Terrorists killed four Indian soldiers on Dec. 21 in an ambush in India’s Poonch-Rajouri region on its northwestern border with Pakistan.
The difficult, densely forested Himalayan terrain in Jammu and Kashmir has recently seen an intensified terrorist presence and anti-India operations.
It was the sixth attack on Indian military forces in the region this year. India Today reported on Dec. 25 that New Delhi plans to increase troop strength on this front to strengthen its counterterrorism operations. A new brigade of troops was brought in a few months ago, and another is scheduled to be brought in soon.
An Indian counterterrorism expert who’s the author of a new book on terrorism in the region told The Epoch Times that behind the increasing attacks is the strengthening China–Pakistan axis.
“After Galwan, India moved a portion of its battle-hardened, premier counterinsurgency troops, [the] Rashtriya Rifles. This has brought a huge chunk of Indian forces on the eastern border [with China],” said Abhinav Pandya, author of “Terror Financing in Kashmir.”
The Rashtriya Rifles (RR) is a special counterinsurgency force deployed on India’s northern borders with Pakistan to the west and China to the east. The bloody Galwan conflict in the trans-Himalayan altitudes of Ladakh left 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese dead in June 2020. The event was followed by renewed military buildup on both sides.
“The Chinese are already feeling the heat after Galwan,“ said Mr. Pandya, who’s CEO of India-based security affairs think tank the Usanas Foundation. ”They have failed in all their pressure tactics, psy-wars and propaganda wars, so now they have used their proxy, Pakistan, to intensify terrorism in Poonch Rajouri, so that RR troops are shifted back to [the] Poonch-Rajouri region [from the Ladakh border].”
The developing scenario is in an area with mountainous terrain, with natural caves that give cover to terrorists. This helps them to plan and conduct surprise attacks and inflict more casualties. He said the enhanced operations and the way they’re being conducted indicate that the terrorists have “excellent intelligence” on the movement of Indian armed personnel in the area.
“Apart from that, these attacks also show that some of these militants are highly trained. They have rigorous training in jungle warfare, close-combat drills, and some of them may be veterans in the Pakistani army, also which cannot be ruled out,” Mr. Pandya said.
“Most of them are foreign terrorists. Militants have been found with Chinese weapons—pistols, grenades, and AK-47s. But we have never openly said that China is supporting terrorism in Kashmir.”
He said it has long been China’s policy to support proxy actors against India.
China’s ‘Long-Term Vision’: Distraction
After the pandemic, and even more so after the bloody Galwan conflict, India and its establishment, which had been supporting strong bilateral relations with China, became apprehensive about the country’s largest neighbor. Although it fought a major war with China in 1962, memories of that war were fading.This ushered in a reciprocal change in China’s policy toward India. Beijing now has a “long-term vision” that involves keeping India militarily distracted, according to Mr. Pandya.
“After Galwan, Indian security forces, strategic community, and intelligence brass have started thinking in terms of China as a main threat. Since then, India has been making appropriate preparations in war, strategy, and intelligence operations,” he said.
“This has made China uncomfortable. They want to counter this new thinking and initiatives by keeping India busy, overwhelmed, and preoccupied with counterinsurgency ops.”
Mr. Pandya said this has strengthened the China–Pakistan axis.
“India has mentally prepared itself for a 2.5 war now. Chinese investments in dual-use infrastructure, and [its] edge in ... asymmetric warfare, on account of its robust ties with Pakistan, [are] alarming India. India needs to think long-term and imagine all possible scenarios of sabotage, subversion, and war,” he said.
Upcoming Parliamentary Elections
India, the world’s most populous democracy, is preparing for national parliamentary elections that will take place in mid-2024.India’s border issues will undoubtedly sway voter behavior in the upcoming election, and who rules the country next will affect India’s foreign policy, including Indo-China relations.
Current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during whose tenure Galwan happened, is known for taking assertive stands against Chinese aggression on the border. Mr. Pandya said the Chinese regime is likely to use the border situation, including cross-border infiltration along Pakistan’s manned border, to influence Indian voters.
“China also wants to discredit the current Modi government in the backdrop of the 2024 national elections. Beijing and Pakistan also want to puncture the narrative that the [Kashmir] valley is moving towards peace and prosperity after [the Article] 370 abrogation,” Mr. Pandya said.
Four years ago, India split the former state of Jammu and Kashmir into two federally governed territories—one, Jammu-Kashmir, bordering Pakistan, and the other, Ladakh, bordering China. India did so by abolishing the decades-old Article 370 of its Constitution, which resulted from the 1947 treaty of accession between the just-born Indian nation and the Maharaja of what was then Jammu and Kashmir.
When the Indian government politically reorganized the strategically sensitive state, Pakistan opposed the abolition of Article 370. In turn, China opposed the new federal identity of Ladakh as “unacceptable,” because it controls certain territory in the region that India claims under the 1947 accession treaty.
The Galwan conflict happened exactly one year after Article 370’s abrogation. The conflict escalated over the construction of Chinese infrastructure in Indian-claimed territory.
Mr. Pandya said it has been increasingly reported that China has refurbished airfields and built new airfields in the Skardu area of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Skardu is in the larger region of Gilgit-Baltistan, which India claims under the 1947 treaty of accession and through which China is building its flagship BRI project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
“They are investing majorly in border infrastructure like roads and tertiary roads to enhance the connectivity to the border. They are building helipads near military bases. They are creating a huge dual-use infrastructure. In the PoK [Pakistan occupied Kashmir], Chinese officers have been found in Lashkar and terrorist camps,” he said.
Lashkar-e-Taiba is an Islamist militant group particularly active in the Kashmir region.
