ISLAMABAD- India, which has been opposed to China since it received adrubbing from it in the 1962 Sino-Indian War, spares no stone unturned todenigrate it. Pakistan was never accepted as a sovereign state by India andevery machination in the Chanakyan book on guile and deceit has been triedout to subjugate Pakistan. India had believed that following the severanceof its eastern wing in 1971, West Pakistan too would collapse but that didnot happen. On the contrary Pakistan prospered and came out of the nuclearcloset in 1998.

The commencement of the global war on terror by the US and coalition forcesin Afghanistan in 2001, provided India a ray of hope to disparage itswestern neighbour and it started a propaganda campaign that Pakistan was anepicenter of terrorism in the region.

To divert world attention towards Pakistan and presenting it as a sponsorof terrorism, India even went to the extent of staging a false flagoperation in the shape of an attack on its own parliament building andblaming Pakistan for it. Using the attack as a plea, India amassed itstroops menacingly on the Pakistan border. The US refused to be sidetrackedfrom its mission in Afghanistan and forced India to withdraw its troops.

After the going got tough for the US and its allies in Afghanistan,Washington turned on Pakistan and entered into a strategic alliance withIndia.

China’s emergence as an economic power was ringing alarm bells in US StateDepartment and it was willing to prop up India as a bulwark to check China.Indians jumped on the opportunity as they had two clear objectives. Firstlyto influence the US and European powers that Pakistan be penalized toundermine its nuclear capability and give a clear edge to India in SouthAsia. Secondly, by trying to equate the indigenous freedom struggle of theKashmiris as terrorism; India wanted that the western countries should notsupport the resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

After becoming a strategic partner of the US and having been declared bythe US as a lynchpin of its Asia pivot policy, aimed at containing risingChina, India received a boost. In this backdrop, in the changedpost-withdrawal scenario (from Afghanistan), India had become furtherencouraged with the US tilt in favor of India over Pakistan in South Asia.

The 2015 visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Islamabad and the launchof China- Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) threw cold water on Indianplans to destabilize Pakistan as CPEC would transform Pakistan’s economy ina major way.

The projected economic benefits of CPEC to Pakistan and its enhancedstrategic partnership with China, forced Indian propaganda campaigners totarget CPEC along with diplomatically isolating Pakistan to deny CPECeconomic and strategic advantages to Pakistan and China. Instead ofchoosing to join this mega project to reap related economic benefits forits people, India opted to belittling it.

A multi-pronged strategy was evolved by India. Firstly to vilify CPEC,secondly to sabotage it and thirdly to develop the Iranian port of Chabaharport and link it with Afghanistan to offer an alternate to Afghanistan aswell as Central Asian States in lieu of Gwadar Port. India fails to takeinto cognizance that ultimately economies of scale will decide about thesuccess of the ports, as distance from Mumbai to Chabahar is 1800kilometers, and from Chabahar to Kabul it is 1851kilometer, whereasdistance from Gwadar to Kabul is 450 kilometer.

The arrest of Indian spy agency RAW’s senior operative Commander KulbhushanJadhav from Balochistan is a stark reminder of India’s abhorrentmachinations in Balochistan.

Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav sang like a canary and divulged his nefariousplans to sabotage CPEC. He provided graphic details of recruiting misledBaloch youth, poisoning their minds against the state of Pakistan,providing them guerrilla training, arming and launching them to causeunrest in the province.

If India believes that the US will continue to provide it all the requiredstrategic military support to make it a major world power and prefer itover Pakistan in South Asia even if it refuses to cooperate with the US inits Asia pivot strategy to limit Chinese and Russian influence in Asia, itis mistaken. Foreign relations are based on ethnocentrism.

The US realizes that India continues to pursue its independent foreignpolicy, as it did by not supporting the US against Russia over Ukrainecrises, in its sanctions against Iran and in the Syrian conflict In thelong run such a one sided game cannot be sustained. Even if India doesbecome a part of the Asia pivot policy of the US, for peace in Afghanistanthe US will continue to maintain good relations with Pakistan as well andIndia will not be able to isolate Pakistan.

This is more so when China and Pakistan are now deeply connected throughthe CPEC project and Russia is aspiring to build good relations withPakistan to cooperate on Afghanistan. Besides Russia, Iran and the UK, moreand more countries are signing up for CPEC thus India will fail in deridingCPEC. The only option for India is to resolve its outstanding disputes withPakistan through dialogue and join the CPEC to reap connected economicbenefits rather than opposing it.

CPEC, which is the flagship project of the Belt Road Initiative, is likelyto bring prosperity to the entire region including India joins itwholeheartedly.By: SM Hali