USI Library

News Information Service

Pioneer, 05-06-2017

Kulbhushan: A Victim Of Pakistan’s Power Play

BalbirPunj| inEdit

2

Last time, during the Kargil misadventure, AtalBihari Vajpayee did not give Sharif a single face-saver despite the then US President's appeal. This time, Sharif is facing an even tougher New Delhi

The core ofKulbhushanJadhav’s sordid episode lies in the Pakistan establishment’s politics over the Prime Minister-Army-Mullahupstaging one another and an innocent Indian citizen in Iran, Jadhav, falling a forced victim of this power play. The man’s life is at stake now and the power play has been so plotted that none of the three powers is in a position to give up the game .

Incidentally, Prime MinisterNawaz Sharifwas participating in the international summit in Saudi Arabia of heads of Islamic countries, against Islamist terrorism recently. Don’t miss the fact that, in his own country, the terrorist elements receive state aid and are closely directed and funded to stage mayhem in India and elsewhere, particularly neighbouring Afghanistan.

A recent article by Husain Haqqani in an English daily and the subsequent revelation inthe Hindustan Timesthat in the December 2015 discussion, the Indian National Security Advisor AjitDoval had challenged his Pakistani counterpart with the fact that whereas there were 79 Pakistanis languishing in India, charged with terrorist activities and spying, there was not even one in Pakistan arrested on the same charge. Was this the origin of the unfortunate Jadhav incident?

Haqqani writes — “When Pakistan’s intelligence services arrested KulbhushanJadhav, they thought they had found the smoking gun that would help them make the case against India for orchestrating terrorism, especially in the insurgency stricken Balochistan, so far the only significant outcome of the sequence of events involving Jadhav is the worsening of India-Pakistan ties.”

Haqqani is not just a columnist. He has been once Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US. He is also a research scholar with Hudson Institute in Washington and knows his country and its politicians through and through. His latest book, India Vs Pakistan: Why Can't We Just be Friends?,is a 2016 publication and goes deeper into the relations between the two countries.

His earlier book, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military, had bared open the power structure in the country. The irony of Pakistan is that the nation, carved out of an ancient country, on the mere claim that Muslims will not be safe in a Hindu-majority country, is itself deep in trouble with mosques of one sect of Muslims attacking with bombs the worship places of another sect of Islam’s followers even after some other Islamic sects were declared non-Muslims.

From what Haqqani has exposed, it is clear that India taking the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was an unexpected twist to the whole plot that could backfire. That Pakistan has had to restructure its initial defence team in The Hague-based ICJ, is an admission that this dimension of an international court was totally unexpected for the Islamic nation.

But the ICJ issue is a baby that reluctant Sharif has to carry on his shoulders with the military nailing the civilian leadership either way. If the hanging of Jadhav is delayed, it helps the Army to pillory the Government for its ‘incompetence’. And if the hapless man is punished irrespective of the court decision, it is again for Sharif to deal with the consequences of defying international opinion and getting isolated further on the international scene.

For the last several months, Pakistan has been trying to worm itself back into international sympathy but there has been no success. The country is already seen as the breeder of international terrorism. Even if Islamabad’s new legal team roars in The Hague, calling Jadhav as the single evidence of Indian terrorism, the reputation of Pakistan’s self-declared terrorists like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed etc, are so overwhelming on the world that no one is going to take seriously Pakistan’s attempt to paint India black.

Pakistan is concentrating, therefore, on getting the The Hague court to agree with it that a ‘spy’ case like that of Jadhav is beyond the limits of international jurisdiction. Even if the court were to accept Pakistan’s plea and let that country do what it will with the individual, the international community is unlikely to leave Pakistan alone to do what it wants in the case.

After the Indian Government’s timely warning to Pakistan over the fate of Jadhav, a war like situation will certainly develop if Pakistan carries out its threat. The civilian Government in Islamabad will face all-round pressure. The international community will be upset for provoking a dangerous situation in the region with possible use of tactical nuclear weapons.

The Gulf Islamic countries which are already under serious economic pressure due to the new situation in the economy (consider Saudi Arabia’s economic plight with America not needing Gulf country oil at all), will be in deep trouble. The Western nations, that are looking forward to large international investments in India’s projected huge growth prospects, will not be amused either.

In such a situation, with the civilian administration in Islamabad under all round pressure, Pakistan would be ripe for its nth military take over. Haqqani perceives something that this column has also repeatedly pointed out. He says, “It is probably meant to heighten the sentiment in Pakistan, carefully nurtured over the years by its establishment that India remains Pakistan’s eternal enemy. It will likely also to deter civilian leaders, certainly Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, from any new initiative to mend fences with India.”

Many other reputed analysts are likely to agree with former diplomat Haqqani. Blind hate and consistent opposition to India, (and all that it stands for — pluralism, democracy and secularism) have defined Pakistan’s domestic initiatives and foreign policy till date

Last time the same Sharif was caught in the trap set by his military: The great Kargil misadventure. He sought to gain even a single word of sympathy from his traditional friends: The US, China, etc. He got none. As if by some coincidence, in New Delhi too, then it was a BJP-led Government. Nawaz Sharif thought that President Bill Clinton would give him the life buoy to get out of the situation where his Army faced a visible and total defeat and he only wanted a saving thread, however thin, at least a face saver cease fire.

India’s then Prime Minister AtalBihari Vajpayee gave him none despite the US President’s appeal; even Beijing kept itself out though Sharif knocked at that gate too. This time Sharif is facing even more tough and strong Government and even more strong willed Prime Minister.

In Pakistan, the Jadhav incident is only a cover for the entire military and the mosques to use Haqqani’s phrase in our context for the civilian regime to exit.Exciting time ahead.

(The writer is a Delhi-based commentator and former BJP RajyaSabha MP)