India needs new plan to deal with the great wall
With China yet again effectively blocking India's efforts to get the United Nations to designate Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as an international terrorist, it is clear that New Delhi will have to adopt a different strategy. India cannot expect a change of heart from the Chinese. If anything, Beijing will continue to harden its position. The Union Government has already begun the process of consulting other stakeholders, including co-sponsors of the UN resolution. There is no doubt that nearly all of the world, barring China and, of course, Pakistan, is united in terming Azhar a global terrorist. Ironically, while his organisation stands named and shamed, he remains off the hook.
The helplessness of the global community in the face of Beijing's obstructionism is pathetic. China has been using its veto power here not for the larger international good but to protect its friend and ally, Pakistan. That would not have been a bad thing but for the fact that Pakistan is a virtual state-sponsor of terrorism. This has been recognised not just by India but also by Afghanistan — indeed, Kabul has often been more vocal than New Delhi in this regard, with both incumbent President Ashraf Ghani and his predecessor Hamid Karzai mincing no words to that effect. Even the West knows of Pakistan’s role, and in many ways those like the US, the UK, Britain, Germany and France, to name a few, have spoken against Pakistan's nonchalance. For quite a while now, the belief has grown that India must cease to look to the West for a cue and that it must declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism.
It would be naïve to expect the world to take the lead when the biggest sufferers of Pakistan-based terror — India and Afghanistan — fail to walk the talk. It's here that Kabul and New Delhi need to collaborate and firm up a strategy. Together they have already achieved some success in isolating Pakistan not just in the international community but also more specifically within the South Asian region: The cancellation of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit in Islamabad is a good pointer to what can be achieved jointly. Besides, even other Saarc nations have come around to understand that Pakistan is an impediment to greater synergy within the regional grouping, and have begun to work out other arrangements that bypass Islamabad.
But while there are multiple ways to deal with a belligerent Pakistan — on the borders and elsewhere — the situation vis-à-vis China is more complex. In the first place, the line of Actual Control between India and China has remained by and large peaceful, giving bilateral cooperation in various other sectors a chance to grow — and this has been happening. China also is at least not complicit in sending terrorists into India, though its role in fomenting insurgency in the North-East has been talked about. Additionally, we have booming trade with China. Managing India-China ties is, thus, a different game.