Addressing the Overseas Pakistani Convention in Islamabad on April 16th, Pakistan’s army chief General Asif Munir called Kashmir “our jugular vein.” He further went on to reinforce his view on the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, saying, “Our forefathers thought that we were different from the Hindus in every aspect of life. Our religion, our customs, traditions, thoughts and ambitions are different. That was the foundation of the two-nation theory that was laid.”
On April 22nd, terrorists launched a chilling attack on civilians in Kashmir’s Pahalgam, killing 26 tourists– the victims were explicitly asked their religion before the gruesome attack– and wounding several others. The Resistance Front, a Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy, claimed responsibility for the attack, only to deny it days later.
In quick succession, Delhi has responded with strict diplomatic countermeasures, along with holding the Indus Water Treaty, signed in 1960, in abeyance. Indian Prime Minister Modi has also talked about inflicting punishment “beyond their imagination,” and the Indian ruling establishment has held all-party discussions about the attack.
In a sign of national resolve, leaders of the opposition in India have backed the government to respond with adequate measures. In an encouraging sign, political parties across the Indian political spectrum have called for upholding the values of religious pluralism and standing in solidarity with the families of the victims.
Taking a step back from the recent episode, what does the recent terror attack mean for Indian foreign policy towards the “extended neighborhood” on its western periphery?
Pre-independence, undivided India loomed large over the geopolitical landscape of the broader Indian Ocean theatre. The British Raj, based in Calcutta and later Delhi, became the fulcrum of Britain’s empire in Asia. Lord Curzon, British Viceroy to India from 1899-1905, declared, “India was the strength and greatness of England, and that only by maintaining that strength would she survive.”
India’s teeming economic, military and human resources were used to sustain British hegemony from Aden to Malacca. British India played a key role in maintaining the geopolitical balance of power in the Middle East, keeping rivals like Russia and Germany on their toes in the region. Later British practitioners even considered the region between the Euphrates and the Indus to be a single interconnected geopolitical space, called “Southwest Asia.”
Put simply, the security of the Indian subcontinent was deeply interlinked with the broader Middle East. For example, apart from other theatres in Asia, Africa and Europe, the Indian army was deployed in Iraq and Iran to serve British interests in the Second World War. In the words of historian Srinath Raghavan, since the nineteenth century, India was the “central strategic reservoir of the British Empire.”
The partition of the Indian subcontinent wrecked the geopolitical center of gravity in Asia. After 1947, Delhi’s strategic energy shifted towards its immediate western neighbor. The erstwhile geopolitical spirit of the subcontinent was bottled up due to territorial divisions between the two sovereign entities, India and Pakistan.
For decades after India’s independence, Delhi was reluctant and sporadic in its interactions with key players in the Middle East, from the Gulf Arab states to Iran. Socialism, national solidarity and anti-colonial sentiment became the guiding factors for aligning with Nasser’s Egypt and later Saddam’s Iraq. It also did not help matters that India and Pakistan found themselves in opposite camps during much of the Cold War. Riyadh and Tehran backed Pakistan during much of the early decades of the Cold War.
In the last three decades, Delhi has removed its ideological blinkers of the Cold War and started engaging key states in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia and the UAE on their terms. After the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai and the Arab Spring, all sides recognized the threat of radicalism. Moreover, a shared maritime neighborhood from the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea became a key theatre for combating piracy, terrorism and disruptive non-state actors. Pakistan’s domestic economic troubles, its strategic obsession with India and its policy of harboring extremist elements on its soil disillusioned erstwhile partners in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Moreover, India’s massive energy requirements and a burgeoning diaspora also helped in bridging ties with the Gulf Arabs.
In other words, India has been re-imagining its role in its extended neighborhood, bypassing Pakistan, by cultivating ties with American allies in the region. Delhi’s warmth with Washington has also helped considerably in forming regional coalitions. The I2U2 (Israel-India-UAE-US) configuration and the IMEC connectivity project (India-Middle East-Europe corridor) are two visible signs of Delhi’s growing appetite to partner with the US and its traditional allies to secure common interests in the region. However, as long as the war in Gaza and other regional uncertainties persist, enhanced Indian engagement in the Middle East will be subject to disruption.
Returning to the recent round of attacks, it is poignant that when the terrorists opened fire in Kashmir, Prime Minister Modi was in Jeddah parlaying with senior Saudi officials. He cut short his visit and flew back to Delhi to take a stock of the domestic situation. Once again, the enduring geopolitical shock of the partition reverberated across the subcontinent. Trouble from the immediate periphery played spoilsport in Delhi’s engagement with its extended neighborhood.
From Islamabad’s perspective, both the unrest in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, along with strained ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, have bogged down the Pakistani army in recent months. Severe economic issues and a fragmented polity have also sapped Islamabad’s energy. Taking advantage of India’s frosty ties with the current regime in Bangladesh, Rawalpindi calculated that stoking fear of India would give it a reason to reinforce its dwindling domestic legitimacy. Hence, the rampage in Kashmir. Pakistan’s army has long styled itself as the protector of the state’s very existence, which it defines in opposition to India.
At this critical juncture, it is in Delhi’s interests to ensure that domestic stability and religious harmony are prioritized. To act otherwise would only fuel the intractable logic of partition. Reports about fears among the minority community need to be assuaged. So far, Delhi has been careful in its public messaging and has signaled the willingness to take everyone along.
Though the snakes of terrorism continue to infest the subcontinent, one day soon they may bite their charmers.
