Modi's Balochistan reference to remind Pak of Bangladesh

PM's strategy is to make Islamabad stop supporting terrorism in J&K, help calm temperature in the Valley

By raising Balochistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has poked at a wound that Islamabad believes India inflicted on it nearly 45 years back. Domestic criticism that the PM’s statements are aimed at assuaging his party’s core nationalist support base notwithstanding, Modi’s threat would be taken seriously across the border.

It is sure to revive the memories in Pakistan of events leading up to the 1971 India-Pakistan war, which had ended with the liberation of East Pakistan, later renamed Bangladesh. Islamabad doesn't claim territorial rights on Pakistan occupied Kashmir, which it calls 'Azad Kashmir, but Balochistan, as was East Pakistan, is Pakistani territory. India, as opposed to Pakistani position on PoK, claims Jammu and Kashmir to be an integral part of India.

In the general elections in March 1971, incumbent Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had returned to power with a thumping majority on the back of her ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan. Months later, she travelled the world capitals to tell them about the atrocities that Pakistan was committing on its people in East Pakistan.

In subsequent years, Pakistan had adopted the strategy of making “India bleed through a thousand cuts”, and supported separatists in Punjab and Kashmir.

At the all party meeting on Kashmir on Friday, the PM asked the Ministry of External Affairs to expose to the world atrocities perpetrated by Pakistan on its people in Gilgit, Baltistan, Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Balochistan. In his Independence Day speech on Monday, Modi said people of these regions have thanked him for highlighting their woes. Modi's statements have an unmistakable echo of what Mrs. Gandhi had carried out in the monsoon months of 1971.

Some in the Congress have criticized the PM since Balochistan, unlike PoK, is an “internal matter” of Pakistan. But Congress’ official spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala backed the PM’s statement – clearly suggesting that national mood was likely to be with Modi on this issue, particularly after the events of the last 40 days in Kashmir.

Some observers have bemoaned that it will make India lose its moral high ground against Pakistan and open New Delhi to more accusations that it was fomenting trouble in Balochistan. Pakistan has for long maintained that the Baloch struggle has covert Indian support. In April 2016, Pakistan arrested Kulbhushan Jadhav. While the circumstances of Jadhav’s arrest are unclear, Islamabad claimed he was arrested from Balochistan and he was from Indian Navy and a spy. India claimed that Jadhav had business interests in Iran and nothing to do with the Baloch struggle. Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistan PM’s adviser on foreign policy, termed Modi’s reference to Balochistan as a confession that India through its intelligence agency RAW has been fomenting terrorism in Balochistan. Aziz said this was confirmed by the public confession of Jadhav.

Only time will tell if Modi’s references to Balochistan and other regions are anything beyond rhetorical. For the present, it looks more like a bargaining chip to make Islamabad come to the dialogue table and shed its fire and brimstone on Kashmir. In his Independence Day speech, the PM criticized Pakistan for glorifying terrorism, while schools in India had prayed for the children killed in the Peshawar school attack. This was clearly to suggest that New Delhi will not adopt terrorism as state policy against another country. He also didn’t rule out a dialogue with Pakistan and didn't refer to Pakistan directly even once.

India, meanwhile, has its concerns in Balochistan. Pakistan has given Gwadar port to the Chinese, while the Indians are developing the Chabahar port in Iran. Afghanistan has long disputed the Durand Line, its border with Pakistan. Until now, India has never supported the Afghan position. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is coming up in Gilgit and Baltistan. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had raised the issue of the economic corridor with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in their discussions in New Delhi on Saturday.

While Modi’s call will unite the nationalistic opinion in India, particularly at a time when his government is facing embarrassment over atrocities on dalits and for mishandling the situation in Kashmir, it is unlikely to be anything beyond forcing Pakistan to reduce its support to terrorism in Kashmir and help in calming the temperature in the Valley so that the India-Pakistan dialogue, stalled after the Pathankot attack, can be revived. Modi is slated to visit Pakistan in November to attend the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit. Indian PMs have visited Islamabad on the two previous occasions when Pakistan has hosted the SAARC Summit. Rajiv Gandhi visited Islamabad to attend the Summit in 1988, while Atal Bihari Vajpayee in early 2004.

Moreover, any Pakistani accusations on India would come in the context of the current international public opinion concerned about the rise of the ISIS. China, Pakistan's "all weather friend" has its own concerns with Islamic radicalism in its predominantly Muslim Xinjiang province. Iran, which Modi visited earlier this year, has a troubled border that it shares with Pakistan's Baloch province.