Altering the Map?

Altering the Map? 

In an episode of BBC’s 18^th century copper-and-pilchards serialised  drama Poldark, set on the beautiful Cornwall coast,  a character philosophises strikingly. He says that in order for a person to be happy, three needs must be fulfilled-namely Comfort, Purpose, and, Certainty.

He meant it in the context of the minor key of everyday life, but the same needs do actually exist in the life of nations too.

It wasn’t just political theorist Friedrich Hegel who spoke of the ‘march of nations’ in terms of destiny. Many other visionaries still speak of a ‘manifest destiny’ that has no choice but to unfold in time.

Pakistan’s destiny, evidently, is to disintegrate. It was born out of hubris and false premises in 1947. And in 2016, it is having a very difficult time holding on to a shred of common decency, let alone character and fidelity.

Pakistan has come to realise that it is hurtling towards self-destruction, no matter what. So, it doesn’t seem to care anymore. It thinks nothing of recklessly firefighting lies with more lies.

Meanwhile, India, as its uncomfortable geographic neighbour, has  also been working its way towards its manifest destiny.

And this destiny is an altogether loftier one. It is likely to take it all the way, and in every way, to the front rank of nations. From a third world economy to start with, it is being described as an emerging economy, on its way to becoming, first, a low-middle-income one, and then a middle-income one, and finally- a developed nation.

The disconnect, between these two neighbours is bred by the choices each has made since independence.

But now, having failed on its own as a nation state, Pakistan has converted itself into the most abject kind of vassal to its other powerful neighbour, China.

And China, having learned from a couple of centuries of utter humiliation at the hands of the imperial powers, changed gears in the 1980s for the very much better.

From its version of failed Communism that murdered over 30 million of its own people, it has risen to become a prosperous $12 trillion economy. This to India’s trifling $2 trillion presently, but you wouldn’t know it for all the options it constantly considers!

Pakistan however, with an economy smaller than that of the state of Maharashtra, is slave to a very powerful master indeed.

And so, when provocations come to India from Pakistan lately, India must consider Pakistan and China together.

It is true, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at Kozikode recently, after 18 Indian Army soldiers were massacred at Uri, that there have been 17  cross-border attacks by Pakistani terrorists in the last 8 months.

The Indian security forces have killed over 110 terrorists, more than ever before in a similar time frame.

But the moot question is, what gives Pakistan the gumption to go on and on with this policy?  How much more can India endure without stern retaliation?  Pakistan’s  ‘thousand cuts’ policy  may be working but their deeper wish to polarise Indian Hindus and Muslims to daggers drawn enmity has failed resoundingly. We are not, and never will be, at each other’s throats. But we are certainly sick of  the cross-border terrorism.

In the very first flush, Pakistan did manage, with British conniving, to grab PoK and Gilgit/Baltistan from India. It also took Balochistan, from itself, and the Kalat, in 1948. But, its persistent villainny has all gone downhill since then.

It lost wars with India in 1965, and in 1971, when it also lost East Pakistan. True, both of these wars were in the pre-nuclear era on the sub-continent.  

But then, Pakistan also lost a limited war with India, after mutual nuclear weaponisation, in 1999, at Kargil.

But now, it is sure, as we also are, that India cannot win anymore because of its conjoining with China. This has been given strategic shape for all the world to see and assess, in the form of the, at least, $50 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

This is a formidable ‘beltway’, running from China’s Muslim majority, and restive, province of Xinkiang, via Gilgit-Baltistan, via Islamabad, through 48% of its land-mass in captive Balochistan, to Gwadur.

This road and the bounty it is expected to generate, is China’s great hope of resurrecting its drastically slowed economy, after its export led growth has been stopped in its tracks.

It is the CPEC that will give access to the Arabian Sea, the Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the region’s oil, Balochistan’s minerals, Iran, Central Asia- all from and through the state-of-the-art port envisaged at Gwadur.

China expects, due to its geographic contiguity, to dominate the whole  South/West/Central Asian region by land, sea, and air in due course. The CPEC, and Pakistan’s compliant slave status, euphimistically dressed up as all-weather friendship, is vital to this ambition.

What is in the way however, is a legitimate Indian claim on PoK and Gilgit Baltistan, and the water sources for Pakistan that India controls in J&K.

Other inconveniences include the opposition of the native Shia population in PoK/Gilgit-Baltistan, and the opposition of the Balochi people at the other end of the road too.

Pakistan and China have jointly gone about it with blatant suppressive vigour, killing, maiming, jailing, raping, bombing, abduction.

Pakistan has also faked regional elections, and set up puppet regimes to do its bidding in both areas.

But lately, India has joined the fight, fed up with Pakistani interference in the Kashmir Valley, by openly encouraging the insurgencies and publicising their plight internationally, and via its free and powerful media. It may soon grant asylum to the exiled Balochi leaders who have applied.

In days and months to come, India will probably take a number of punitive steps short of war. It may dilute the Indus Water Treaty that has been in place for 56 years. It may declare Pakistan as a terrorist state by act of Indian Parliament. It may abrogate the unilateral most favoured nation (MFN) status granted to Pakistan.

India is also working on securing its borders even more stringently, and will deal with all incursions as hostile enemy actions to be responded to with redoubled force. Other interventions, across borders are also under consideration.

On the diplomatic front, India is working hard to isolate, name, and shame, Pakistan as a terrorist state.

However, no full-fledged war is envisaged at this time, unless one is thrust upon India by Pakistani or Chinese actions.

While India is prepared, to an extent, to fight a two- country-multi-front war with both nuclear weaponised countries, it will be ruinously expensive.

Hopefully, at this point in time, any realistic assessment by our antagonists will  also reveal India’s capacity to do substantial damage to both China and Pakistan, despite the limitations of its military machine.

This should deter any adventurism on their part, desperate as they are to remove the threat from India to their CPEC plans, once and for all.

What China and Pakistan must realise is that they have no chance of getting away with it today. India has become geopolitically important as an equaliser in the region.

In 1962, Chou-En-Lai and Mao Zedong’s China confronted a stupid and naive Indian leadership. There were no missiles, protective shields, satellite surveillance, or nuclear weapons in play then. Still, China had to withdraw due to US pressure.

 Today, not only is India, on its own, strong enough to hold out for quite some time, it is bound to be supported by the rest of the UNSC and its allies, in the event of joint Pakistani-Chinese overt or covert aggression.

India’s  supporters may not put boots on the ground, but thankfully India does not need it. International experts and trainers will, of course, be inducted.

India will certainly need, and receive, limitless quantities of the most advanced military equipment, far superior to anything China possesses.

Nor can China access better weaponry from elsewhere, given its relative isolation on the world stage.

It is eloquent that Chinese-made weaponry is not in demand for money anywhere in the world. This, despite its considerable manufacturing establishment, that is reportedly starting to pinch quite hard.

This confrontation, if it comes, may grievously damage India’s economy, but it will put paid to China’s global ambitions for the near to middle term future.

Support from the OIC, from beleaguered countries like Turkey, and sundry other nonentities in military terms, does not add to the Chinese-Pakistani heft, or axis.

As such, they are, and will remain, on their own, to fight their battles for themselves with North Korea, possibly in tow.

As this confrontation rachets up, short of an all-out war, China would do well to take a good hard look at the penurious but toxic company it keeps.

And, alongside, ask itself a philosophical question.

Just how much of this is pride before the fall? Because, where is the comfort, purpose, or certainty, in this ambition; particularly for the second biggest economy in the world?  

For: Nationalist Online

(1,491 words)

September 26^th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee