Opinion | There Is A 'Third' Player In The India-Pakistan Conflict

This is perhaps one of those moments when a single decision by a single person will determine the future course of India, perhaps even the world. That decision is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's alone: how to respond to the terrorist attack on tourists in Pahalgam. The Prime Minister has asserted that the terrorists and conspirators will be punished "beyond their imagination". He has also vowed a decisive fight against terrorism. The immediate response - keeping the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in abeyance and paring down relations - has been measured and, to use a phrase often deployed by defence experts, non-kinetic. Suspending the 1960 treaty, which has survived multiple conflicts between the two countries, including the 1971 war, is using a heavy hand. The seriousness of the diplomatic offensive can be gauged from the fact that Pakistan immediately termed it as an act of war and threatened to suspend the 1972 Simla Pact. 

Bigger Than Balakot?

Expectation is, however, building that the Prime Minister would order a spectacular military operation that would surpass the special forces' "surgical strike" and the missile rain on terror camps in Balakot inside Pakistan in 2016 and 2019, respectively. Those responses were a significant departure from previous military actions, which were effective but quietly accomplished. The much-publicised nature of the latter strikes reduces the surprise element and effectiveness of a repeat operation. Moreover, India not taking the bait to fight a full-scale, economically debilitating war has ensured its rise to become the fifth largest economy in the world with a GDP of nearly $4.5 trillion, which is 12 times larger than that of Pakistan. It has so far been victorious in the war of attrition with diplomacy and economic strength. A crucial diplomatic success was India getting Pakistan grey-listed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Now, PM Modi has the unenviable task of responding with force enough to be seen as proportionate, yet without the scope of escalation. That is tough, because Pakistan does not need a reason to escalate. Or, the Prime Minister could play the waiting game. That would require relying on his political equity to keep the nationalists assuaged. His predecessors, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, managed it, quietly but surely uprooting the multiple terror networks that had entrenched themselves in the country and cutting off their air supply from abroad. The Modi government built on that, developing close diplomatic and intelligence ties with West Asian countries once friendly to Pakistan, choking off avenues of financial and material help. Today it is heavily dependent on China.

Changing The Rules

In an interview with Karan Thapar on April 28, former Friday Times editor and part-time politician Najam Sethi said that the issue was no more about Pakistan and India. There is a third player, China, which is deeply invested in Pakistan and will go to great lengths to protect its interests. Sethi was talking about the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a key part of China's global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Sethi hinted that China will support Pakistan militarily in the event of an attack by India.

About 43 projects worth about $25 billion in the CPEC are complete, yet it is besieged by unrest in Balochistan, where separatists attacks have crippled economic activity. The CPEC showpiece, the Gwadar Port, was expected to be China and Pakistan's trade gateway to West and Central Asia. The port, which was also supposed to reduce China's reliance on the Malacca Straits, is currently a white elephant.

The CPEC, however, has stalled due to local protests and separatist attacks. The attacks had become increasingly frequent, deadly and audacious. The most audacious attack came on March 11, when the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) hijacked Jaffar Express, a passenger train with more than 400 passengers on board. Although security forces took back the train after multiple raids, scores of people died. Lieutenant-General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the director-general of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) public relations, said the hijack "changed the rules of the game". Addressing a press conference after the rescue operation, Chaudhry squarely blamed India for the incident. He said India was using Afghanistan-based groups to sponsor terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

In an interview with Samaa TV soon after Chaudhry's comment, former editor Sethi said that India changed the rules of the game after the Mumbai attacks. It carried out attacks across the border. Pakistan would do the same thing. "It means taking the war to Afghanistan," Sethi said. He said Pakistan would target BLA and Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) camps in Afghanistan. It would also exercise strategic options, as India did after the 2008 attacks. The most obvious option was to "open the tap [of terror] in Kashmir", he said, and added that Pakistan should take a leaf out of India's playbook and go on "offensive defence", a term from national security advisor Ajit Doval's lexicon. Read with Pakistan army chief Asim Munir's jingoistic speech two weeks ago, the Pahalgam attack appears to be the first twist of the tap.

Why China Is Backing Pakistan

Unsurprisingly, China has strongly backed Pakistan. "China has always supported Pakistan in its resolute anti-terrorism actions. As a staunch friend and all-weather strategic partner, China fully understands Pakistan's reasonable security concerns and supports Pakistan in safeguarding its sovereignty and security interests," the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi was quoted as saying. The Chinese foreign ministry also said that China backs an "impartial investigation" into the incident.

Pakistan has sought an international investigation into the Pahalgam attack, which effectively means internationalisation of the Kashmir issue and rolling back India's diplomatic gains since 1971. One element of the Simla Pact is the understanding that Pakistan cannot internationalise any issues with India. The agreement forces both countries to deal with any dispute bilaterally. By threatening to suspend it, Pakistan is trying to pry open a door to the internationalisation of Kashmir. It also changes the status of the international border, known as the Line of Control (LoC).

Internal strife in Pakistan is something China is wary of. It knows that an impoverished, densely populated country controlled by the army is a recipe for disaster. The CPEC will never take off unless the unrest in the country abates. Pakistan has now allowed China to deploy private security in the region after resisting for a long time its demand to put boots on the ground to protect its assets and people.

The IWT Suspension

The suspension of the IWT will likely fuel ongoing protests in Sindh. An ambitious, army-backed $3.3 billion project to build six canals to carry water from the Indus to irrigate dry areas has resulted in widespread protests, as the people of Sindh believe it will exacerbate water shortages in their province. The project revived provincial rivalry between Sindh and Punjab, and protests have brought the country to a standstill. The government has said it would temporarily halt the project.

One of the key elements of the IWT is that India is obligated to share hydrological data of the Indus and allow visits by Pakistani experts to inspect river projects on the Indian side. Suspending the IWT would starve Pakistani engineers of crucial data that might be required to design and develop the canals.

Yet, none of that would be considered sufficient. Indications are that the government is looking to carry out a military or intelligence operation. Pakistan is expecting and preparing for it, too. India is perhaps looking to lean on its diplomatic strength to manage the fallout of its action. In any case, it doesn't appear to be far away.

(Dinesh Narayanan is a Delhi-based journalist and author of 'The RSS And The Making Of The Deep Nation'.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author