India Maligns Pak Leadership

                                                  

                                                               By Sajjad Shaukat

Since BJP came to power, its leader and Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi has been implementing its party’s agenda by accelerating false propaganda against Pakistan, its Armed Forces and country’s superior spy agency ISI.

In this regard, Indian newspaper “Deccan Chronicle” published a false story on November 7, 2014, titled “Pakistan’s ISI may target India’s key economic centers and important installations.”

In the recent past, Indian troops after having committed ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC) and Working boundary (WB) martyred several Pakistani nationals including personnel of Rangers. Instead of extending an apology, Indian propagandists shamelessly accused Pak Army and ISI for backing cross-border infiltration and violations. On October 15, 2014 in the RAW sponsored Indian daily, “Deccan Chronicle,” Ranjnish Sharma allegedly asserted that Pakistan’s repeated ceasefire violations also led to severe differences between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Pak Army and ISI.

And, in collaboration with the extremist outfit RSS, Indian agencies orchestrated a drama to defame Pakistan in the world. On December 31, 2014, Indian media allegedly reported that a Pakistani fishing boat as a Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was intercepted by Indian Coast Guards, at Porebandar, Gujarat. In this respect, an operation was undertaken on a precise intelligence tip and boat was ordered to stop, but it did not comply and sped away. They set the boat on fire and it exploded. Indian Coast Guard officials stated that no body or debris was found due to bad weather. However, Indian officials who failed to produce any evidence to Islamabad started portraying another version by suggesting that the boat which had left Keti Bandar, Karachi might have belonged to small time smugglers. While, it is not possible that 30 HP boat could run four state of the art Indian Coast Guard ships.

The aim of this Indian drama was to create an aura against Pakistan prior to US President Barrack Obama’s recent visit to India and put pressure on Pakistan government on Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi’s bail issue and allege LeT as an organization, posing regional threats—and accusing Islamabad of sponsoring terrorist activities in India. In fact, this is nothing, but a brazen reflection of Indian divisive propaganda, targeting Pakistan’s civil military relations.

It is notable that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried his best to establish cordial relationship with India, and to restore the peace dialogue with the latter. He also encouraged trade with India. For the purpose, he participated in the oath-taking ceremony of Prime Minister Modi. But, on May 27, 2014, Prime Minister Modi’s meeting with Prime Minister Sharif proved faultless, because Modi raised baseless issues of cross-border terrorism as pre-conditions to advance the Pak-India dialogue. He said that slow pace of trial against the terrorists of the Mumbai 26/11 terror case; being held in Pakistan is main hurdle.

Indian prime minister ignored the fact that on July 19, 2013, the Indian former home ministry and ex-investigating officer Satish Verma disclosed that terror-attacks in Mumbai in November 26, 2008 and assault on Indian Parliament in January 12, 2001 were carried out by the Indian government to strengthen anti-terrorism laws.

Similarly, Indian Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde revealed on January 20, 2013 that organized training camps run by the fundamentalist parties, RSS and BJP were promoting Hindu terrorism. He also explained that these extremist parties were behind the Samjhauta Express, Meccca Masjid and Malegaon blasts.

But, India always accused Pakistan’s ISI of all these subversive acts, while, Indian official confession shows that these terror attacks were arranged by Indian RAW.

However, under the directives of BJP government, Indian print, electronic and social media do not waste any opportunity to continuously spit venomous propaganda against Pakistan. Since the start of New Year, a palpable shift has been noticed in the trends of Indian media. It generally spared the political leadership of Pakistan in the past and targeted Pak Army and ISI as a favorite flavor for its propaganda cuisine. Nevertheless, to create a sprinkling affect, Indian media seems to have started targeting Pakistan’s political leadership as well.

In this context, in a latest attempt, social media site (Oneindia) and “Deccan Herald”, dated, January 13, 2015 gave space to a speculative report in which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been alleged for maintaining double standards against India. Quoting a latest book, “Where Borders Bleed”, written by ex-Indian diplomat Rajiv Dogra, published by Rupa Publication, it is alleged that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had approved the episode of serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993.

In fact, allegation of involvement of Prime Minister Sharif in 1993 Mumbai blasts episode is imaginary and baseless. And, as to why the author, Rajiv Dogra who served as Indian Counsel General Karachi took so much time to write and level such allegations.

While, Pakistan has always remained forthcoming in resumption of meaningful diplomatic engagements with India, however, contrary to Pakistan’s posture, Indian leadership has shown stubborn attitude and calling off the negotiations on flimsy pretexts. In past too, New Delhi made pretexts to cancel peace talks, while shifting the blame to Pakistan. For example, in 2002, under the pretension of terrorist attack on the Indian parliament, India postponed the dialogue process. Again, in 2008, India cancelled the ‘composite dialogue’ on the pretext of Mumbai terror attacks. Last year, New Delhi cancelled the Secretary level talks with Islamabad under the pretext that during his Indian visit, Pakistan’s prime minister’s special advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz met Kashmiri leaders.

Now, India accelerated cross-border shelling inside Pakistan’s areas. India’s main aim is to delay the Pak-India peace process, as it is not serious in resolving all issues, especially main dispute of Kashmir with Islamabad.

Nonetheless, the book “Where Borders Bleed” also contains speculative inferences about political leaders of both Pakistan and India and likely to generate controversies about them.

          

          Pakistan’s leaders of the political parties may be encouraged to write and express their view point to counter whimsical allegations, leveled against their leadership in the book.  

               

         Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

         Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com

India’s Water Aggression against Pakistan

                                       

                                                             By Sajjad Shaukat

In the modern world, there are various forms of bloodless wars like economic wars which amount to aggression. In these terms, besides supporting subversive acts including cross-bordering shelling, India has also stared water aggression against Pakistan.

In March, 2011, while speaking in diplomatic language, Indus Water Commissioner of India G. Ranganathan had refused by stating, “Indian decision to build dams on rivers has led to water shortage in Pakistan.” While rejecting Islamabad’s concerns regarding water-theft by New Delhi including violation of the Indus Water Treaty, he assured his counterpart, Indus Water Commissioner of Pakistan, Syed Jamaat Ali Shah that all issues, relating to water between Pakistan and India would be resolved through dialogue.

In international politics of today, these are deeds, not words which matter, so ground realties are quite different as to what G. Ranganathan indicated in his statement. In fact, India has been continuing water aggression against Pakistan.

Besides other permanent issues and especially the thorny dispute of Kashmir which has always been used by India to malign and pressurize Pakistan, water of rivers has become a matter of life and death for every Pakistani, as New Delhi has been employing it as a tool of terrorism to blackmail Pakistan.

In this regard, Indian decision to construct two hydro-electric projects on River Neelam which is called Krishanganga in Indian dialect is a new violation of the Indus Basin Water Treaty of 1960. The World Bank, itself, is the mediator and signatory for the treaty. After the partition, owing to war-like situation, New Delhi deliberately stopped the flow of Pakistan’s rivers which originate from the Indian-held Kashmir. Even at that time, Indian rulers had used water as a tool of aggression against Pakistan. However, due to Indian illogical stand, Islamabad sought the help of international arbitration. The Indus Basin Treaty allocates waters of three western rivers of Indus, Jhelum and Chenab to Pakistan, while India has rights over eastern rivers of Ravi, Sutlej and Beas.

Since the settlement of the dispute, India has always violated the treaty intermittently to create economic crisis in Pakistan. In 1984 a controversy arose between the two neighbouring states after India began construction of the Wullar Barrage on river Jhelum in the occupied Kashmir in violation of the Indus Basin Water Treaty.

In the past, the issue of Wullar Barrage has also been discussed in various rounds of talks, being held under composite dialogue process between the two rivals, but Indian intransigence has continued. In the mid 1990s India started another violation by constructing the Baglihar dam on the Chenab river.

In 2005, Pakistan had again sought the World Bank’s help to stop construction of the Baglihar dam. Although WB allowed India to go ahead with the project after a few modifications, yet it did not permit the interruption of the agreed quota of water flow to Pakistan.

In 2008, India suddenly reduced water flow of the Chenab river to give a greater setback to our autumnal crops. Islamabad on September 17, 2008 threatened to seek the World Bank’s intervention on the plea that New Delhi had not responded to its repeated complaints on the issue appropriately. Pakistan’s Commissioner to the treaty, Syed Jamaat Ali Shah had also remarked that the shortage of water in the Chenab river, occurred due to filling up the Baglihar dam. Despite repeated pleas from Islamabad, India did nothing to address the problem.

Nevertheless, apart from intermittent violations of the Indus Water Treaty, New Delhi, in fact, has been using water as an instrument to pressurize Islamabad with a view to getting leverage in the Pak-India dialogue especially regarding Indian-held Kashmir where a new phase of protests against the Indian illegitimate occupation has accelerated. In this respect, the then Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, while talking in connection with the revival of Pak-India dialogue, had said on February 8, 2010 that Pakistan’s case on Kashmir and water was based on truth, and the government would fight it with full strength.

Indian shrewd diplomacy of water war could also be judged from some other development. Online reports suggest that New Delhi has secretly offered technical assistance to the Afghan government in order to construct a dam over Kabul River which is a main water contributor to Indus River.

By applying such diplomacy against Pakistan, New Delhi intends to fulfill a number of nefarious designs. India wants to keep its control on Kashmir which is located in the Indus River basin area, and which contributes to the flow of all the major rivers, entering Pakistan. It is determined to bring about political, economic and social problems of grave nature in Pakistan.

In this context, China Daily News Group wrote in 2005: “Another added complication is that in building a dam upstream of Pakistan, India will possess the ability to flood or starve Pakistan at will. This ability was witnessed in July of 2004 when India, without warning, released water into the Chenab river, flooding large portions of Pakistan. The history of conflict between these two nations makes it possible for New Delhi to use nature as a real weapon against Islamabad.”

According to an estimate, unlike India, Pakistan is highly dependent on agriculture, which in turn is dependent on water. Of the 79.6 million hectares of land that makeup Pakistan, 20 million are available for agriculture. Of those 20 million hectares, 16 million are dependent on irrigation. So, almost 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture is dependent on irrigation.

It is notable that many of Pakistan’s industries are agro-based such as the textiles industry. Besides, 80% of Pakistan’s food needs are fulfilled domestically. Thus an interruption of water supply would have broad-ranging effects. For example, when the country suffered a drought from 1998 to 2001, there were violent riots in Karachi.

It is mentionable that half of Pakistan’s energy comes from hydroelectricity, and at present, our country has been facing a severe crisis of loadshedding which is the result of power-shortage in the country. During the recent past summers, people in a number of cities like Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad etc. lodged violent protests against the loadshedding, culminating into loss of property and life.

It is of particular attention that Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif warned on February 10, 2015 that although the electricity shortage in the country would be overcome within two to three years, the scarcity of water is another issue looming in the country.

While, Pakistan has already been facing multiple challenges of grave nature coupled with a perennial phenomenon of terrorism like suicide attacks, bomb blasts, targetted killings etc., committed by the militants who are being backed by Indian secret agency, RAW, New Delhi also uses water as a tool by increasing its scarcity, making life too often miserable for Pakistanis with the ultimate aim of creating poverty which could produce more terrorism in turn. And, India is likely to deepen differences among Pakistan’s provinces over various issues which are directly or indirectly related to water.

So, still by employing water as an instrument of aggression, Indians continue to intensify political unrest, economic instability and social strife in Pakistan.

Surprisingly, in 2010, India started resumption of talks with Pakistan paying a greater attention on terrorism instead of equally addressing all the issues of the composite dialogue.

Nonetheless, Islamabad must include water as a major focus of agenda in the future dialogue; otherwise India is likely to continue its water aggression against Pakistan.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com

Gurkha Battle-Cry “Ayo Gorkhali”: Not for Indian Army Anymore?

Aasef Chauhdry

The discrimination by the Indian Army vis-à-vis Gurkha soldiers has ultimately forced the Nepal government to ask Indians from not recruiting the Gurkhas. It’s not only at the government level but at the public level too that protests are being made against the recruiting the Gurkhas in the Indian army. Not only that it has sparked a huge row within the Indian army, but has also gave birth to a great controversy across Nepal where general people came out with immense anti-India sentiments, forcing government of Nepal to strongly consider a move to bring an end to any further recruitment of any Nepali in Indian army. It has now forced the Indian defense establishment to watch the Nepali government’s reaction with a great concern and move to eventually halt the recruitment of Gurkhas in Indian army in a fresh bid in line with the earlier recommendations of its parliament’s report “Nepal’s Foreign policy in the Changed Context, 2012″.

The Indian government has to face a pressure on many fronts. On one hand if the Nepal government’s stance is posing a threat to the Indian military organizational routines then on the other hand, a number of social circles, human rights organizations and media bodies including Nepal Journalists Association (NJA) and Human Rights Journalists Association ( HURJA),Nepal have paid rich tributes to the chivalry and bravery of the Gurkha soldiers in Indian army and elsewhere and have strongly condemned the discrimination of Gurkha soldiers by anyone, anywhere under any circumstances. So much so that the President of Nepal Journalists Association Dr. Manju Ratna Sakya, while talking to media said that Gurkhas were symbol of chivalry and pride for the entire Nepali nation and their historic contributions of chivalry in the battlefields were globally acknowledged and recognized and any discrimination and insult of any Gurkha soldier was deemed to be the insult and discrimination of the entire Nepali nation.

Raj Bahadur, a veteran journalist and senior member of NJA; the neutral and highly active med body of Nepali journalists, looks at the issue from a different angle and believes that this is not the case of Gurkha soldiers only. It’s a case of the fate of Nepal as well. While a large part of Nepal is under occupation from India, voices are now gaining momentum which call for breaking the shackles of Indian hegemony in Nepal. According to the authenticated reports over 25,000 Nepalese are currently serving in the Indian Army’s seven Gurkha Rifles (1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th and 11th), each of which has five to six battalions (800 to 1,000 soldiers each), drawing basically from Rais and Limbus of Eastern Nepal and Gurungs and Magars from the West. That makes up almost 70% of the Gurkha Regiment, while “Indian domiciled Gurkhas” from places like Dehradun, Darjeeling and Dharamshala constitute the rest. There are roughly another 20,000 Gurkhas in Indian paramilitary and police forces like Assam Rifles while India is supposed to look after over 80,000 ex-servicemen, 17,000 retired Assam Rifles personnel and 11,000 widows in Nepal. The irony is that no welfare plan has ever been introduced in this direction by successive Indian governments and military leaderships, other than routine pensions and the Gurkhas are treated by every government and the military command not more than a tissue paper and that’s what is causing alarming restlessness within the ranks. Even within the Indian army there are two groups; one who are against according extra privileges to the Gurkha soldiers – of course in majority – and an insignificant group of military seniors from the West Bengal who support the Gurkhas demands and rights but are not paid any heed to.

Instead of responding to the grievances of the Nepal government generally and the Gurkhas categorically, the serving and retired Indian military top brass has started threatening the latter, directly and indirectly. One of the former Chiefs of the Indian army Gen. Ved Prakash Malik recently said, “Nepali Gurkhas have been part of the Indian Army for a very long time. If they are stopped from joining the army then the association between the armies and also the countries will be affected. Besides the large number of Nepali Gurkha soldiers, we also have a large number of pensioners in the country. We have opened hospitals and other facilities at Kathmandu and other parts of Nepal,” Malik told The Daily Mail to a query in this direction. “In some villages in eastern Nepal, about half of the families have one or more pensioners from the Indian Army”, he added. However Malik had no convincing or satisfactory reply to the issue of the plight of 11000 widows of Gurkha soldiers back in Nepal and to the issues like the Ran Bahadur Gurung episode.

However, currently the recruitment of Nepalese Gurkhas into the Indian and British Armies (which started with the Britain-India-Nepal Tripartite Agreement of 1947) is under a cloud. Based on the recommendation issued by a Parliamentary Committee on International Relations and Human Rights on 26 December 2011, Nepal has directed the ministries concerned to halt the recruitment of Gurkhas by foreign armies. This demand had first come up as a part of the 50-point agenda the Maoists submitted to the government when they went underground in 1996.A couple of years back, taking exceptional notice of discrimination of Gurkha soldiers in Indian army, Nepal’s Maoist Chief, Prachanda had very strongly objected to further recruitment of Gurkhas in Indian army and called for a comprehensive ban by Kathmandu in this direction. He told reporters that Nepali Gurkhas should not be allowed to join Indian defense forces.

Amrita Thapa of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (M) says, “Nowhere in the world do you see a system like this. Times have changed from the Empire days. The Gurkhas are taken from Nepal as raw material and used by another country to meet their purposes in exchange for money; there is no value addition. They may be given medals and honours, but it is a form of modern-day slavery that questions the sovereignty of Nepal,” says. The most alarming and dangerous thing is when surprisingly, this move finds support from the Indian Gurkhas, who have always felt sidelined. “Being Indian citizens, they feel they should be given preference over Nepalese Gurkhas,” says a senior officer in the Indian Army.

Gurkhaland is a proposed state in India demanded by the people of Darjeeling Hills and the people of Gurkha ethnic origin in Dooars in northern West Bengal on the basis of ethno-linguistic rights. The movement for Gurkhaland has gained momentum in the line of ethno-linguistic-cultural sentiment of the people who desire to identify themselves as Indian Gurkhas. Two mass movements for Gurkhaland have taken place under the GNLF (Gurkha National Liberation Front -1986–1988) and Gurkha Janmukti Morcha (2007–till date). The movement for a separate state of Gurkhaland gained serious momentum during the 1980s, when a violent agitation was carried out by Gurkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) led by Subhash Gaisingh. The agitation ultimately led to the establishment of a semiautonomous body in 1988 called the Darjeeling Gurkha Hill Council (DGHC) to govern certain areas of Darjeeling district. However, in 2007, a new party called the Gurkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) raised the demand for a separate state of Gurkhaland once again.

It’s becoming difficult for the Indian government to handle this double edged issue; satisfying the Nepali and Indian Gurkhas as far as their demands are concerned and ensuring that out of desperation the deprived Gurkhas, serving as well as retired ones do not play into the hands of Gurkhaland movement activists. In case if it happens so then the Indian authorities are seeing a worst nightmare of their history, especially when the West Bengal belt is already a troublesome zone for India. Whatever the case may be but one thing is for sure that it can easily be read on the horizon that very soon there is no more Gurkha Battle-Cry “Ayo Gorkhali for Indian Army.