Rising tension between India and Pakistan makes South Asia unstable
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South Asia remains one of the most combustible regions with the dawn of new year. While the world is hit by the deadly coronavirus pandemic, there has not been any cessation in hostilities between India and Pakistan. There seems little hope of peace prevailing in South Asia in 2021.
The past year saw tensions between the two nuclear armed nations taking a more serious turn with clashes along the Line of Control (LoC) dividing the disputed state of Kashmir, exacting heave casualties on both sides. The fast changing regional geopolitics with growing tensions between India and China has further aggravated the situation.
Pakistan’s foreign minister last month warned of a possible Indian military misadventure in the cover of a so-called surgical strike. It is not the first time that Islamabad has cautioned about India’s aggressive designs, but the latest warning sounded most alarming.
According to Pakistani officials, Indian troops committed more than 2,900 ceasefire violations across the restive Line of Control (LoC) in 2020, leaving as many as 33 civilians dead and another 260 wounded in different parts of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The clashes have also killed some two dozen Pakistani soldiers. In December, Indian shells reportedly hit a vehicle carrying a UN observer team.
The number of casualties on the Indian side are also significant. New Delhi has accused Pakistan of infiltrating militants in Indian-administered Kashmir. Islamabad has rejected the allegation saying that India was raising a false flag in order to cover up its brutal suppression of Kashmiri resistance.
Pakistani officials have also accused India of intensifying its covert war in troubled Balochistan province. Last month, Pakistan shared an intelligence dossier with the international community, which it said contained evidence of Indian sponsorship of armed elements operating on Pakistani soil.
Mounting tension has triggered a war of words between New Delhi and Islamabad. Both sides accuse each other of border escalation. What has worsened the situation is that there have not been any official level contacts between the two countries.
Zahid Hussain
Allegations of Indian involvement in terrorist attacks in Pakistan have been made in the past too. But the audio recordings and documents about specific attacks, armed groups and armed groups’ leaders provide fresh and more substantive evidence of deep penetration of Indian intelligence. The ongoing Indian covert war inside Pakistan is a part of Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval’s doctrine of a so-called “offensive defense” that seeks to take the battle inside the country.
Mounting tension has triggered a war of words between New Delhi and Islamabad. Both sides accuse each other of border escalation. What has worsened the situation is that there have not been any official level contacts between the two countries.
Diplomatic relations between the two countries had already been downgraded in February 2019 with both countries withdrawing their high commissioners. The diplomatic presence in each other’s capitals has now been reduced to the bare minimum.
China’s closeness with Pakistan, particularly on the multi-billion dollar China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of China’s ambitious Belt and Road initiative, has also been a factor in fuelling tension in the region. India has launched an aggressive campaign against the construction of a road under the CPEC that passes through Gilgit-Baltistan. Both China and Pakistan suspect that India’s reported military build-up is part of a move to undermine the strategic road project.
The stand-off between Indian and Chinese forces in the sensitive region of Ladakh is ominous given emerging regional geopolitics. Recently declared a federal territory by Indian authorities separating it from the disputed state of Kashmir, Ladakh lies at the confluence of three nuclear states: India, China and Pakistan.
Pakistani officials see the escalation in Ladakh as part of an Indian move to divert international attention from the Kashmir issue. It is the area where physical military collusion among these countries can take place, which makes it a potential flashpoint.
Given India’s growing bellicosity, a military misadventure by its forces cannot be ruled out. The government of prime minister Narendra Modi has often threatened to launch what it calls a surgical strike across the Line of Control. This often repeated Indian rhetoric is an apparent attempt to legitimize its cross-border military incursions. Pakistani officials maintain that they have obtained “very specific and reliable intelligence” of Indian plans to launch strikes.
But any military incursion into Pakistan would be a risky gamble by the Indian prime minister. Such reckless action would also be in danger of spiralling out of control and turning into a full-blown military conflagration. Furthermore, its shrinking economy because of COVID-19 makes it more difficult for India to risk any military escalation.
A major challenge for Pakistanis is how to respond to the worsening security situation. The country’s major vulnerabilities are its weak economy and perpetual political instability. A lack of clarity on various dimensions of national security narrows Pakistan’s options.
– Zahid Hussain is an award-winning journalist and author. He is a former scholar at Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholar, USA, and a visiting fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, and at the Stimson Center in Washington DC. He is author of Frontline Pakistan: The struggle with militant Islam (Columbia university press) and The Scorpion’s tail: The relentless rise of Islamic militants in Pakistan (Simon and Schuster, NY). Frontline Pakistan was the book of the year (2007) by the WSJ.
Twitter: @hidhussain
