One Big Threat

Pravin Sawhney

The Jammu and Kashmir government’s minister and the official spokesperson, Naeem Akhtar has recently raised two important issues concerning geopolitics and national defence whose implications impinge upon India’s strategic rise.

Speaking to a national newspaper, he said that China was assuming a bigger role in Kashmir which included ‘adopting’ the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief, Masood Azhar. Moreover, rebutting the Army Chief, General Bipin Rawat’s assessment that India faced possibility of the two-front war (with Pakistan and China), Akhtar said that ‘it is all one front. Pakistan and China aren’t separate.’

Geopolitically, China’s signalled its involvement in Kashmir in December 2010. It assumed the Big Brother role in May 2013, within months of the installation of the Chinese fifth generation leadership under President Xi Jinping in November 2012. Since this was before the Modi government’s anointment in May 2014, it was expected that India would read the tea leaves correctly. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Instead of a policy of ‘consolidation and cooperation’, Modi’s India, assuming itself to be China’s rival in Asia, has adopted a confrontationist policy towards Beijing. Worse, by refusing to talk with Pakistan