posts along Pak-Afghan border that resulted in the martyrdom of five Pakistani soldiers and reportedly a number of militants were also killed and wounded in the retaliatory action by the Pakistani forces.
The recurrence of such incidents and the inaction by the Afghan government is going to put the relations between the two countries under further strain. It will scuttle the chances of fighting the common enemy i.e. terrorism. The Afghan government earnestly needs to revive contacts with Pakistan at the political and military level to resolve this conundrum and evolve a joint strategy to deal with the threat as well as restarting the process of dialogue to nudge Afghan-led and Afghan-owned process of reconciliation in Afghanistan. That is an indispensable imperative.
