Daily Times

Pakistan has termed as “completely unjustified” the US move to declare Syed Salahuddin, chief of the Hizbul Mujahideen, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

India on its part said, “It does vindicate India’s longest-standing position that cross-border terrorism is behind disturbance created in Kashmir since last year.”

The US, however, seems to have done what it did to placate India without actually doing anything meaningfully substantial with regard to the on-going freedom struggle inside the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK)

Salahuddin’s services for the struggle over the last three decades notwithstanding he is not as relevant to the struggle today as he was until about 2014.

Today the face of the struggle is the martyred Hizbul Mujahideen Commander Burhan ud din Wani. It is in his name that the stone-throwing youth of IOK have up the ante in the IOK. And you cannot deny a martyr anything worldly by designating him as a global terrorist. And there is no cross-border element in this totally indigenous freedom struggle that is being waged by the unarmed IOK youth.

The warming up of relations between India and the US since 2005 seems to have been dictated, in the case Washington, by the US desire to use India to halt the advancing China from challenging American global hegemony while in the case of India, by New Delhi’s desire to use the super power to deny the people of IOK the freedom they are seeking from the Indian yolk and also help it expand its foot-hold in Afghanistan.

India would be left holding the empty sack in Afghanistan if Pakistan were to simply abandon the Afghan Taliban for good — which is what needs to be done urgently

Since the two seem to be driven by different motivations for getting cosier the possibility of either of the two succeeding in their respective objectives appears to be open to question.

Several commonalities do exist between the United States and India and provide a seemingly genuine platform for cooperation between the two. Both are democracies, both are against global terrorism and the economies of both are driven by the market, though in differing degrees.

And according to a policy paper titled “Transforming India from a balancing to leading power”, released by the Atlantic Council, a US think tank, ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s US visit this week, the two countries also see eye to eye on their approach towards Beijing so far.

“Both nations realize the need to ensure that Beijing behaves in accordance with the rules of the liberal, postwar institutional order that the US helped build. As current and potential naval powers, the two countries must have unfettered access to international sea-lanes that Beijing intends to constrict.

“This leads to a broader, mutually beneficial reason for a coordinated policy towards China, a nation ostensibly not averse to flaunting a boosted militarism that could be dangerous to the security of both the US and India in the foreseeable future.

“It is vital for American interests in Asia to have India as an economic and strategic ally. However, for this relationship to work, President Trump will have to demonstrate his commitment to building a positive environment within which the Indian-American relationship can flourish”.

“It is likely that the Indian policy making elite and body politic will expect President Trump to continue along the same path as his predecessors, and expect him to honour existing bilateral agreements.

“Furthermore, India would want the continuation of the recently signed nuclear agreements as well as the US India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, which the White House may review in the near future.”

On the other hand, according to the same policy paper President Trump has advocated several policies that could harm Indian interests and potentially negatively affect the trajectory of US-India ties.

“To begin with, restrictions on work and education visas could antagonise India, with US-bound engineers set to suffer.

“Trump has also emphasised the need to bring processes back to the US that could cost Indian export of services heavily.

“With Indo-American trade already stagnating over the past few years, Trump’s policies give no room for this trade to grow in the future. This will be a worrying factor for India.

“Environmental policy is another potential area of disagreement between the two countries. India has been a champion for renewable energy and has also shown a commitment to combating climate change, as is evident in its position on the Paris Agreement.

“India has long appealed for the Kashmir issue to be solved bilaterally without international interference. Yet, in his statements, Trump has offered to mediate on the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan; New Delhi may not appreciate such involvement.

“Indian policy makers will be wary of Trump’s policies towards Pakistan, and any decisions taken by the administration would go a long way toward determining the warmth of US-India relations.

“India would also want cooperation with the US on regional issues such as the Afghanistan conflict.

“Spillover from the destabilisation in Afghanistan threatens to affect Indian security, which should be considered by the Trump administration before taking action in the country.”

Describing India as a “key piece in the jigsaw” for the US, the policy paper points out that during Barack Obama’s tenure, in order to woo India, he promised to support India’s bid for a UN Security Council seat, but did not put it to any practical action and asks will Trump take substantial steps to facilitate India’s UNSC bid? It is hard to tell.

According to Yu Ning of Global Times (Being a pawn for US containment strategy a trap for India) in an era when emerging countries have been playing an increasingly important role in global affairs, if India, an important participant in two non-Western organisations — the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS — can firmly stand together with China in striving for more discourse power, it will be helpful for New Delhi to realise its big power ambitions. Moreover, India would be left with holding the empty sack in Afghanistan if Pakistan simply abandons the Afghan Taliban for good, which is what needs to be done urgently as Islamabad’s previous experience of living with a Taliban ruled Kabul was not all that happy.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad. He served as the Executive Editor of Express Tribune until 2014

Published in Daily Times, June 30th, 2017.