Col Ajay K Raina
India observed the ‘Sankalp Diwas’ on 22 February 2024 in commemoration of the 1994 historic resolution adopted by the country’s parliament, asserting India’s claim over the territory illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947. Governments since then have come and gone, and nothing has actually moved on the ground. This year around, however, the situation in Pakistan is quite different. Countries don’t balkanise overnight, and to that extent, it will be hazardous to predict a timeline for Pakistan’s demise, and yet the fact remains that our rogue neighbour has never been on such a slippery wicket before.
Among the issues being faced by the establishment in Pakistan, just below the economic crisis, stands the ongoing civil unrest; elections have turned out to be a hot potato, too. Balochistan is red-hot, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is virtually charting its own course. Joining the league now are the areas referred to as PoJK or Pakistan (illegally) occupied J&K. Even though through a highly debatable Karachi Pact of 1949, Pakistan claims to have separated the Gilgit-Baltistan or the Federally Administered Northern Areas, as those were known earlier, from occupied territories further to the South that it refers to as Azad Kashmir, the fact remains that legally and technically, the whole belt between Hunza-Nagar in the north and Chhamb in the south is simply PoJK as far as India is concerned. People across the PoJK have been demanding certain rights and facilities that have been denied to them since 1947, be it judicial redressal through the Pakistan supreme court or the right to vote in the national elections or doing away with ‘outsider’ control over these areas.
Recently, with slogans like ‘Chalo Kargil’ and ‘Hume Chahiye Azadi’ emanating from Gilgit-Baltistan and the Mirpur-Muzaffarabad belt, respectively, our mainstream media went into overdrive, claiming that the residents of the PoJK want to leave Pakistan and join India! Well, that was stretching it a bit too far. The respective Awami Action Committees spearheading the agitation there are asking two major things in those two regions. In the Poonch-Mirpur belt, there are voices seeking independence from Pakistan and merger into an ‘independent’ state of J&K or reunification, as they call it. An independent state, of course, is something simply unacceptable to India. Similarly, in the Gilgit-Baltistan area, by referring to Kargil, the protestors are demanding the opening of the traditional trade route on the lines of the Kaman Bridge crossing in Uri or the Friendship Bridge in Teethwal. To sum it up, they are against Pakistan, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are pro-India. Gilgit-Baltistan had been handed over to Pakistan through British treachery executed by Major William Brown through Operation Datta Khel on 01 November 1947. The natives had immediately formed an independent government and named their country the United States of Gilgit Baltistan. Fifteen days later, they were blackmailed to accept Pakistan as their sovereign. In any case, there are many pros and cons to the inclusion of PoJK back into India at an opportune moment, and that is a different subject altogether.
However, while following the protests in the Gilgit-Baltistan area, it became evident that an additional and possibly the most urgent demand of the protestors was the lowering of prices of subsidised wheat that had traditionally been supplied to that area by the Pakistan government at the scale of 9kg per head per month. An inflated pricing this time had brought the people onto the streets. When that was happening (and the demand was accepted by Islamabad later), one was reminded of the daring airdrop of rations that the Indian Airforce had carried out in Jaffna way back in June 1987. Codenamed Operation Poomalai, it was carried out to supply the Tamilian population when the Sri Lankan government decided to cut supplies to that area. It was done in another country to help those who shared roots with our citizens in Tamil Nadu and purely on humanitarian grounds. One is then compelled to wonder why India didn’t think of carrying out a similar drop, even though symbolically, in Gilgit Baltistan this time around. Having graduated from surgical strikes into the PoJK to air strikes on Pakistani soil, such an attempt appears to be the natural progression of the process aimed at showing Pakistan its rightful place. After all, we have a parliamentary resolution to say that that territory is part of India! Similarly, when they were shouting ‘Kargil Chalo’, why couldn’t we put 50 men on the main street of Kargil and give them TV coverage as they would shout, ‘Skardu Chalo’? If the chunk of land is ours, how can we remain inert while our ‘brethren’ continue to suffer? As mentioned to the fore, the pros and cons of a future merger are many, but such actions make statements that the world takes note of.
Honestly speaking, the issue of PoJK is now between India and China; Pakistan is just a sidekick in the game. With more than 45 billion USD investment done by China who, incidentally, is also exploring the possibility of rerouting its CPEC 2.0 to the Persian Gulf via Afghanistan (Peshawar northwards) and Iran because of unrest in Balochistan, it becomes crucial for India to exert itself against a non-player called Pakistan with an eye on China. Any such action would have actually put China in a spot.
In the present global conflict scenario, such an initiative would have created some real ripples. It would have been like hitting a six on the front foot. However, it seems that laden with the usual baggage, the decision-makers chose to take a single instead of playing a risky shot. However, everything is not lost yet. Come 15 August, and our PM may well think of addressing the populace of the PoJK like he did for Balochistan a few years back.
It is hoped that India will not be found short of the crease yet again!
(The author is a military historian and the founding trustee of the Military History Research Foundation ®)
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