Reckless terror policy puts Pakistan’s own geography at risk

Hungama hai kyon barpa, thodi si jo keh li hai

Daka toh nahi maara, chori toh nahi ki hai

(Why is there so much hue and cry? I have made only a small observation; I have committed neither a dacoity nor a theft.)

The Pakistan Army has gone apoplectic at Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi’s one-sentence response to a question at a recent event — Sena Samvad — in Delhi. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement brings to mind Akbar Allahabadi’s opening couplet — with a minor modification — from his ghazal made popular across the Indian subcontinent by Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali.

Gen Dwivedi was asked whether he wished to divulge any unknown details about Operation Sindoor. He declined, citing the Official Secrets Act, but went on to add: “…if you had heard me earlier, what I said is that if Pakistan continues to harbour terrorists and operate against India, then they have to decide whether they want to be part of geography and history or not.”

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The Army Chief’s basic intention was to warn Pakistan about the dangers of harbouring terrorists. In strategic terms, he was cautioning Pakistan that the maintenance and use of terrorism is escalatory and that it should therefore abandon its terrorist enterprise. Gen Dwivedi’s warning, though stark and blunt, was correct and timely. It should have prompted introspection, but the Pakistan Army took umbrage. That is not surprising because it is a force that has never truly considered Pakistan’s long-term interests. If it had, Gen Dwivedi’s comments would have led it to reflect on the challenges to Pakistan’s territorial integrity arising from its reckless policies towards its neighbours, as well as towards the country’s Pashtun and Baloch ethnic groups.

The Pashtun and Baloch peoples, in substantial numbers, are alienated from the Punjabis who effectively control Pakistan. The Pakistan Army is also overwhelmingly Punjabi in composition. Its conduct towards the Baloch people resembles that of a colonial force, and this has particularly stoked the ever-burning fires of separatism in Balochistan.

The Baloch groups, now increasingly led by the middle classes, are becoming ever more embittered with the Pakistani state, which has exploited the Baloch since 1947. They continue to wage an insurgency, and there is little evidence that Islamabad and Rawalpindi can contain them. Pakistan blames India for assisting the Baloch groups, but sensible Pakistanis understand that the roots of Balochistan’s problems lie within the country itself.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), whose constituent groups were once close to the Pakistan Army, has been in armed opposition to it for years. The TTP operates with considerable freedom in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and continues to undertake major militant operations there. Last week, the TTP struck near Bannu and killed 15 policemen in an attack. Pakistan blames India for assisting the TTP, but its claims are untenable.

The ISPR statement should be read carefully by those in India who believe that dialogue with any segment of Pakistan’s polity or society can be diplomatically useful. There should be little doubt that most sections in Pakistan would readily agree with every aspect of the ISPR statement.

Lashing out at the ruling dispensation in India, the ISPR statement noted: “Contrary to the delusional and hallucinatory belief system and despite the omnipresent ill wishes that prevail in Hindutva-led India, Pakistan is already a country of consequence at the global level, a declared nuclear power and an indelible part of South Asia’s geography and history.”

Any country that feels compelled to assert that it is “consequential” actually betrays a lack of confidence. Great powers — and even lesser powers — do not extol their own virtues. Besides, despite possessing nuclear weapons, Pakistan is pitied even within the Islamic Ummah because of its enormous macroeconomic difficulties. Pakistan should ask itself whether it can truly be a country of “consequence” so long as it remains dependent on IMF, Saudi Arabian and Chinese assistance to prevent economic collapse.

The ISPR statement further declares: “Responsible nuclear states reflect restraint, maturity, and strategic sobriety.” This is true, but ironically it does not apply to Pakistan. Two simple points establish that a nuclear-armed Pakistan has demonstrated profoundly irresponsible conduct.

First, no other nuclear-armed country has used terrorism against its neighbours because such behaviour is inherently provocative and dangerous. Yet Pakistan has employed terrorism since the early 1990s. It did so while covertly possessing nuclear weapons and continued after its nuclear tests in 1998. Nuclear weapons became a shield that enabled it to persist with its policy of terrorism. Indian diplomacy should highlight this aspect with subtlety and finesse, overcoming the relative lack of international attention to the issue of terrorism.

Second, Pakistan undertook the Kargil operation within months of its nuclear tests. The entire world, including its close ally China, opposed its actions. During the Kargil conflict, India demonstrated how a nuclear state could decisively defeat aggression while ensuring that the conflict did not escalate further.

Accusing Gen Dwivedi of making not nuclear signalling but illogical threats, the ISPR statement asserted: “Threatening a sovereign nuclear neighbour with elimination from ‘geography’ is not strategic signalling or brinkmanship; it is sheer bankruptcy of cognitive capacities, madness and warmongering despite knowing the reality that such geographic obliteration would certainly be mutual and comprehensive.” It is well understood — and surely the Indian Army Chief knows this fully — that nuclear weapons are not meant for war-fighting but for deterrence. It is Pakistan that has used them as a shield while pursuing terrorism. This reality must continue to be exposed by India.

The Pakistan Army’s policies and actions have previously altered the geography and history of its own country. It would do well to recall the events of 1971. It butchered its own people, drove them into open revolt, and ultimately contributed to the creation of a new country — Bangladesh. That experience should compel the Pakistani Army to consider whether its actions in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa risk repeating the trajectory of East Pakistan.

(The writer is a former Indian diplomat who served as India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan and Myanmar, and as secretary, the Ministry of External Affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)