India: a rogue state

A rogue state is defined as one that is repressive within and aggressive towards its neighbours. It supports and sponsors terrorism, has WMDs and is a threat to world peace.

These telltale symptoms are ignored if the rogue state suits and extends the designs of the West. India, ticking all the boxes of a rogue state, remains a classic example.

The usual dichotomies lay bare as the US State Department recently designated Pakistan as a country of particular concern over religious freedom. In contrast India, the biggest violator and oppressor of religious freedom, was given a clean chit. This was despite the fact that the US Commission on International Religious Freedom unequivocally castigated India for terrorizing its religious minorities.

Islamabad has continuously pointed out India’s role in supporting and coordinating terror in Pakistan. We have also regularly presented dossiers with supporting evidence to Western capitals and international oversight bodies. The Johar Town blast was one such incident in a series of India sponsored terror attacks. The RAW/NDS masterminded Dassu bomb attack in August last year saw 13 people perish of which nine were Chinese nationals. The 27th Report of the UN Analytical and Monitoring Team issued in 2020 highlighted over a hundred Indian sponsored attacks in Pakistan in that year alone.

The heart-rending APS Peshawar tragedy was perpetrated by an Indian-sponsored terror nexus. It was the fourth deadliest school massacre that saw 149 innocent people perish including 132 school children, still in the nascent stages of their promising lives. Subsequent investigations revealed that the attackers were in constant touch with their Indian handlers based at the Indian consulate in Afghanistan.

Islamabad’s dossier presented to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in November 2020 detailed evidence of India’s subversive activities of supporting and sponsoring terrorist attacks in Pakistan. It also spoke of India’s part in merging splinter TTP groups and aligning them with Baloch militants along with supplying them with weapons, IEDs and communication devices.

Apart from conducting assassinations of important Pakistan personalities, the dossier also included details of how India has raised and trained a 700 member subversive group to target CPEC projects and personnel. It also gave details of 21 Pakistan-specific terrorist training camps in India and 66 in Afghanistan manned by Indian personnel. Evidence was also provided of RAW organizing a new militia called Daesh-Pakistan.

India’s web of deception spanning 15 years was revealed by the EU DisinfoLab. It was a brazen campaign of deceit spanning Western capitals and UN bodies. India used 265 fake sites that churned out accusations and false-flag operations targeting Pakistan. The immensely worrying aspect was that these malicious accusations were accepted. As a result, Pakistan suffered extremely on the political, diplomatic and economic fronts.

Terming India a repressive state would be an understatement. In this day and age, where freedom and liberty are much-touted catchphrases, Indian Occupied Kashmir remains the largest internment camp on earth. Kashmiris have been subjected to genocidal brutalities for decades; the demography of their land is being blatantly subverted. Indian religious minorities and those from scheduled castes live in abject fear. The atrocities are documented by human rights organizations.

India’s extremely dangerous mindset can also be gauged from the chilling fact that Arnab Goswami knew about the Pulwama false-flag operation and India’s subsequent adventurism against Pakistan beforehand. He used this to boost the TRPs of his Republic TV whereas Modi orchestrated it to bolster his extremist base. Modi and his cohorts threaten Pakistan with nuclear strikes. As the world keeps mum, this terror-abetting India has garnered the audacity to repeatedly demand a UN Security Council seat.

The present wave of terror attacks in Pakistan is a continuation of Ajit Doval’s stated policy of undermining Pakistan which called for an offensive strategy that used assets within Pakistan and Afghanistan to subvert Pakistan. The thrust would be focused on Balochistan, what Doval called the soft underbelly of Pakistan.

Pakistan has lost 83,000 lives in the fight against terrorism. In his book, ‘Growth and Inequality-Agenda for Reforms’, Dr Hafiz Pasha writes that the estimated cost of terrorism to Pakistan’s economy till 2018 has been a mind-boggling $251.8 billion. This, Dr Pasha asserts, is 93 per cent of the total economy of Pakistan.

Abiding by international covenants and obligations is a deterrent for countries that would otherwise morph into rogue states. An unfettered India has a stated policy of working towards fomenting terror in countries that stand up to its hegemony. With both Pakistan and India bearing nuclear weapons, Modi treads a path wrought with immensely dangerous ramifications. It attains an even more nightmarish magnitude with the world choosing to turn a blind eye to India’s terror sponsoring and hegemonic belligerence.

On assuming office, President Biden eulogized Modi for their “shared democratic values”; it was an epitome of unabashed duplicity. This is the repugnant carte blanche that emboldens India, a rogue state, to continue its atrocities and adventurism that can tragically lead to a conflict with a nuclear Pakistan. A nightmare, it may well pale the Great War in ambit, death and destruction.

The writer is a freelance contributor. He can be reached at: miradnanaziz@ gmail.com