Understanding India

Capital suggestion

Bharat Ganarajya, or the Republic of India, has land boundaries with six countries:  Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, China, Nepal and Pakistan. Here’s an account of India’s relations with its neighbours. Bangladesh-India relations: RAW sponsored the Mukhti Bahini and the Shanti Bahini. Banga Sena, a Hindu terrorist organisation, demanding a separate homeland for Bengali Hindus, has been conducting terrorist activities in Bangladesh. According to Lieutenant-General Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, a former three-star general of the Bangladesh Army and the former director general of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the Indian Army organises the militants of Banga Sena which has “bases in the Indian state of West Bengal”. India wants a puppet regime in Bangladesh.

India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers and Bangladesh accuses India for conducting ‘water terrorism’ by diverting water from River Ganges to Calcutta through the Farakka Barrage. Bangladesh claims “that it does not receive a fair share of the Ganges waters during the drier seasons and gets flooded during the monsoons when India releases excess waters”.

India’s Border Security Force (BSF) is under ‘shoot-to-kill’ orders for all Bangladeshi citizens along the Indo-Bangladesh border (according to Human Rights Watch, the BSF has killed nearly 1,000 Bangladeshis between 2001 and 2011). Indo-Bangladesh border disputes have a 44-year history. In April 2001, the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB), a paramilitary force, and India’s BSF clashed again – the worst since 1971. India disputes the Bay of Bengal Maritime Boundary and there have been major disputes on the enclaves.

Bhutan-India relations: India only tolerates a puppet regime in Bhutan. In 1975, India deployed 100,000 troops in Sikkim and then annexed it as the 22nd state of the Indian Union.

China-India relations: RAW continues to finance the East Turkestan independence movement, the separatists in Xinjang. RAW has also facilitated a triangular partnership among the East Turkestan independence movement, the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

India also has four major territorial disputes with China: Arunachal Pradesh and Tawang district are both controlled by India but claimed by China and Aksai Chin and Shaksgam Valley are both controlled by China but claimed by India.

Nepal-India relations: The Maoist insurgents of Nepal are said to have ‘multiple links with India’. There’s documentary evidence that “some ex-servicemen from the Indian Army and the ex-Gorkha soldiers trained the Maoist Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA)”.

Nepal’s opposition parties continue to accuse India of “meddling in Nepal’s internal affairs”. In 2001, King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and eight other members of Nepal’s royal family were killed. Pushpa Prachanda, the chairperson of the Nepalese Maoist Party, claimed that the killings were “planned by India’s intelligence agency RAW”. India only tolerates a puppet regime in Nepal.

In 1962, India’s Indo-Tibetan Border Police took administrative control of Kalapnai which is claimed by Nepal. India also has a dispute over Susta, an area that’s around 35,000 acres. India wants a subservient Nepal.

Pakistan-India relations: From 1984 till 2004, the Sundarji Doctrine aimed at ‘penetrating deep into Pakistani territory’ through ‘sledgehammer blows’ with the goal of ‘cutting Pakistan into two”. After the failure of the Sundarji Doctrine, Indian generals came up with ‘Cold Start’ that aimed at invading Pakistan for ‘shallow gains’. After the failure of the Cold Start, the Modi-Doval Doctrine now finances the activities of the Balochistan Liberation Army, the Balochistan Republican Army, the TTP and the LeJ. India wants a puppet regime in Pakistan. India wants a subservient Pakistan. India wants a Pakistan that is dependent on India.

India has a long history of financing and manipulating ethnic divisions and political dissent in at least five of her six neighbours. RAW sows the seeds of terrorism, militancy and insurgency in at least five of India’s six neighbours.

In the Sri Lankan Civil War, India trained the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam who killed 23,327 of their fellow citizens and wounded 60,000. In Bangladesh, RAW trained the Mukti Bahini and the Shanti Bahini. In Tibet, India trained the Khampa rebels. This is India’s way of trying to dominate the region.

 

The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad.

Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com

Twitter: @saleemfarrukh