Daily Times

“I have been visiting the region regularly for over 20 years to report on the long-running insurgency against Indian rule, but the sort of anger and resentment that is being expressed now is unprecedented,” reported a BBC correspondent from the Indian occupied Kashmir. In the coming months, Kashmiris will raise the costs of India’s occupation to a level that the world will no option but to intervene or put New Delhi under pressure to either reverse or soften its position on the issue.

With respect to Pakistan’s role, New Delhi’s decision to terminate Kashmir’s special status has the potential to start a war between the two countries. As of now, by downgrading diplomatic ties and expelling India’s ambassador, Pakistan has made it clear that the decision will have grave consequences for India and the region. The history of Pakistan and India’s conflicts suggests that whenever New Delhi attempted to undermine Islamabad’s territorial interests, the country ended up strengthening Pakistan’s resolve that India’s evil agenda should be counteracted. For decades, India has been following a policy to subdue the smaller regional states. However, while this policy may have worked in the case of Nepal and Bhutan, India has faced resistance from Pakistan to an extent that the country’s aims to become a regional power have been delimited by Islamabad.

The world, particularly the U.S., may not like to openly confront India, there is no love lost for PM Modi anywhere: the targeting of minorities and the brewing communalism in India have tarnished India’s so called soft image abroad

Going forward, India should expect to face another long phase of resistance from Pakistan after the decision of annexing Jammu and Kashmir. The resistance this time around is going to be singular, subtle, coordinated and systematic: To begin with, Pakistan is not going to allow India to blame Islamabad for following a policy of courting extremism or extremist groups domestically or regionally. While India would want to peddle this narrative, no one is going to be seen as crossing the line of control (LoC). This is exactly what India would expect and Pakistan is not going to offer. While Pakistan’s diplomatic and political support the Kashmiris will remain intact, it has become undoubtable now that a violent movement is set to rise from within Kashmir and that’s where Islamabad’s focus in terms of letting the world know the true story.

Moreover, in the coming months, there will be an active push to isolate Indian interests fiercely in the region. In this regard, Afghanistan presents an ideal situation for Pakistan: If New Delhi thinks that it can get away with such a major decision, the country has not figured out anything or everything yet. In this regard, India’s decision couldn’t have come at the worst time: the ongoing peace process is going to take a hit, one way or the other.

From Islamabad’s perspective, no one should expect to have India’s role in the post-US Afghanistan as Pakistan is going to make sure that India’s trade links to Central Asia and beyond are cutoff and political constituency in Afghanistan sidelined. Additionally, the final document of the peace agreement with the Taliban should be expected to mention the use of militant groups that find support in New Delhi, against Pakistan’s interests.

The world, particularly the U.S., may not like to openly confront India, there is no love lost for PM Modi anywhere: the targeting of minorities and the brewing communalism in India have tarnished India’s so called soft image abroad. The U.S. may not have overtly criticized India’s decision to occupy Jammu and Kashmir, Washington is certainly not pleased with New Delhi’s action. At this juncture, the U.S. feels that New Delhi has dented its interests in the region by occupying Kashmir at a time when the U.S.’ foreign policy is facing one of the major challenges in the region. Going forward there will be more friction between the two countries.

“When it comes to how Pakistan reacts to this, much will depend on how Rawalpindi and Islamabad weigh the costs of dedicating significant proxy resources – or even a limited conventional military operation – to impose cost out of India for this decision, versus its renewed commitment to coming to America’s aid as U.S. President Donald Trump begins a final push to extricate his country from Afghanistan. Already both centers of power in Pakistan have noted their displeasure at New Delhi’s decision,” noted an eminent writer.

On its part, Pakistan will make sure that India continues to expose itself before the world and the issue of Kashmir remain threat hanging on the world peace. From here onward, there won’t be a week or a month when the world won’t worry about Kashmir as the flashpoint can lead to a nuclear conflict.

India’s predicament has just begun!

The writer is a freelance journalist and a correspondent for The Diplomat, based in Lahore