Source: Asia Times:
Pakistan’s government has been assiduously exploiting the Kashmir situation as a diplomatic and political liability for India, most recently with Nawaz Sharif’s September 21 speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
Modi’s response has been jiu-jitsu: blame Pakistan! Modi asserts that the true human rights miscreant and font of instability in South Asia is terrorist-exporting Pakistan.
Considerable validity in Modi’s statements, to be sure, but he complicated the state of play by “internationalizing” the issue of Pakistan’s human rights violations in its brutal police actions in the province of Baluchistan by directing Indian diplomats to raise the issue at the UN.
“Internationalizing” Baluchistan is problematic since it is right out of the Indian ultra-nationalist playbook. Ultra-nationalists deny the legitimacy and permanence of Pakistan, seeing it as a criminal offense against the unity of ‘Akhand Bharat’ (Undivided India) which, depending on the flavor, either regards the proper boundaries of the Indian state as pre-partition Raj (mainstream) or replicating the empire of King Ashoka (all of South Asia; for the hardcore enthusiast).
What others might deem Pakistan’s internal affairs—like its security operations in Baluchistan—are for hypernationalists the legitimate and necessary concern of Undivided India.
‘Akhand Bharat’ is dogma for the Indian nationalist RSS movement and tactically promoted as needed by the RSS political wing, the BJP. Modi, whose core identity is perhaps best understood as a RSSpracharak (cadre) rather than as a BJP pol or Indian statesman, dog-whistled to the ultra-nationalists by posturing as the interlocutor of the oppressed of Baluchistan and Gilgit-Baltistan during his Red Fort Independence Day speech on August 15 and promising to bring their plight before the United Nations.