By Jaideep Saikia
Indian military strategists have been speaking of a two-front war for a long time. The apprehension and consequently the need to prepare for such an eventuality stems from the premise that there is a well-grounded “all-weather-relationship” between China and Pakistan.
Be that as it may, the optics were not very clear during the Kargil war. China did not militarily intervene directly.
In his seminal book, Kargil: From Surprise to Victory (HarperCollins Publishers India, 2006), former chief of army staff, Gen VP Malik writes in the chapter titled, ‘The China Factor’ that “In recent years, China has been stating that it is pursuing an “independent foreign policy and that its relations with Pakistan would not be at the cost of its relations with India.” During the Kargil conflict, at the political level, China did indeed articulate the above view and did maintain a neutral posture. However, at the ground level, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had enhanced its level of activity along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh and along the Arunachal Pradesh border.
This writer has had a few occasions to discuss the matter with Gen Malik via email and in personal meetings. One aspect that the former chief informed was that (as indeed he recorded it in the above-mentioned book) the Indian army received intelligence reports that the PLA’s director in the Department of Armaments, handling the conventional weapons and equipment of the Chinese army, visited Islamabad during the conflict to help the Pakistan army overcome its critical deficiencies in conventional armament, ammunition and equipment. These developments and also the fact that both Gen Parvez Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif had visited Beijing after the commencement of the Kargil war did cause some concern for India.
Yet another steadfast mandarin and present Indian foreign minister, S. Jaishankar in his book The Indian Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World (HarperCollins Publishers India, 2020) states in the chapter titled “The Nimzo-Indian Defence,” that, “The other big issue that shapes the narrative of this period is China’s relationship with Pakistan. The origins of this friendship are worth revisiting, because an understanding of the past provides insights to its future. For an authoritative account of these ties, S. Jaishankar quotes Andrew Small’s, “The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics,” and asks why a relationship that otherwise lacks a bond of cultural affinity or common values—normally the basis for alliances—has outlasted the test of time and global changes. Its answer is worth reflecting on. China obviously is essential for Pakistan to address a power imbalance in relation to India, especially after Western powers showed declining enthusiasm for that goal. And Pakistan, in turn, is useful for China as it transitions from being a regional power to a global one. It not only helps keep India within the South Asia box but also provides pathways to the Islamic world.
This writer met S. Jaishankar when the latter was then the Indian Foreign Secretary, in Jaipur. Both were delegates in the Counter-Terrorism Conference organised by the India Foundation, New Delhi in February 2016. They conferred on a variety of issues on the sidelines of the conference, but much of it had to do with Myanmar and the North East.
On hindsight and if S. Jaishankar’s, “The Indian Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World,” had been published at the time and had been read, it would have been fruitful to have queried of the then Indian foreign secretary about the deeper nuance of what Jaishankar meant by “Pakistan’s usefulness to China (among other aspects!) because it also provides, “pathways to the Islamic world.” Almost a decade later one wonders whether—during the time when the book was published (2020)—China, anticipating the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban, simply had only Afghanistan in mind. But today, the anti-India troika that is shaping up in the Indian subcontinent by way of Bangladesh, Pakistan and China may well have been at the back of one of India’s finest diplomatic minds.
In any event, India has waged war with both its northern and western neighbours. In 1962, India faced defeat at the hands of the Chinese. The debacle was primarily because of the ineptitude that characterised India’s politico-military-intelligence at the time. But it was also because of the lack of correct preparedness in the Indian armed forces during the period.
However, the power differential between India and China has reduced considerably over the years. India of 2025 is not the India of 1962. The narrowing down of the disparity, especially in the military domain, between New Delhi and Beijing is a result of three important reasons.
Firstly, India has undertaken massive military acquisition as well as indigenous armament production that has more or less equalled China. The manner in which the Chinese mis-adventure in Galwan was handled is testimony to Indian reciprocal belligerence.
Secondly, Indian strategists have been clinically “war-gaming” a war scenario with China, although the pragmatic approach would be to nullify the Chinese threat by amicably solving the 3,488 Km long India-China boundary. This can perhaps even be achieved by carefully examining an avant-garde concept such as the “Line of Amity”, which this writer propounded in 2014 during the course of a Track II Dialogue with China of which he was a member of the Indian delegation. However, discretion must continue to be the better part of valour. India cannot let its guard down. Such an alertness has become even more relevant in the present circumstances with Rawalpindi going berserk in its ineffectual attempt to undermine India’s growth trajectory and military might under the present dispensation.
Thirdly, India’s growing proximity with the United States and Russia as also the fact that Modi’s voice is being heard across the world is an eyesore for India’s adversaries, particularly China. The fact that the Quad has taken on board India by providing it the “security space” to counter the threat of Chinese encirclement has upset Beijing. The Chinese threat by way of the “first front” that India would have to encounter in the event of “hot-war” has to be factored in with great finesse and calibration. Indeed, the new-found bonhomie between a surrogate Dhaka and Beijing whereby India’s North East was sought to be dragged in, is yet another attempt by China to engineer aggressive anti-India behaviour. The impostor, Yunus is but a lame pawn in the sinister chess game that is unfolding in South Asia.
Pakistan under the two Asims (the Pakistan army chief, Asim Munir and Pakistan’s ISI chief and NSA, Asim Malik) have always endeavoured to “bleed India with a thousand cuts”. The craven act in the meadows of Pahalgam was just another heinous manifestation of the sole raison d’être of the failed state of Pakistan.
If China and Pakistan constitute the two-front that Indian strategists have been directing their stratagem against, it is important, at this critical juncture in India’s national security calibration, to caustically fathom the emergence of a “third front” by way of a wayward Bangladesh.
While the efficient cause for the hostility emanating from Bangladesh towards India can be attributed to a nefarious and baseless “students’ movement,” the sufficient cause of growing anti-India sentiments inside Bangladesh and the appearance of radical Islamism are the two most important reasons for the “great turn-around” by a country whose very creation was ordained by India.
History informs that the Taliban (The Seekers) was the creation of Pakistan. But like Frankenstein once they got “too much” inside Pakistan, they were handed another country abutting Pakistan, Afghanistan!
Yunus is today facing an existential dilemma. Gen Waker-uz-Zaman, the Bangladesh army chief is not quite comfortable with Yunus and his cabal of advisers. The students, having tasted power, are never going to leave the streets nor would they abdicate power. Most of all, the Islamists that Yunus has unleashed, almost in the image of the one-eyed Mullah Omar’s Taliban, are careening out of control.
Of late, the radical Islamist group, Hifazat-e-Islam are up in arms against reforms. The Islamists have even threatened members of the illegitimate Yunus dispensation if the Awami League is not banned. Indeed, such a ban has been demanded by the new political party, Jatiyo Nagarik Party as well. It was formed on 28 February 2025. The members of the new party are the ones that ousted Sheikh Hasina. The toxicity of Bangladesh’s politics, even as a sane Bangladesh army chief calls for restraint, has more or less overwhelmed the Land of Bangabandhu.
If China and Pakistan constitute the two most palpable military fronts for India’s policy planners, then Bangladesh has emerged as the “vicious backyard” for the national security apparatus of India. In just eight plus months, Bangladesh has become a lackey of both China and Pakistan.
Observers in right thinking India, including the author, are awaiting, or even expecting, a decision by the Modi government about “equivalent response/retaliation” for the Pahalgam bloodbath by Pakistan. It is the considered view of the author that important military installations in Pakistan and terror camps inside the unholy land should be completely demolished. It is certainly not the “Indian way” to target the civilian population even in an enemy land. Indeed, such a belief system about humanitarianism is what separates India from Pakistan, a country that has been misruled ever since its inception.
Whatever the outcome it can be expected that China could enter the anti-India fray in one way or the other. If the atmospherics do come to such a pass, it is almost certain that Bangladesh would undertake certain disquieting measures that may disturb India’s eastern seaboard. As a matter of fact, both China and Pakistan would goad the erstwhile East Pakistan to act as a vital anti-India staging ground.
It is time for India to quietly cerebrate and formulate plans to decisively address and confront the emerging “third front”.
And now, as India has operationalised “Operation Sindoor” to target the terror camps inside Pakistan, to avenge the Pahalgam terror attack, we wait and watch as the country adopts what it calls a measured yet strategic response.
(Jaideep Saikia is India’s foremost national security strategist and Bestselling Author)