Ever since the PM returned from Sharm El-Sheikh, he’s been pilloried for that ill-fated joint statement. More than the D word, it’s the B word, which has got many hawkish analysts fuming. How could the PM have allowed a reference to Balochistan? Doesn’t this indirectly put both India and Pakistan on an even keel, with both equally guilty of sponsoring terror?
Now this is not an attempt to defend the Prime Minister, but just to look at Balochistan, from a Pakistani perspective. To understand why our neighbours are paranoid about a swathe of wasteland, which many in Pakistan themselves call "the dump where Allah shot the rubbish of creation."
Balochistan is critical for Pakistan. Balochistan is to Pakistan what Xinjiang is for China. It’s the jewel in Pakistan’s crown. There are two very simple reasons for this. One, that it has tremendous reserves of natural gas which is critical to Pakistan’s energy needs. Just over the last month or so, there have been bloody riots in Pakistan over the lack of electricity. Delhi’s power woes would seem like a dream when compared to the blackhole ordinary Pakistanis have been putting up with, day after day. Chambers of Commerce estimate Pakistan lost as much as a billion dollars in exports last fiscal, due to power cuts. Its manufacturing has fallen by 8 percent. Even Richard Holbrooke, in his visit there last week, had to pepper his praise for the Pak Army’s fight against the Taliban with the crucial need to tackle power cuts. That’s why Balochistan is critical for Pakistan’s future energy needs. Two important pipelines, one from Turkmenistan and the other from Iran pass through this region. This gas will not reach power generation stations in Karachi and Lahore, if Balochi nationals keep bombing the pipelines which carry them, every other day.
The second reason is that Balochistan, because of its arid terrain and vast swathes of rocky wasteland provides crucial buffer against any invading force. Already India is slowly but surely encircling Pakistan. Now India can attack Pakistan, not just from its eastern flank. We’ve got strategic depth in Afghanistan, in the west. An air force base in Tajikistan, in the north, from where we can fly fighter jets to bombard Pakistan. And reputed American scholars have admitted that the Indian consulate in the east Iranian city of Zehdan is doing more than just issuing visas. India is even engaged in building a world class port in the city of Chahbar in South East Iran. It’s India’s answer to what the Chinese have been doing in Gwadar.
The Pakistanis, and this is not just the military-intelligence establishment, are paranoid about India’s growing leverage in Afghanistan. They’re mortally scared of the day, the favourite benefactor of the Pakistani state and the country which ordinary Pakistanis love to hate, America, withdraws from Afghanistan.
And India hasn’t exactly helped in quelling this paranoia. We’ve been cultivating strategic depth in Afghanistan for a while now. India says we have only 9 consulates in Afghanistan. (That’s more than what we have in the US and UK, by the way). The Pakistanis say we have about 22. In the world of covert intelligence, where nothing can be the absolute truth, I am prepared to believe that the actual number is somewhere in between. From Pakistan’s point of view, you have a neighbour who you’re perennially suspicious of in the eastern flank, with unprecedented clout in your western flank. Naturally any country would be paranoid. That’s just what the Pakistanis are going through.
By agreeing to put Balochistan in the joint statement, Manmohan Singh is directly addressing the intelligence communities on both sides. And this is where the media seemed to have missed the tree for the woods. For the Indian intelligence establishment, this is a wake up call. A clear message from the Prime Minister that you can’t go on forever without any form of accountability. After all, the intelligence community, because of the very nature it’s DNA, is perennially suspicious of peace. They are the first ones to raise the red flag to any peace overtures.
And to the Pakistani intelligence establishment, who are most paranoid about Balochistan, Dr. Singh’s message is clear. Look, we’re willing to talk about your worst fears. And we’re not going to shy away from it. We’re willing to talk about it, like civilized nations. Now it’s upto you to show the same earnestness in addressing what you’re doing in Kashmir and other parts of India. He has directly addressed General Kayani and his gang, the so-called real power centre of Pakistan. It’s upto them to meet us half-way.
In the near-term Dr. Singh is getting plastered for allowing the B-word to slip in. But in the long term, it’s Gilani who needs to be worried. Because, unwittingly now, Balochistan has been internationalized. The spotlight of the international community will start falling on this piece of land, which until now, the Pakistanis have been deliberately loath to discuss about. What happened to Kashmir in 1948, is now happening to Balochistan, sixty years later. It may not seem so on the face of it, but there’s a method to the Sardar’s madness.
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