Covert communication of sentiments is the essence of democratic institutions and leaders. Just look at the words chosen by a seasoned Diplomat like EAM S. Jaishanakar. He communicates everything without overtly saying anything. Recently, he ripped into the United States without even naming them.
Jaishankar being a pro
The next stoppage in our busy Foreign Minister’s schedule is Australia. But even in Australia, he feels like home. The reason being that he was pestered with the same questions which have been asked by ‘n’ number of journalists in the past.
Even in Australia, Journalists seem to have forgotten about the original purpose of his visit and asked Jaishankar about India’s reliance on Russia. EAM categorically retorted that throughout history, Russia has served Indian interest more than any other country on the planet.
The maverick Foreign Minister used the opportunity to highlight why India got tilted towards Russia in the first place.
Highlighting, what seems to be an open secret to everyone, Jaishankar said, “We have, as you know, a substantial inventory of Soviet and Russian-origin weapons, and that inventory actually grew for a variety of reasons – you know, the merits of the weapon systems themselves but also because for multiple decades, Western countries did not supply weapons to India and in fact saw a military dictatorship next to us as the preferred partner.”
Also read: After the US, Jaishankar now shatters the narcissism of ‘almighty’ Europe
Surprising that it is a surprise for west
Though he used the word Western Countries and military dictatorship, instead of America and Pakistan, still he deserves praise for clear and unequivocal truth. But honestly, it reflects the grim reality of illusion the American propagandists have put the whole of western world into.
Just answer two questions in your head? Who is the main exporter of terrorism in Asia? It is Pakistan. Who is the longest held beneficiary of American funds in Asia? It is again Pakistan. Do these dots not connect? Of course, they do.
But even now, the self-declared intellectuals of the bunch will tell you that it is just a correlation and not a causation. They will preach to you that just because funds are being sent to Pakistan, it does not mean that they are being used for terrorist. They believe that these funds are used for humanitarian purposes.
Timeline of American funds to Pakistan
To demolish such fake propaganda, it is just enough to analyse the timing of funds and existing political turmoils impacting Asia, but mainly India. British Newspaper, The Guardian has published a sixty-year overview of American aid to Pakistan. Throughout the last 7 decades, Americans have given Economic assistance, economic assistance through aid and military assistance to Pakistan.
When Pakistan was just out of the nappies in 1948, the USA was trying to find a way to stay relevant in the region. At that time, it was not confident of its hold on Japan, so it tried to take a first mover advantage on Pakistan by giving 0.77 million Dollars in economic assistance. But soon, its hold on Japan got clearer and it ditched the child of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and did not offer a single penny to Pakistan till 1950.
In 1951, tensions in the Korean Peninsula had started to challenge American supremacy, so it again tilted towards Pakistan by offering $2.89 million in economic assistance. For the next 3 years, the US administration encouraged Pakistan by giving them nearly $1.5 billion, a huge amount even today.
By 1954, it became clear to Americans that Pakistan being in closer proximity with the USSR was more important for its interest than India. Additionally, the advent of Communist China had left it with not much option as well. Naturally, empowering Pakistan with Arms and ammunition became a key concern for Americans.
Army at the top was helpful for America
If arms and ammunition are handed over to a civil authority, they would be reluctant and restrained in using it. To effectively utilise it, an Army General at the top of the polity was needed. By the time military aid started to pour into Pakistan, the country was “blessed” with multiple constitutional crises.
In fact, it is not a coincidence that the first tranche of military aid to Pakistan reached only after the first constitutional crisis had taken shape in 1953. Encouraged by political instability, Americans sent in more than $1 billion worth in military assistance to Pakistan in 1956.
With these humongous sums, Pakistani Army started to increase its hold on Pakistani polity and finally launched a coup in 1958. Within a span of 13 days, two successive coups took place and army commander-in-chief Gen. Ayub Khan ended up becoming Pakistani President.
The Army at the top ensured that there was no dearth of military assistance from Pakistan for the next decade. Taking advantage of these funds, Pakistan even launched military offensives against India in 1965, only to get beaten black and blue by India.
After 1965 war, the USA had started its efforts to get Communist China on its side and so importance of Pakistan took a dip. For the next 17 years, Americans focussed on courting China while keeping Pakistan on tenterhooks by giving only economic assistance.
Also read: Jaishankar opens America’s dirty Pakistani closet
Afghan front and funding of Mujahideens
And then came the final frontier of the Capitalist vs Communist fight. Americans were hell-bent on destroying Soviet Russia. For that purpose, Afghanistan was important. They had already begun by toppling the pro-Soviet Communist regime, now it was time for the final battle. But who would hire mercenaries on their behalf?
The obvious answer was Pakistan military and intelligence agencies. From 1983, the United States restarted its military aid to Pakistan with half billion dollars. The numbers kept increasing until Ronald Raegan got sure of Mikhael Gorbachev’s intention of liberalising Soviets. Only at the verge of the fall of the Berlin wall did Americans start to reduce their military assistance to Pakistan.
Transfer of Mujahideens in Kashmir
But the aid was nothing less than a Frankenstein monster. With this humongous sum, Pakistanis had created paid mercenaries called Mujahideens. Pakistan helped America in training Mujahideens, who helped them in ousting Russians from Afghanistan. It was the common understanding between the US and Pakistan that ISI would provide support to Afghani Mujahideen and the CIA would be helping them in bleeding India.
After the Soviet empire’s grave was confirmed in the graveyard of empires, these Mujahideens started to flood Indian borders in Kashmir. The main reason for killing of Kashmiri Pandits can be directly traced to Americans funding mujahideen wars against Soviets.
After the Afghan tussle, these Mujahideens were rendered purposeless as killing was the only thing they knew. Lot of them became Talibanis, while a major section of them decided to participate in Pakistan’s goal of bleeding India with thousand cuts.
Also read: S Jaishankar singlehandedly thrashes expansionist China, while showing mirror to the US
Loyalty lay towards Pakistan
For next decade or so, they caused mayhem in Kashmir with rampant genocide of non-Muslim population. These Mujahideens had only one goal in mind and that was to snatch Kashmir from India. The Pakistani army kept providing background support to them. Apparently, they could not hide the truth for long and the whole world saw how Pakistani troops disguised themselves as militants in order to invade India.
India retorted back with ferocious intensity, giving them another round of thrashing in Kargil war. Even then the Clinton administration was worried about India’s pushback escalating into full-fledged war across the Line of Control. Clearly, American loyalty always lay towards the military dictatorship of General Parvez Musharaff.
Doubling down on its own mistake by America
Within two years, America realised the follies of supporting Mujahideens, when Osama, its own trained gun demolished twin towers of the US. But, instead of correcting its previous fault, Americans doubled down on it and decided to give more military aid to Army dictators of Pakistan. Barring 2004, from 2002 to 2010, American military assistance to the Pakistani setup was always well above $1 billion. In 2010, it was, in fact, $2.5 billion.
Obviously, economic assistance was there as well, but it was a paltry sum compared to military assistance. Only 30 per cent of American assistance went to Pakistan in the form of economic aid between 2002 and 2009. Even that seems to have channelised towards military build-up as well. One only needs to look at Pakistani rankings in human development and military capacity to know where all these funds were channelled.
The result of this policy severely affected India in form of serial attacks like those on Red Fort in 2000, Parliament in 2001, Akshardham temple in 2002, the Mumbai bombing in 2002, and the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008.
Also read: With their unblemished love for Pakistan, US goes on to prove how Jaishankar was right
Moving away from Trump’s policy is counterproductive for America
Even after so much devastation, the US did not care a bit about India. It planned to give $7.5 billion to Pakistan through the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act (KLB), also known as the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009. The mayhem stopped only after Trump decided to withhold it in 2018.
But the Biden administration has restarted all this. They want to see Pakistan rising above India as historically it has been easier to contain. But, at the end of the day, it is Frankenstein’s Monster. EAM Jaishankar knows it, the whole Pentagon knows it, even Hillary Clinton knows it, but still, they choose to do so. It’s not hypocrisy, its arrogance of power. No wonder, America is getting side-lined on global stages.
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