For the time being at least, it seems that a bright and prosperous future for Balochistan might be at hand, CPEC has been formally initiated and it is believed that within the next few years scores of different projects will be up and boosting the local economic prospects even further. A population that has for so long been kept impoverished will finally have a shot at an elevated standard of living. Perhaps this was anticipated, not just domestically but also internationally, as evident in India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech on August 15, 2016 where he raised the issue of Pakistan’s human rights violations in Balochistan. While the usual back and forth rhetoric between the two South Asian giants isn’t an entirely new concept, this particular time it got a peculiar response. The power brokers inside New Delhi had presumably come up with a counter to Pakistan’s jibe at India’s human rights violations in Kashmir.
The Kashmir freedom struggle is on news once again since the martyrdom of Burhan Wani by Indian forces in July last year. Modi and his administration believe that the Kashmiri movement can be silent only if India begins spreading the fire in Balochistan. Indian government want to use Balochistan card to counter the Pakistani arguments about human rights violation by India in Jammu and Kashmir. But the history proves that Pakistani government and its establishment has never surrendered to the Indian blackmailing and their support to anti-state elements in Pakistan. In 1971, India supported Mukhti Bahani to disintegrate and to weaker Pakistan to stop them from another Gibralter like operation in Kashmir. But despite getting disintegrate, Islamabad didn’t change its stance on Kashmir. In fact, it exacerbated their distrust towards India and firmed their stance on Kashmir.
Pakistan is accusing Indian for having role in instability of Balochistan and have provided substantial evidence which are always rejected by India. But the Indian PM, Manmohan Singh, failed to deny the evidences provided by his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt in 2009. Singh was harshly criticized at home after this episode. Few years later, Pakistan provided dossier to UN which was consisted of proofs of Indian involvement in Balochistan which was later proved when the Pakistani forces arrested a serving Indian Navy officer, Kalbhushan Yadav, in Balochistan. The Yadav episode exposed India who are pursuing their official strategy of so called “offensive defence” in Pakistan by destabilizing Balochistan by actively supporting and funding the anti-state elements there.
For decades, Kashmir proved to be the bone of contention between the two nuclear neighbours and the core source of tension in the region. This proxy war may have been transferred from Kashmir to Balochistan in the wake of greater Chinese involvement within the region. Only time will tell how this impacts the geo-political aims of both India and Pakistan.

Share.

About Author

Leave A Reply