“HOT LINES”

Tension grows between China and India over their disputes in Kashmir. Who has an interest in this happening?

By Charles H. Slim and Yossi Tevi

By the end of 2018, the Indian forces occupying the Muslim territory of Kashmir carried out a wave of arrests and violent repressions against the majority Muslim population (an oppressed minority in India) as a form of collective scorn against the actions of extremist groups operating against their presence in the area. The result of that escalation reached its peak culminating on February 27, 2019[1] when two Indian planes were shot down by Pakistani aviation marking a limit to Indian movements over Kashmir.

The origin of the conflict dates from the partition of the territory in August 1947, separating the Muslims from the Indians, giving birth to Pakistan and the Union of India (later the republic), for immediately in October 1947 the withdrawal occurred from United Kingdom.

Since then, intrigues and clashes between fanatics on both sides have been alternately manipulated by British and allied intelligence agencies in order to maintain inter-ethnic and religious discord to underpin London's necessary political interference. In this context, the dispute over the Kashmir region remained, which despite being populated by a Muslim majority, was and continues to be fully claimed by New Delhi.

The images and testimonies of the bestiality of the Indian forces were not new, only this time they were framed in a well-directed state policy coming from the conservative government of the Indian ultra-nationalist Narendra Modi who, since coming to power, seemed determined to sweep the Muslim settlers of Kashmir.

Given this, the government of Pakistan issued several warnings to its neighbor to desist from continuing to commit the brutalities it was carrying out, but without success. Even Delhi sent more military forces and fighter jets to bombard Muslim villages in the area. Narendra Modi was confident that Karachi would do nothing as India has the political support of the US and Britain, something that would represent political and military protection in the event of a regional escalation.

But his calculation was wrong, and President Imran Khan, who also has a good rapport with Washington (especially for his intelligence cooperation in Afghanistan), immediately ordered planes to be sent to protect people in the border areas. Thus, on the morning of February 27, 2019, a Pakistani F-16 aircraft patrolling the Pakistani Kashmir airspace detected the intrusion of two Indian MIG-21 aircraft as they prepared to launch surface attacks. The result of the meeting was the shooting down of the two Indian planes and the subsequent capture of one of their pilots, thereby creating a humiliation for Modi and his government.

At that time New Delhi realized that it had overreacted and decided to take a step back, although it still continues with the brutal repressions against the Muslim population[2].

Indian MIG-21 crashed

Since the global pandemic was declared, the quarrels and hostilities of the Indian forces in Kashmir have not stopped and even plans for a more aggressive and aggressive Indian occupation with the intention of appropriating the entire region have been denounced. These plans do not amaze those who witness how the Indian repressive forces operate and who are their allies. Since public beatings, arbitrary arrests, torture and executions against Muslims are the daily bread that the United Nations has been unable to control. And why? Quite possibly due in part to the contacts and political influences that New Delhi has and that are limited to ultra-conservative sectors of countries such as Great Britain and Israel, he believes that he will have diplomatic support before international forums.

For London and Tel Aviv, the current Indian government has a special interest as a regional partner for its particular strategic objectives.

Narendra Modi in 2017 was the Indian Prime Minister who visited the state of Israel with whom they share geopolitical interests linked to Pakistan and its nuclear weapons program. Beyond the fact that India has endorsed the Palestinian cause before the United Nations, this has not hindered the good arms deals between the two[3] and the development of geopolitical agendas on issues of greater importance that unite them. In this sense, both are concerned to see a Muslim state like Pakistan with nuclear warfare and worst of all, with the means to use them[4]. In this sense, Modi and his supporters have been carried away by the false rhetoric that Tel Aviv and its supporters use mix religion and politics to deflect the geopolitical missteps against Iran[5] and other eminently territorial ones that it has with its Arab neighbors (Syria) and especially with the Palestinians.

Modi's visit showed that in addition to quickly getting along with his counterpart in Tel Aviv, both governments established several agreements regarding defense, intelligence (CyberWar ​​espionage programs) and energy resources. In this way, the Indian government deepens the gradual approaches that have been developing since 1992, clearly placing itself against those sectors and countries, who, in New Delhi's view, support “terrorism” such as Pakistan and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that it actually supports the legitimate political and humanitarian claims of Muslims in Kashmir.

Several violent episodes helped to deepen these controversies and one of them was the peculiar terrorist operation in Bombay in 2008 that, in addition to having no other purpose than to kill as many people as they crossed the road, was endiligated with terrorists from an unknown group; the matter reeked of something else[6].

Modi & Bibi joint for the war

When Modi achieved the electoral victory in 2019, he received the ardent telephone greeting of his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu with whom he maintains a close ideological and political coincidence represented in general features in a separatist and segregationist nationalism, with similar political objectives such as the expansion of his states at the expense of foreign territories, something very contradictory for the “world's largest democracy”. Regarding the latter, it must be clarified that this qualification is not necessarily due to respect for equality and human rights or freedoms (something difficult to explain in a caste society), but for the number of inhabitants it has.

In this sense, Narendra Modi has not hesitated to face aggressive policies of appropriation of territories in Kashmir using all possible inhuman and underhanded means. Sources in the region have pointed out that the Israelis clandestinely operate alongside their US partners in Kashmir, facilitating the trafficking of weapons and explosives for cells of “Al Qaeda” and related groups trying to muddle - in the eyes of world public opinion - the Pakistan's support for the legitimate claims of Kashmiri and Indian Muslims.

In this way, while these agencies induce the continuation of the attacks against Indian targets, Israel and the United States provide India with programs to combat terrorism.

At the same time, it would not be surprising that among the ranks of the Indian police and military forces operating in Kashmir there are Israeli military and intelligence advisers, experts in torture tactics and suppression of opponents.

But not only Pakistan is an obstacle to Modi's megalomaniacal plans and his Indian nationalism. In the north with a border of 2.175 milesin length, it has China with whom it has disputes over territories in icy areas of Ladakh Jammu and Tibet located in the area of ​​Kashmir ceded by Pakistan to China.

The incidents in the Current Control Line located in the Galwan Valley had been escalating for a few months ago, when the first skirmishes occurred between the Indian and Chinese troops who did not stop throwing stones and taking themselves with fists. The reasons for this episode were due to the fact that the Chinese army red-handed Indian patrols, entering the territory administered by Beijin.

Even, the Chinese denounced that it was not the first time that they discovered the Indian troops raising checkpoints within their sector. Despite the fact that in the Western media this went almost unnoticed, this was not the case for Washington and London. The audience focuses on the importance of the region for both, who seek to open entry corridors to China. Likewise, this was not an anecdotal and curious episode, both in Beijing and Delhi they took it very seriously and from that moment they began to reinforce their detachments on both sides of the Line of Control. The clashes that took place between June 15 and 16 did nothing more than materialize those suspicions.

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[1]   Pensamiento Estrategico y Politico.com. “INDIA Y PAKISTÁN”, https://pensamientoestraegico.blogspot.com/2019_02_24_archive.html

[2] The Guardian.com. “We are not safe': India's Muslims tell of wave of police brutality”, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/03/we-are-not-safe-indias-muslims-tell-of-wave-of-police-brutality    

[3] A statistic showed that between 2012 and 2016 almost 41% of Israel's arms production exports go to India.

[4]Pakistan has its own development of medium and long range missiles. One of them is the "SHAHIN-3" which as pointed out by a senior Pakistani officer in 2019 can reach Tel Aviv in just 12 minutes.

[5] From the beginning of 2014 Saudi Arabia established secret talks with Israel in order to unseat Iran as an influential actor in the Middle East.

[6] Considered the 9/11 of India, this attack had a complex planning in which David Coleman Headley, a CIA asset related to the Pakistani ISI, participated. The US did not want to straddle India, preventing it from revealing the agency's implications for the operation.