Spy drones

Just one day after the Foreign Office announced its opposition to a proposed US plan to sell drones to India, an illustration of the likely problems to be caused by any such sale was seen as Pakistan shot down an unarmed Indian drone that had strayed across the Line of Control. Even if the action against the Indian drone was purely coincidental and had nothing to do with the Foreign Office statement, it shows how unwise such a sale would be. India obviously intends to use spy drones against Pakistan in violation of international law. Should the drones it employs be supplied by the US, it would be a clear indication that is has no intention of playing the role of an honest broker between the two countries. Already the US tilt towards India is having repercussions in Afghanistan, where the sidelining of Pakistan has made it more difficult to bring all partners to the negotiating table. Then there is the fact that India has already requested the US to allow it to purchase armed drones. As we have seen with US drone wars around the world, unmanned weapons are used carelessly since the lives of the aggressors are not at stake. Pakistan is the only country against which India would consider using armed drones. Since it has already threatened us with surgical strikes in the recent past, it would be the height of irresponsibility to give such a country armed drones.

Apart from their use as weapons of war, drones are useful tools of spy craft. Indian security forces in Kashmir already employ Israeli-built drones for surveillance and there is no reason to doubt they would happily add armed drones to their arsenal for use against the Kashmiri people. It is not an accident that the Indian drone was shot down in the Rakhchikri sector of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. India has used these weapons as a way of forcing the Kashmiri people into submission. The Modi government has clearly stated that it wants to take over Azad Jammu and Kashmir, which he refers to as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. While we do not know what spying mission this particular drone was on since it is equally plausible that India would spy on Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC, clearly its intentions were far from pure. This incident should serve as a warning to all considering further arming India that they too will be morally culpable in the occupation of Kashmir should they go ahead with the sales.