Predictably, India has upped the ante vis-à-vis Pakistan. External affairs minister S Jaishankar has only added to an ongoing clamour when he went on record to say the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir is part of India and New Delhi will sooner or later have jurisdiction over it. Prima facie, this would appear to be India’s way of putting Pakistan on the defensive; and no annexation might be attempted at. For, the costs of such a (mis)adventure would be too high for this nation to bear.
Notably, PoK as also the Gilgit or Baltistan provinces in Pakistan are restive. The political and military leaderships from Punjab and Sindh provinces which dominate the Pakistani establishment keep adopting strong-arm tactics, even acts of torture and other human rights violations to rein in dissidence in these backward regions. The dissidents even in Karachi, the commercial hub, are also at the receiving end. The deep divide between different Islamic sects in which the Sunnis have the upper hand also makes Pakistan a landscape of conflicting interests. All these could, however, not be exploited by India because the entire population is Muslim– with minor inputs of Christians and Hindus; and Muslims are bound by a religious spirit, set against the Hindu India. The formation of several Islamist “Isthans” in the geopolitical region alongside Afghanistan after the break-up of the Soviet Union also helped Pakistan become part of a new regional and religious bonhomie. It drew inspiration from both the adjoining Gulf and Saudi Arabia at its apex.
Even granted that Pakistan can no longer fight and win a conventional war with India anymore and its only option is use of nuclear bombs which will hurt it too badly, a war or annexation of territories that are now with Pakistan will do India no good. India is struggling to feed its teeming population. An addition of 6 million more multitudes from the Pok-Gilgit-Baltistan could end up in a collapse of the Indian economy and its governance systems, with no material advantage to it whatsoever. Worse, much of Pakistan is a breeding ground for terror outfits.
Quite likely, the prompting for Jaishankar and others in Delhi is to let Pakistan know that India has passed the stage of it being held hostage in Kashmir Valley, to a stage of putting some sense into the heads of Pakistan’s mischievous military brass — the men in uniform who were out to bleed India. Pakistan should stop using terror as an instrument of state policy.
