Dr. Manzoor Ahmad Naazer
Assistant Professor, International Islamic University, Islamabad
India and Insurgencies in Neighbouring Countries:
This section elucidates how internal conflicts arose in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Pakistan and offered openings to opportunistic neighbors like India to intervene.
It also illuminates how, and why, New Delhi responded to these internal conflicts in its neighborhood:
Chakma Insurgency in Bangladesh:
Being grateful to India for its ‘key role’ in the creation of Bangladesh, Bengali leaders sought to establish friendly ties with New Delhi.
They, however, also wanted to preserve their political identity, national sovereignty and economic independence which did not match India’s expectations.
Their gratitude could not help them escape India’s designs of imposing its hegemony over their country.
When they strove to distance themselves, New Delhi attempted to exploit their weaknesses and coerce them through sponsoring insurgency rooted in religious, ethnic and ideological differences.
Bangladesh’s first Prime Minister, Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman strove to impose Bengali nationalism which estranged the minorities, particularly the 11 ethnic groups popularly known as the hill people who live in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in southeastern Bangladesh.
In response to Bengali nationalism, Chakmas – the largest ethnic group in CHT – formed a political group, the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti (PCJSS) led by Manabendra Narayan Larma in 1972, and then its military wing Shanthi Bahini (SB) or Peace Force in 1973.
PCJSS had severe reservations over neglect of their identity as a separate ethnic group as well as settlement of Muslim Bengalis in CHT that could permanently change the demographic composition of the area.
Highlighting these concerns, PCJSS demanded that Dhaka bring an end to the settlement of Muslim Bengalis in CHT, and to give the Chakmas and other native groups the preferential treatment and autonomy encompassing wide political and economic powers, etc.
However, Dhaka refused to accept these demands that led SB to start armed attacks and full-scale insurgency in CHT by 1975. This gave an opportunity to India to intervene in the internal affairs of Bangladesh.
After Sheikh Mujib’s assassination in a military coup in August 1975, India cultivated an alliance of SB and supporters of Mujib’s Awami League (AL), against the new government in Dhaka.
New Delhi was annoyed over the regime change and assassination of a pro-India leader in Dhaka.
At one point, India even considered intervening militarily in Bangladesh to foil the coup but refrained fearing international condemnation.
Nonetheless, after the coup, PCJSS leader Larma escaped to India where he was sheltered and supported by India’s intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
Pro-Mujib Bengali elements and AL activists in India also supported SB against the ‘usurpers’ in Dhaka.
Bangladesh believed that India had raised, trained and sponsored SB though New Delhi officially refuted these allegations. With the regime change in Dhaka and subsequent shift in its policies, India reacted strongly and decided to support SB.
RAW contacted Larma and began sponsoring SB insurgents with weapons, training, finances and shelter etc. The rank and file of about 50,000 Chakma militants were trained in India and the ‘entire insurgency was carried out’ with Indian help.
India’s support of the Chakma insurgency was confirmed by the international media, local Indian officials and the rebels. For instance, in 1989, the New York Times cited both the insurgent leaders in CHT and local officials of Indian paramilitary forces in Agartala, India, as saying that Indian agencies and forces were providing the rebels sanctuaries in border areas as well as arms, training and money.
Bangladesh raised this issue at various international forums including South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summits that ‘irked’ New Delhi.
The insurgency left about 25,000 people dead and displaced thousands who lived in camps in Tripura, India and whose number rose to over 60,000 by 1997.
India strived to highlight the plight of refugees on its territory and politically and diplomatically pressurised Dhaka to accommodate the concerns of Chakmas and give them autonomy – a demand which India herself has denied to the people struggling for it in several of its own states.
New Delhi sustained its support to SB throughout the 1980s, 1990s and beyond. In December 1997, the PCJSS and Government of Bangladesh led by Sheikh Hasina Wazed of AL signed a peace agreement which was subsequently implemented and a regional council was established in May 1999.
However, it did not bring peace. In fact, the agreement created disunity among the insurgents and SB broke into several groups, including the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF) that operated in CHT after 1998.
It continued to get support from India. In 2013, a report claimed that rebels from UPDF were using Indian soil (particularly several areas in Mizoram) for channelling weapons to Bangladesh.
India had various motives for supporting the CHT insurgency in Bangladesh.
New Delhi was annoyed over regime change and wanted to punish those had overthrown a pro-India government in Bangladesh.
Through use of proxies, India sought to influence Dhaka’s policies. Besides these political motives, New Delhi also had strategic interests. CHT is rich with oil and gas resources and strategically important due to its proximity to the Chittagong Port.
CHT can also be used as a military base. India also wanted to ‘weaken it slowly and swallow it finally.’
She also used the Chakma rebels to infiltrate into and root out the guerillas fighting for liberation of Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur and Assam.
Tamil Insurgency in Sri Lanka:
Sri Lanka is a multi-religious and multi-ethnic country. Sinhalese, who are a predominantly Buddhist community, form 75 per cent of the population.
The Tamil community, chiefly Hindu, forms 15.4 per cent of the country’s populace and include Sri Lankan Tamils (11.2 per cent) and Indian Tamils (4.2 per cent) and enjoy majority in north and eastern parts of the country.
Indian Tamils were brought as laborers to Sri Lanka by the British rulers in the later Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century. Meanwhile, the Muslim community constitutes 9.2 per cent of the country.
Religious and ethnic differences coupled with rising nationalism in both among Sinhalese and Tamils gave rise conflict that provided India an opportunity for internal interference.
British policies which widened the gulf between Sinhalese and Tamils – the two dominant ethnic groups in the country – was further aggravated in the post-independence era.
The language issue and the government’s resettlement policy which enabled about 165,000 Sinhalese to settle in Tamil-dominated eastern and northern areas between 1953 to 1981, and the rise of Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism created identity concerns among the Tamil population.
They regarded various government moves as efforts aimed at denying them their political and economic rights and ‘cultural oppression’.
But they were mainly concerned about the demographic changes resulting out of the government’s resettlement policy and non-recognition of Indian Tamils as Sri Lankan citizens.
The Sri Lankan government was not ready to ensure the due political and economic rights of Tamil minority groups since the growing Sinhalese nationalist leadership was not willing to accommodate them.
Tamils also feared that their identity or culture was also at stake as government pushed to impose Sinhalese language on all citizens.
These state policies sowed the seeds of conflict that ultimately led to a bloody civil war and opened a window of opportunity for India to intervene.
Initially, the Tamils demanded creation of a Tamil province under a federal system, termination of the resettlement policy, acceptance of a two-language policy, and abolishment of nationality laws that did not recognize Indian Tamils.
In the early 1970s, they demanded creation of a sovereign Tamil state (country). In 1972, in order to press forward their demands, they formed the Tamil United Front (TUF), renamed the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) in 1975.
They also formed scores of Tamil militant groups (TMGs), of which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) emerged as the strongest.
TMGs started attacking police and armed forces, political leaders, and civilians.
India supported Tamil separatists through provision of military training, equipment, and financial, political and diplomatic support.
The general public, leaders and political parties in neighboring Indian state of Tamil Nadu were generally sympathetic to the Tamil cause.
In 1979, Sri Lanka deployed its troops in Jaffna – the capital of the Northern Province – that forced the LTTE leader Prabhakaran to flee to Tamil Nadu which he used as a safe haven to direct terrorist activities against Sri Lanka.
New Delhi stepped up its support to TMGs as the conflict intensified in 1983 when Tamils launched a full-fledged war against Sri Lanka.
India’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi used RAW to train and arm TMGs.
She was also Prime Minister when India militarily intervened in Pakistan and disintegrated it in 1971, and also when India forcefully annexed Sikkim in 1974.
Reportedly, she had a ‘secret plan to invade’ Sri Lanka which could not be executed because of her assassination in 1984.
Earlier, she sanctioned RAW to arm and train TMGs. In the 1980s, RAW trained tens of thousands of Tamils in bases along coastal areas in Tamil Nadu.
The agency focused more on LTTE and helped it to establish its command centre enabling the latter to seize full control of the Jaffna peninsula by 1985.
By the late 1980s, LTTE transformed itself into a force resembling a conventional army commanded by Prabhakaran, thanks to the Indian support that enabled it to completely seize the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka.
In the late 1980s, Indian support and designs became more pronounced when it openly infringed Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.
In 1987, when Sri Lankan forces besieged the Jaffna Peninsula and imposed the blockade to crush Tamil rebels, India broke the blockade by airlifting supplies to the Peninsula in the name of humanitarian assistance.
Colombo condemned this move and termed it as a ‘naked violation’ of its independence and ‘unwarranted assault’ on its ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity.’
India’s actions compelled Sri Lanka to lift the blockade, terminate the military operation in Jaffna and agree to a negotiated settlement.
After bilateral talks, both India and Sri Lanka reached an agreement signed by India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene on July 29, 1987.
Both countries agreed on certain obligations with security and foreign policy implications.
The agreement prescribed ‘several ground rules’ for Sri Lanka to conduct its foreign policy.
Some of the terms were clear manifestations of India’s hegemonic ambitions in the region.
The agreement paved the way for Indian intervention in Sri Lanka.
New Delhi made a commitment to militarily assist Colombo on the latter’s request. Subsequently, New Delhi deployed 80,000 troops as Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka to ‘supervise a ceasefire and to disarm the Tamils rebels.’
This fulfilled India’s desire to play its role as a regional ‘policeman’, but, the move backfired and created strong resentment among both the Sinhalese and the Tamils.
India had to withdraw its troops in March 1990.
After assassination of Gandhi in a suicide attack by a Tamil tigress in 1991, India’s Central Government decreased its support for LTTE but several factors (mainly domestic political dynamics) kept Indian interest alive in the 1990s.
During the 2003-09 phase of the conflict, India supported a ‘negotiated political settlement’ with power decentralization and autonomy for Tamils.
In October 2008, it protested Colombo’s conduct of the war and then its External Affairs Minister explicitly threatened that New Delhi would ‘do all in its power’ in order to improve the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka.”
By 2009, the LTTE was finally crushed by the Sri Lankan forces.
This Tamil insurgency that lasted for about 26 years took the lives of around 100,000 people.
It also caused internal displacement of around 300,000 people. In 2011, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, D. M. Jayaratne claimed that he had ‘intelligence reports of three clandestine training centres operated by the LTTE in Tamil Nadu’ (India) to revive the separatist movement in the country.
Tamils killed or tried to assassinate highest level government personalities including Presidents and Prime Ministers.
In 1993, they killed Sri Lanka’s President, Ranasinghe Premadasa, besides ten others in a suicide attack during the May Day parade.
Earlier, they gunned down one of the country’s main opposition leaders Lalith Athulathmudali.
In 1991, they assassinated Gandhi, India’s former Prime Minister.
They were also part of a failed coup against the President of the Maldives in 1988.
India had diverse political and strategic motives behind its support for Tamil separatists.
It attempted to disintegrate Sri Lanka, as it did Pakistan in 1971, to increase/widen its influence in the region.
Tamils, who were mostly Hindus, were naturally inclined towards India, and thus, could possibly be included into an Indian Union at a later stage.
India strove to change Sri Lanka’s foreign policy making it more sensitive to her concerns and interests in the region.
Thus, New Delhi also endeavored to establish some ‘ground rules’ for its relations with Colombo aimed at reinforcing itself as a regional policeman at the expense of the independence and sovereignty of Sri Lanka.
Coup in Maldives:
Indian-trained Tamil guerillas not only challenged the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, but also threatened the security of other regional states.
Some of them presented their services as ‘mercenaries’ to be used by disgruntled elements to destabilize regional states.
For instance, the armed group that attempted to overthrow the government of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of Maldives in 1988 included the Tamil mercenaries initially trained in India.
Around 400 armed men who attacked Male were Sri Lankan Tamils and belonged to LTTE. They killed dozens of people, besides taking 2000 hostages that included members of Parliament and government officers, civil servants and police officials.
They seized control of the international airport and radio station.
Luckily, President Gayoom was able to escape on whose appeal India sent 1600 paratroopers and commandoes to crush the attempted coup.
Some political analysts opine that the attempted armed coup and the consequent Indian troop deployment was part of New Delhi’s power-hungry designs.
Nevertheless, India was credited for thwarting the coup. India believed that it being situated at the centre of South Asia had a ‘job to protect it from outside.’
In this context, some analysts explained Indian intervention in the Maldives as a continuation of, along with its role in ‘creation’ of Bangladesh in 1971 and ‘interjection to resolve’ the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka in 1987, as its assertion of regional dominance.
Maoist Insurgency in Nepal:
India’s intervention in Nepalese domestic affairs has been a recurring phenomenon throughout its history, given her support of, either overtly or covertly, Nepalese dissident political groups, violent democratic movements, armed rebels, terrorists and insurgents for various reasons.
India played a crucial role in bringing down several governments in Nepal by using armed groups against them, such as in 1951, and occasionally imposed ‘unjust and unequal’ treaties on crumbling regimes in Kathmandu, as in 1950.
New Delhi also strove to bring pro-India elements into power to increase its influence and extract various concessions from indebted rulers.
The Maoist insurgency and conflict in Nepalese politics was deep rooted.
It had mainly stemmed out of socioeconomic disparities, horizontal inequalities, injustice and oppressive economic and political system that had marginalized poor segments of the people who were, thus, attracted towards revolutionary ideologies.
Socialist and communist tendencies in Nepalese polity grew stronger after communist takeover in neighboring China. Maoists were attracted to the idea of a people’s war and opposed to New Delhi’s influence and intervention in Nepalese affairs as well as imposition of several unequal treaties on Kathmandu by New Delhi.
They wanted to bring down the prevailing political and economic system in Nepal as well as to decrease Indian influence and this became the genesis of the conflict in the country.
The opposition of several Indo-Nepalese treaties and persistent Indian interventions in Nepalese affairs resulted in the growth of ‘strong nationalist-minded politics in Nepal, especially for the left movement’ that ultimately gave rise to Maoist insurgency.
The Maoists gave the government an ultimatum to accept its 40 demands.
Three were directly related to India, and two about Indo-Nepalese ‘unequal and unjust’ agreements: to delete the ‘unjust’ terms of the 1950 treaty, and; to nullify Tanakpur Water Project Agreement (1991), and the Integrated Development of Mahakali River Treaty (1996). Kathmandu rejected their ultimatum after which Maoists launched terrorist activities in the country in February 1996 that lasted for nearly a decade and took the lives of over 13,000 people.
India’s role in this entire episode was quite dubious and the nature of the relationship between New Delhi and the Maoists remained suspicious.
Maoists who had launched their ‘people’s war’ in the name of Nepali nationalism and ‘anti–Indianism’ gradually became soft towards India which used the former to increase her own interests and influence in the country.
Maoists used India’s border areas as ‘safe hideouts’ from the beginning of the insurgency.
Their training camps were located on frontier areas and wounded rebels generally received medical treatment in hospitals in India.
Nepalese Maoists used Indian soil for shelter and for arms and weapons’ shipments, and their leaders frequently held their meetings in different locations in India (including its main cities).
Some even roamed in India under the protection of the Indian security forces.
At times, the government arrested a few Maoists and handed them over to Nepal, but most of the time, New Delhi did not cooperate with Kathmandu on its demand to check or exchange information about Maoist activities.
Some political parties, mostly leftists openly supported the Nepalese Maoists, while the security agencies turned a blind eye to their activities.
The Nepalese government raised this issue at the highest level with India, but apart from the occasional supply of weapons and endorsements of the support Kathmandu sought from the US and the United Kingdom in its counterinsurgency campaign, not much changed.
Finally, India played a key role in cultivating an alliance of Maoists and other groups to abolish the institution of monarchy in Kathmandu.
India generally looked at institution of monarchy in Nepal with suspicion and viewed its Kings as unreliable and detrimental to its interests.
New Delhi, however, was somehow successful in dealing with them in the past. On the other hand, King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev was not so forthcoming.
After 2005, as the King took over executive powers, India began supporting the Maoists more proactively.
Infuriated by various policies of the King, New Delhi cultivated an alliance of Maoists (which she had previously declared a terrorist group) and seven Nepalese political parties to reach a 12-point agreement, signed in New Delhi in November 2005 that ultimately brought an end to the institution of monarchy in Nepal. India’s role and influence was crucial in conclusion of the agreement.
There were complex motives behind India’s role in the Maoists insurgency in Nepal.
New Delhi kept its ties with Maoists in order to create insecurity in the country and then provided assistance to the Nepalese government to ensure perpetuation of its dependence on her security apparatus.
Rabindra Mishra claims that India used Maoists to ‘keep the Nepali state in a constant state of fear in an effort to extract continued subservience’, and ‘as a bargaining tool.’
The ‘most controversial’ Indo-Nepalese agreements were concluded by insecure rulers in Kathmandu who were ‘threatened by externally backed opposition.’
New Delhi used its links with the Maoists to demand withdrawal of US advisors in order to decrease American influence in Nepalese affairs and to increase its own.
Terrorist Activities in Pakistan:
Pakistan too is a multiethnic and multi-cultural country.
It was ruled by military governments for about half of its history that prevented growth of democratic traditions.
Even its civilian rulers lacked democratic credentials and strove to concentrate power around them instead of strengthening institutions, empowering people and promoting socioeconomic justice in the country.
Before disintegration of Pakistan in 1971, the people of East Pakistan generally perceived themselves as politically marginalized, economically deprived and cultural alienated.
This provided India an opportunity to first support the Mukti Bahini for rebellion against Pakistan and then to openly intervene to disintegrate the country.
Such perceptions also developed in various political units in West Pakistan.
The leadership of these political units remained equally responsible as they tried to make Pakistani establishment or the larger province, Punjab, a scapegoat for their failures when they had the opportunities to rule in their respective provinces.
Pakistan’s ruling elite could not address problems of the masses which continues to provide opportunities for exploitation to nationalist and separatist leaders.
This is the main reason behind the present conflict in Balochistan province which was inflamed after the killing of Akbar Bugti in August 2006.
The ideological divide between religious and secular classes and use of religion for political gains coupled with imprudent domestic and foreign policies bred violent religious extremism and terrorism.
Pakistan’s decision to join the US-led War on Terror was the main reason behind the rise of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2007.
India grabbed the opportunity and soon started supporting both the Baloch separatists and TTP terrorists by using the territory of Afghanistan.
In fact, India has had an old nexus with Afghanistan which it has been intermittently using to undermine Pakistan’s security.
Acknowledgement:
# The author is indebted to the Department of International Studies, University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), North Carolina, USA, and the library staff for their dedicated assistance in completion of this research during post-doctorate research at the university.
# The author is Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
# Article Published with the permission of the distinguished author (2018 by Islamabad Policy Research Institute).
# Thanks the author and IPRI (Islamabad Policy Research Institute).
# To be concluded-Upadhyaya.