News Analysis |
At a high-level Security Council meeting, Pakistan has raised the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, the RAW officer apprehended by Pakistan on its home soil. “Those who speak of changing mindsets (about terrorism) need to look within and their own record of subversion against my country as our capture of an Indian spy has amply demonstrated and proved beyond any shadow of doubt,” Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi said during a Security Council meeting on Afghanistan. While she did not mention his name, this implicit mention of the Indian spy highlights a deadly threat to India’s regional narrative.
Her statement was a response to India’s statement in the Council meeting on Afghanistan that India is a victim of the same Pakistani “mindset” that promotes terrorist attacks everyday in Afghanistan. India has denied that Jadhav, a retired navy officer, worked for the government and said that he was abducted by Pakistan from Iran to stage a show-trial.
India has been unable to sell its narrative effectively especially after they quickly suppressed the Quint article that exposed that Kulbhusan was truly a RAW officer on a black ops mission in Pakistan.
Denying that Pakistan was giving terrorists a safe haven or support, Lodhi also took a swipe at the US saying it needed a “reality check.” The administration of President Donald Trump suspended security aid to Pakistan this month citing its provision of sanctuaries and assistance to terrorists attacking Afghanistan.
Baloch separatists are not the only ethno-nationalist force being exploited by New Delhi. A campaign for a separate Sindhi nation has long been waged by Sindhi immigrants based in India. Most of these separatists undertaking violent actions were based in Afghanistan and are often under the protection of the pro-Indian government.
Read more: ‘I am still a commissioned officer’, says Kulbhushan Jadhav
On January 14th, 2017, an Afghan activist by the name of Daud Khattak launched the ‘Pashtunistan Liberation Army’, an armed group along the lines of the Balochistan Liberation Front and the Sindhudesh Liberation Army. He did so while stationed in New Delhi and requested that global powers, including India, help the liberation of the region.
A visibly shocked Indian government kept denying his existence for almost two months before admitting that he was indeed an officer with Indian Navy – but then insisted that he had retired and lived at the Iranian port of Chabahar on his own as a businessman.
Later in the same month, Police in Gilgit Baltistan busted a terror cell sponsored by the Indian intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), to sabotage projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and generate anti-Pakistan feelings in Gilgit-Baltistan. Police arrested 12 workers of the Balawaristan National Front (BNF) from Yasin Valley of Ghizer district and seized a lot of weapons during a raid.
India has long been involved in the largest resource-rich province of Pakistan. On March 3rd, 2016, a serving Indian officer named Kulbhushan Yadav was arrested by Pakistani authorities inside Pakistani territory. Through him, Pakistan was able to smash a network of separatists who had been working on splitting Baluchistan away through violent and non-violent means.
Read more: Mama Qadeer on Indian TV Channel says Pakistan is lying over…
Kulbhashan Jadhav presents an unusual challenge for India’s almost three-decade-old narrative on Pakistan and South Asia. Indian governments and powerful political establishment in New Delhi have invested heavily into this narrative and have convinced their media, intelligentsia and public at large and through them the whole world that India is an innocent victim of Pakistani sponsored terrorism from Kashmir to Delhi to Mumbai to Kabul.
Diplomatic circles were planted with the idea that Pakistani ISI had seized him from the high seas; social media sites in the region speculated that the Afghan Taliban may have captured him and handed him to Pakistanis.
Bollywood has scripted several dozen powerful movies around this theme that have further deepened the sense of being the aggrieved party to the Indian public. The Pakistani government raised hue and cry on Indian sponsorship of a proxy war, with its footprint all across Pakistan, from FATA to Baluchistan, to Karachi – but no one in the world ever wanted to believe them.
A major break for Pakistan came with Jadhav, a senior officer in Indian Navy (Navy No: 41558Z), assigned to Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) from 2013 onwards, carrying Indian passport (No: L9630722) was arrested from a compound in Mashkel, in Baluchistan, in an area not far from Iranian border in March 2016.
India has long been involved in the largest resource-rich province of Pakistan. On March 3rd, 2016, a serving Indian officer named Kulbhushan Yadav was arrested by Pakistani authorities inside Pakistani territory.
A visibly shocked Indian government kept denying his existence for almost two months before admitting that he was indeed an officer with Indian Navy – but then insisted that he had retired and lived at the Iranian port of Chabahar on his own as a businessman. Diplomatic circles were planted with the idea that Pakistani ISI had seized him from the high seas; social media sites in the region speculated that the Afghan Taliban may have captured him and handed him to Pakistanis; after all “his carrying his passport with him on a covert mission makes no sense”.
Read more: Pakistan demands to see Kulbhushan Yadev retirement record
However, India has been unable to sell its narrative effectively especially after they quickly suppressed the Quint article that exposed that Kulbhusan was truly a RAW officer on a black ops mission in Pakistan.