Global Indian News
The surgical strikes by India’s Special Forces on seven terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have sparked fears of an escalation in India-Pakistan tensions which could spiral out of control. The …
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Why is China repeatedly blocking India’s initiative to sanction and designate Masood Azhar, the architect of the 26/11 Mumbai massacre and the Pathankot airbase assault, as an international terrorist? The answer is not all that esoteric as Beijing is simply rallying behind its all-weather ally and client state Pakistan, which is under pressure from India to account for the attack on the military camp at Uri by Pakistani terrorists.
At a time when India is engaged in a concerted diplomatic offensive to isolate Pakistan internationally over its support to cross-border terror, China’s stance over Masood Azhar designation has come as a huge disappointment for India. China’s posture is especially galling for India as it reveals duplicity and indicates a segmented approach towards terrorism, which is coming in the way of forging a united global front against terrorism.
Talking of evidence and objectivity, Chinese officials have to only listen to numerous hate speeches made by Azhar against not only India, but also against all infidels in the world. In Azhar’s twisted worldview and warped-up theology, all non-Muslims, including Han Chinese, are enemies and should be killed to please Allah!
The twisted logic of Pakistan, a self-destroying failing state, is understandable, but for China this vacillation and sophistry on Masood Azhar’s designation a global terrorist undermines its big power pretensions. The promise of an Asian Century, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping decided to collaborate, can’t be fructified if cross-border terrorism continues unabated. Shielding Masood Azhar, a propagandist zealot and a terror impresario, in the UN can’t be part of the China Dream, which President Xi has so eloquently spoken about, and it surely does not befit an ancient civilisation and an emerging power!
The audacious surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) by India has underscored India’s resolve to punish Pakistan for the Uri terror strike and its continued use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy.
The special operation launched by the Indian Army on the intervening night of September 28 and 29 in a nearly five-hour-long operation to destroy terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has been widely welcomed in India and is seen a fitting retaliation for the killing of 18 Indian soldiers in Uri the terror strike.
The surgical strikes have also demonstrated to Pakistan and the world that India is not going to suffer any more Pakistan’s duplicity and nuclear blackmail by deploying techniques it considers necessary for the country’s honour and self-defence.
The details of the special operation are not clear, but reliable sources disclosed that the launch pads in PoK were located in the range of 2 to 3km from the LoC and were under constant surveillance for over a week.
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India is looking to step up its outreach to Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries to muster their support against Pakistan-sponsored terror, with Vice-President Hamid Ansari set to take up the issue with the leaders of Nigeria and Mali. However, even as India ratchets up its ongoing diplomatic campaign to isolate Pakistan in the wake of the Uri terror attack, Mr Ansari sent a subtle but strong message across by underlining that one should not exaggerate the significance of OIC.
Mr Ansari touched down in Abuja on September 26 on a three-day visit to Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and most populous country. Nigeria rolled out the red carpet to welcome Mr Ansari, with Nigeria’s vice-president Yemi Osinbajo personally receiving him at the Abuja International Airport. Dancers dressed in colourful attire welcomed the Vice-President, the first high-level visit from India in the last nine years since then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Nigeria in 2007.
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The September 18 attack on the Uri military camp, launched by Pakistan-based terrorists, has agitated the entire country and ignited serious, high-decibel debate as to how these repeated provocations need to be handled by the leadership.
Pakistan appears to have hit upon a ‘no cost’ grand strategy which is backed by its nuclear weapons capability with its announced first use policy. The aim, clearly, is to show Prime Minister Modi as a weak leader, to keep India unsettled by negatively impacting its international image and a calculation that the state response to terrorism can widen India’s potential internal fault lines. By applying this strategy, it feels that it has the strategic and tactical initiative for escalation of tension and, indeed, in the bilateral relations as a whole.
Costs for Pakistan can, certainly, be raised. Its grand strategy is anchored in waging an asymmetrical, ‘irregular’ war against India, backed up by its military and nuclear capability: this ‘irregular’ war involves non-uniformed, ‘civilian’ elements trained in subversion and guerrilla warfare in urban areas and the countryside. Conventional military action, as seen in the ‘Operation Parakram’ mobilisation of the Indian troops on the India-Pakistan border after the Parliament attack, cannot be the response.
As it needs to leverage all aspects of a country’s strength, countering asymmetric warfare is a protracted affair and cannot take the form of a short, swift conventional war. Ultimately, it is the strength and resilience of a political system which actually prevails in a war of attrition, against the strategy of ‘death by a thousand cuts’. The answer to our Pakistan dilemma, in short, is not ‘strategic restraint’ but ‘strategic patience’.
In his first public rally after the Uri terror attack, India’s Prime Minister PM Narendra Modi, under pressure from hardliners to retaliate against Pakistan, struck a statesman-like tone, challenging Pakistan …
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“We’ve been hearing it for a while – 21st century is Asia’s century. And Asia has all it takes to achieve that. But there is one country in Asia that …
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India fielded a young diplomat to trash Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s staccato speech at UN, in which he drummed the Kashmir cause in a formulaic manner and sought to glorify the leader of a proscribed terrorist organization. It was a stinging rebuttal of the Pakistani leader’s speech, who invested 80 per cent of his time in orchestrating the Kashmir cause, with hardly any resonance among world leaders.
“The land of Taxila, one of the greatest learning centres of ancient times, is now host to the Ivy League of terrorism. It attracts aspirants and apprentices from all over the world,” said Eenam Gambhir, First Secretary at India’s Permanent Mission to the UN. Ms Gambhir was deployed to exercise India’s Right of Reply during the General Debate of the 71st session UN General Assembly on September 21.
Condensed in just 510 words, India’s rebuttal was a model of precision and the most devastating indictment of Pakistan’s continuing use of terrorism as a state policy.
In a rebuff to Pakistan, the leaders of more than 25 countries have spoken at the UNGA, but no one even alluded to Kashmir and everybody spoke about the need to fight terror unitedly, underscoring Pakistan’s growing international isolation.
It was time for some plain speaking as India’s Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar summoned Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit and conveyed that India has enough evidence to link Pakistani militants with the recent terror attack in Uri that killed 18 Indian soldiers.
The message was direct and sliced through duplicity and denials that have become hallmarks of Pakistan’s response in the aftermath of terror attacks in India, engineered by Pakistan-based militants, in collusion with sections of the state machinery.
The latest terrorist attack in Uri only underlines that the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan remains active, India’s external affairs ministry said after the meeting between Mr Jaishankar and the Pakistani envoy in New Delhi on September 21. “We demand that Pakistan lives up to its public commitment to refrain from supporting and sponsoring terrorism against India,” said the statement. This was an unambiguous statement from India, which suggests that India’s security agencies have made a considered assessment that the attack on an Army base in Uri on September 18 was perpetrated by Pakistani militants with support from state actors.
With India providing specific evidence of complicity of Pakistani militants in recent terror attacks in the country, the ball is now in Pakistan’s court. Denials and equivocations simply won’t do, and hyped-up rhetoric, which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is set to unleash at the UNGA tonight, will not deceive anyone. It’s time for Pakistan to act and redeem its honour, in short.
India’s strategy of isolating Pakistan in the aftermath of the Uri terror attack has struck a powerful chord in the US. A day after US Secretary of State John Kerry chastised Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and asked him to prevent terrorists from using his country as safe havens, two American legislators introduced a legislation in the US Congress to designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism.
The bill, H.R 6069 or the Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act, calls upon the US administration to make a formal assessment on the matter within four months of its passage.
The move to brand Pakistan as a terrorist state is seen as a triumph of Indian diplomacy as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj heads to the US on a concerted drive to corner Pakistan on account of its alleged complicity in the Uri terror attack in north Kashmir, which killed 18 Indian soldiers.
The bill is seen as a huge setback for Mr Sharif as he gears up to make a speech in the UNGA, in which he is expected to highlight India’s alleged human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir.
The US’ admonition of Pakistan underscores Washington’s growing wariness with Islamabad’s systematic duplicity on terrorism, and will bolster India’s drive to isolate Pakistan in the international community.