The joint US-India statement in the wake of the Indian prime minister’s visit to the USA is a source of concern. The statement has not only urged Pakistan to take ’immediate action “against all terrorist groups, but also left open the option of asking the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to further tighten its anti-money-laundering and terrorism financing standards. The way the United Nations, under US pressure, designates a person or entity a terrorist is questionable. At the SCO also India’s External Affairs Minister brought up the question of self-conceited and self–concocted “cross border terrorism”. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister rightly called it a myth.
India equates the freedom movement in the illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir with “terrorism”. She keeps mum about how it armed and trained Mukti Bahini terrorists in erstwhile East Pakistan.
Indira Gandhi urged the army chief Gen Sam Maneckshaw to rush the invasion of East Pakistan. But, Maneckshaw delayed the invasion until the monsoon was over. RAW officer B. Raman, in his book The Kaoboys of R&AW makes no bones about India’s involvement up to the level of prime minister in East Pakistan’s insurgency.
In a published letter, RAW officer RK Yadav made a startling revelation that India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi, parliament, RAW and armed forces acted in tandem to dismember Pakistan. The confessions in his letter are corroborated by B. Raman’s book The Kaoboys of R&AW:Down Memory Lane. He reminds `Indian parliament passed resolution on March 31, 1971 to support insurgency (terrorism from Pak angle). Indira Gandhi had then confided with Kao that in case Mujib was prevented from ruling Pakistan, she would liberate East Pakistan from the clutches of the military junta. Kao, through one RAW agent, hijacked a Fokker Friendship, the Ganga, of Indian Airlines hijacked from Srinagar to Lahore to block Pak flights to East Pakistan.’
Amar Bhushan in his book Terror in Islamabad reveals how he brazenly violated norms of diplomatic immunity to complete his missions. Bhushan happened to have served as a diplomat at the Indian High Commission Islamabad. Before being posted to Islamabad, Bhushan had served as an officer of India’s premier intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing, Border Security Force Intelligence, and State Special Branch for a quarter of a century. His book mentions another RAW officer disguised as a diplomat. Amit Munshi (real name Veer Singh) posted as Cultural Attache.
Indian ambassador Bharath Raj Muthu Kumar, with the consent of then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, secretly coordinated military and medical assistance to the Alliance via Tajikistan air base Farkhor (How India secretly armed Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance. Former envoy has a word of caution on Delhi’s role in a post-U.S. Kabul. The Hindu 1 September 2019). The support involved helicopters, ordnance, mortars, small armaments, refurbished Kalashnikovs seized in Kashmir, combat and winter clothes, packaged food, medicines, and funds. These supplies were delivered circuitously with the help of other countries (Aeini and Farkhor air bases in Tajikistan) or through Massoud’s brother in London, Wali Massoud. India opened four consulates at Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif, besides its embassy at Kabul. India established a Free Balochistan office in New Delhi under Naila Baloch. The inauguration was attended by many Indian government/intelligence officers.
India retaliates against any mention of disputed Kashmir with insinuation of cross-border terrorism, actually freedom movement. During a debate to reform the United Nations, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister mentioned the need for resolving the Kashmir dispute. His innocuous remarks were like a red rag to India’s External Affairs Minister. In his retort he did not explain why the United Nations has not been able to hold a plebiscite to resolve the dispute. Instead, he taunted Pakistan for Osama’s presence at Abbottabad (implying that Pakistan sheltered him). Irked by India’s External Affairs Minister’s reply, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister reminded him that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “butcher of Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat’.
To tarnish Pakistan’s image, Indian media even flashed a talk with CIA’s former director Leon Panetta (he was grilled with Pakistan-bashing leading questions). At India Today Conclave, an interviewer expressed skepticism about Pakistan’s “feigned” ignorance. In his reply, Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf drew attention to the 9/11 incident. He asked why the USA with its most advanced intelligence agencies remained unaware of hijacking of airliners, their training at American soil, and their flight trajectory.
There is no UNO resolution incorporating India’s volte-face that India-occupied Kashmir acceded to India through the so-called state assembly’s resolution. By flouting United Nations resolutions, India qualifies as a rogue State. It should be subjected to sanctions. Besides Kashmir, there are other unresolved disputes like annexation of Junagadh, Rann of Katch, and Kargil. These disputes also could not be resolved owing to India’s obduracy.
Bilawal Zardari-Bhutto’s remarks about the Indian Prime Minister Modi prompted the US State Department’s spokesman Ned Price to say “Washington does not want a “war of words” between New Delhi and Islamabad, but constructive dialogue. In sum the US position on Kashmir was unchanged.
The declassified Jawahar Lal Nehru papers speak volumes on India’s volte faces. Till about 1953, India continued to reiterate that Kashmir is a disputed territory. And the Kashmiri people will be provided an opportunity to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination. In about 1953, India took a volte-face saying that the United Nations resolutions on the dispute were of mediatory, not mandatory, nature.
India had given a “Special Status State “to the disputed territory. It abolished that status and annexed the territory as two Union Territories. By flouting international resolutions on Kashmir, India qualified as a rogue state subject to international sanctions.
Aware of India’s intention to get the ‘Instrument of Accession’ rubber-stamped by the puppet assembly, the Security Council passed two resolutions to forestall the `foreseeable accession’ by the puppet assembly. Security Council’s Resolution No 9 of 30 March 1951 and affirmative Resolution No 122 of 24 March 1957 outlaws accession or any other action to change the status of the Jammu and Kashmir state.
On 2 November 1947, Nehru declared in a radio broadcast that the government of India was “prepared when peace and order have been established in Kashmir, to have a referendum held under international auspices like the United Nations.” (Chaudhri Mohammad Ali, The Emergence of Pakistan).
Till 1953, India was, at least verbally, committed to the plebiscite. But, in the subsequent period, it made frantic efforts to warp the United Nations Organization and woo the USA in her favour.
For instance, during the temporary absence of Pakistan’s representative India tried to get the `India-Pakistan Question’ deleted from the UN agenda. India based her plea on the Security Council’s informal decision, dated 30 July 1996, about deleting dormant questions. The Question was deleted during the Pakistan rep’s absence but was restored to the agenda upon his arrival.
Again, at India’s behest, US Congressman Stephen Solarz elicited the statement from Bush-administration high-level diplomat, John H. Kelly, that plebiscite was no longer possible in Kashmir. To India’s chagrin, John R. Mallot, the US State Department’s point man for South Asia in 1993, corrected Kelly’s faux pas. He told the House Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Asia and the Pacific on 28 April1993 that John Kelly ‘misspoke’ in 1990 when he said that the USA no longer believed a plebiscite was necessary for South Asia. Mallot clarified that Kelly made his comment after ‘continued grilling’ by the panel’s (pro-India) chairman, Stephen J. Solarz of New York.
Avid readers may refer to Solarz-Kelly’s conversation and corrective policy action taken by the US State Department in Robert G. Wirsing’s book India, Pakistan, and the Kashmir Dispute, published in 1994. They may also see Mushtaqur Rehman’s Divided Kashmir: Old Problems, New Opportunities for India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri People .
Avtar Singh Bhasin’s book India and Pakistan: Neighbours at Odds quotes from Jawahar Lal Nehru’s declassified papers to prove that Nehru had a perfidious mind. He hoodwinked Sheikh Abdullah, and the UN.
India’s attempt to equate freedom movement in Kashmir to “terrorism” is futile. Kashmir is a simmering nuclear tinderbox. India should eschew euphoria at the USA’s support as quid pro quo for participation in anti-China QUAD.
There is no UNO resolution incorporating India’s volte-face that India-occupied Kashmir acceded to India through the so-called state assembly’s resolution. By flouting United Nations resolutions, India qualifies as a rogue State. It should be subjected to sanctions.
Besides Kashmir, there are other unresolved disputes like annexation of Junagadh, Rann of Katch, and Kargil. These disputes also could not be resolved owing to India’s obduracy.
