Indian Defence Review

An Indian viceroy like Lord Curzon was arguably a more sophisticated orientalist than anyone in the Bush or Obama administrations by a vast margin. The British knew how to manipulate societies they did not control militarily, setting up devious alliances and systems of bribery that held their foes in check without overbearing force. They were able to play the “great game” against the Russians and keep India theirs without waging ruinous wars. Yet, they were also prey to the strange delusions that seem to dog Western powers when they get involved in Asia.34

The partition of India, and the formation of Pakistan, a Muslim nation, by the British Raj was not done because the British liked Muslims. The British had slaughtered the Muslims in the thousands in 1857, when the Hindus and Muslims joined hands under the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, to drive out the feringhee (white-skinned foreigners). Those who remember that untold part of history of the Indian independence movement talk of piles of bodies lying in the streets of Delhi, slaughtered by British soldiers. Most of them were Muslims. The Muslims were “traitors” aspiring to reinstate the “despicable” and “corrupt” Mughal dynasty, London screamed.

The key to the British Empire’s financial success was its ability to manipulate Islam. The British Empire builders eliminated the Islamic caliphate, created nations by drawing lines on the sands of Arabia, eliminated some nations and partitioned others to create Islamic nations. Britain was aware that the oil fields of Arabia would be a source of great power in the post–World War II decades. The western part of British India bordered Muslim central Asia, another major source of oil and gas, bordering Russia and Muslim Afghanistan. British India also bordered Islamic Iran and the Persian Gulf—the doorway to the oil fields of Arabia. In order to keep its future options open, Balochistan, bordering northeastern Iran, and the tribal Pashtun–dominated areas bordering Afghanistan remained as British protectorates.

Pakistan was created by the gamesmen in London because they wanted a weak Muslim state sandwiched between the oil-rich central Asia and the Middle East that would depend heavily on the mighty British military.

So, when the break-up of British India was planned by Churchill and others, Balochistan was not a problem. The problem was the Pashtun-dominated NWFP35, which was led by a pro-Congress Party leadership, and had wanted to join a Hindu-majority India.

What London wanted was to deny the large Hindu-dominated India from having common borders with Russia, or central Asia. That could make it too powerful and, worst of all, energy independent. Pakistan was created by the gamesmen in London because they wanted a weak Muslim state sandwiched between the oil-rich central Asia and the Middle East that would depend heavily on the mighty British military. The Cold War period held this arrangement in place, to the satisfaction of the British. The Kashmir dispute, triggered from London to cut off Indian access to Afghanistan, served the British policymakers well.

But the post–Cold War days are different. China is rising in the north and seeking entry into the Persian Gulf and central Asia through the western part of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. China has a long-term plan to build infrastructure in this area to bring resources into its vast, but thinly populated, western region that extends from the Eastern borders of Kazakhstan to Shaanxi province deep inside China.36

Britain wants another partition of Pakistan. Whether Washington wants it, or not, it is playing second fiddle to this absurd policy. This time, a new nation is supposed to emerge—a weak and disoriented nation born out of violence, just the way the partition of British India occurred. This nation will consist of Pashtun-dominated NWFP and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)—both situated west of Indus River and bordering the British-drawn disputed Durand Line, which allegedly separates Afghanistan from Pakistan. This area would merge with the Pashtun-dominated eastern, central and southern Afghanistan to form Pashtunistan. Historians point out that the British, during their Raj days in the subcontinent, had cut up the same Pashtunistan to create a buffer in the form of Afghanistan between Czarist Russia and British India.

British Intelligence’s Modus Operandi vis-à-vis Afghanistan

“The terrorist threat to Britain is partly a ‘blowback’, resulting from a web of British covert operations with militant Islamist groups stretching back decades. And while terrorism is held up as the country’s biggest security challenge, Whitehall’s collusion with radical Islam is continuing. . . . Two of the four London bombers were trained in Pakistani camps run by the Harkat ul-Mujahideen (HUM) terrorist group, which has long been sponsored by Pakistan to fight Indian forces in Kashmir. Britain not only arms and trains Pakistan but in the past provided covert aid benefiting the HUM. . . . Many HUM militants were instructed by an insurgent faction that Britain was covertly training and arming with anti-aircraft missiles.”37

Britain wants another partition of Pakistan. Whether Washington wants it, or not, it is playing second fiddle to this absurd policy.

Broadly speaking, the objective of London in setting up a Pashtunistan is to secure a firm grip over a country sandwiched between central Asia and the Middle East—two oil- and natural-gas-rich regions. In addition, such a nation will be bordering Iran, considered by London as an avowed civilisational enemy. London’s reading is that if it brings about the existence of Pashtunistan, yet another weak nation born in a hostile region, it will depend heavily on Britain. Britain, in return, will make way for the United States to set up bases and pick up the expenses to be incurred by this new and weak nation.

However, in achieving such an objective in that area, Britain uses three of its weapons: First, the proliferation of opium in southern Afghanistan—the area expected to provide muscle for the Pashtunistan demand. Afghan president Karzai pointed out on a number of occasions that the proliferation of opium in Helmand province of Afghanistan began in earnest in 2005, when the British troops moved into Helmand province for maintenance of its security. Helmand’s major opium trading centres are Sangin, Musa Qala, Garmsir, Baghran, Kajaki and Nad Ali. In 2005, British troops captured five of these six trading centres, and subsequently the opium production skyrocketed in Helmand.