Following the defeat in the 1971 war when East Pakistan was separated thanks to the ill-fortuned policies of Pakistan that denied democratic rights to the people there, it was widely believed that India was responsible for instilling the separatist movement in East Pakistan, which created further distrust when it came to Pakistan and India. A mass perception of India’s alleged covert operations in Pakistan was created across the nation by the establishment, which based its intelligence policies on an India-centric rationale whereas the changing dynamics of global political positions demanded more realistic and practical policies to counter their dangerous effects on Pakistan at that time. The specific focus on India overshadowed Pakistan’s economic and political opportunities, which could have helped build and strengthen democracy and its institutions to make Pakistan stronger. However, the establishment chose to feed more on its perceived threats from its neighbour at the cost of Pakistan’s social and economic development. It started off with a series of actions that resulted in more harm to this country than good. One such misadventure we know is the indirect involvement of Pakistan in the Khalistan Movement in Indian Punjab.
The history of the Khalistan Movement lies in the indigenous struggle of the Sikhs in Punjab state, which was started in the early 1950s when India adopted the policy of reorganisation of its states. Resultantly, a majority of Sikhs was suppressed due to which they felt their religious identity was being threatened. Because of India’s partition in 1947, which India considered to be based on religious discord, it was reluctant to apportion a province based on religious identity. However, the Sikhs persisted in their demand and, in the 1970s, under the leadership of exiled Jagjit Singh Chouhan, the demand for an independent state of Khalistan was formally made by the separatists, with the help of Sikhs based in western countries and also reportedly by the US government, which their Congress denied. According to the proposal made by Chauhan’s Khalistan National Council, Punjab, Himachal and Haryana, and parts of Rajasthan were to be part of Khalistan. In India, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale became a powerful leader of the Khalistan supporters. It was in the 1980s that terrorist attacks in India started taking place, with Sikh militants taking shelter in their gurdwaras (places of worship for Sikhs). In 1984, Operation Blue Star was carried out by the Indian army in the Golden Temple, which revealed a large amount of ammunition and weapons that were stored away in the temple by the separatists.
Though Pakistan denied any involvement in the Khalistan Movement on India’s charges, the former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, the late General Hamid Gul, admitted in an interview with a local channel here that the Sikh separatists used to purchase arms from their contractors based in Pakistan. However, it was only with the help of Benazir Bhutto in the late 1980s that the Khalistan Movement took a back seat. She also turned down a plan of the intelligence agency to support the movement as a counter to India’s threats to Pakistan. The claim by India of the Sikh rebels having been trained by the now proscribed group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) strained relations between the two countries. Pakistan has termed India’s claim of aiding separatists as a baseless allegation but there remain unanswered questions regarding the obliviousness of the ISI about the separatists and not being able to stop and contain them from getting involved in weapons purchases. A concern still remains that some Khalistani activists are again trying to revive their movement with the help of Pakistani intermediaries. Some pockets of support for Khalistan are still visible in Pakistan today, with the state taking no action against them.
All the follies of India in its aggressive reaction to Pakistan seem baseless when it comes to Pakistan’s own homegrown terrorists that were initially — and some still are — considered as strategic assets. Indeed, India’s involvement in covert operations in Pakistan to destabilise it cannot be easily denied but harbouring and protecting terrorists in Pakistan is openly evident. It must be understood that the basic difference between the way Pakistan’s and India’s intelligence agencies work is that the former has an organised network of controlled terrorism, which is exported to bordering countries, and the latter works under the central command of its Indian spymasters, which is controlled and more specific. The basic cause of the rift, including Pakistan’s interference in Afghanistan, has been to counter Indian dominance in the region. Even though Pakistan does not stand in equality to India in terms of economic development, the competition Pakistan has involved itself in against India is something that was unnecessary.
Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif very eloquently put India at the epicentre of his speech at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September this year, and rightly pointed at India for Line of Control (LoC) violations, calling for the demilitarisation of Kashmir among other issues raised on this important forum. Pakistan has also submitted documentary evidence against India of its involvement in terrorism in its territory to the general secretary of the UN, which in itself is counterproductive in the backlash expected from India.
The involvement of Pakistan in India is not unique as terrorists from this side of the border have infiltrated into India to create agitation against the state. Organisations like LeT and Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) continue their unhindered operations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Pakistan, and their leaders like Hafiz Saeed still remain free and protected here. This is, unfortunately, one of the many reasons why India’s relations with Pakistan remain strained, thus further weakening Pakistan’s position on Kashmir. It is because of Pakistan’s tactics like these that India too has adopted a policy of destabilising Pakistan and fuelling internal unrest. The claims of the involvement of India in Balochistan and Karachi are not completely unfounded. And it is no coincidence that unrest here accelerated since Pakistan’s involvement in the Khalistan Movement in the 1980s. It is only common sense to acknowledge that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The same is true in Pakistan’s case.
The writer is a freelance columnist and may be contacted at [email protected]