Impact of Barrack Obama’s

visit

Earlier, the US President Obama had recognized

an inter-relationship between war against
terrorism in Afghanistan, issue of Kashmir and
arms race between Pakistan and India. No doubt,
he wanted to increase troops in Afghanistan for
combating terrorism, but had repeatedly said that
the United States should help in resolving the
Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India to
deal with the problem of militancy in the region.
In this context, on September 25, 2008, Obama,
while accusing President Bush’s policies in the
region, offered it as part of his policy to
encourage India and Pakistan to ratify the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and
resolve the Kashmir problem to reduce nuclear
dangers in South Asia. On a number of
occasions, he had re-affirmed the solution of
Kashmir as one of his key priorities. In this
regard, even after his election as the president of
the sole superpower, his aides have also
expressed similar thoughts. For example, Mr.
Riedel had disclosed that settling the Kashmir
issue “is essential for fighting terrorism.”
While on the other hand, President Obama’s
recent visit to India has left a negative impact on
whole the region. On November 6, this year, he
announced $10 billion in trade deals with New
Delhi to create more than 50,000 US jobs,
declared the measures, America would take
regarding removal of Indian space and defense
companies from a restricted “entities list”, and
supported Indian demand for a permanent seat in
the UN Security Council including membership
of four key global nuclear nonproliferation
regimes, paid a tribute to victims of the Mumbai
attacks. Owing to various agreements with New
Delhi, India is likely to purchase C-17 and F35
aircrafts along with latest defense-related
equipments from Washington.
America which signed a nuclear deal with India
in 2008, intends to make India a great power of
Asia to contain China and destabilize Pakistan as
well as Iran. While Pakistan’s province,
Baluchistan where China has invested billion of
dollars to develop Gwadar seaport which could
link Central Asian trade with rest of the world,
irritates both Washington and New Delhi. On
the other hand, China has signed a number of
agreements with Pakistan to help the latter in
diverse sectors.
In these terms, one of the alarming implications
is that Obama’s irresponsible approach to boast
Indian defense is likely to initiate a new, but
dangerous arms race between Pakistan and India
—and between China and India.
However, South Asian countries which have
been facing acute poverty, hunger,
unemployment, political instability and terrorism
had hoped that the President Obama would help
them in resolving their old problems and issues.
But surprisingly, Obama’s ill-conceived
approach is likely to bring about more poverty
and related problems in South Asia.
Another consequence of his trip to India is that
quite contrary to his earlier statements; President
Obama flatly refused to resolve the Kashmir
issue, while saying that both India and Pakistan,
themselves, can settle this dispute. Nevertheless,
exclusion of Kashmir from Obama’s policy is
likely to become a basic obstacle to South Asian
peace, connecting other concerned disputes
between Islamabad and New Delhi including
regional terrorism in wake of New Delhi’s
blame game against Islamabad in the post-
Mumbai terror attacks. In this respect, Indian
continued intransigence to disallow the
Kashmir’s their right of self-determination and
suppression of their war of liberation through
brutal tactics of state terrorism since partition
have motivated Afghans and Pakistan’s tribal
militants to resist the American policies. On the
one hand, Indians are secretly manipulating US-
led fruitless military strategy in Afghanistan and
Pakistan’s FATA regions, while one the other,
they are perpetrating every technique of military
terrorism in the Indian-held Kashmir which is
the root cause of militancy in the region. While
taking cognizance of the Kashmir dimension in
relation to regional terrorism, even, former
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband who
had visited New Delhi and Islamabad in the
post-Mumbai carnage had recognized that
complete de-escalation of situation between
Pakistan and India was fully linked to resolution
of Kashmir issue, saying that India should
cooperate with Pakistan in this context.
While describing “win-win” relationship with
India, Obama’s main focus was Indo-US united
front against terrorism, which relates to the
Islamic militancy in the region, but he totally
neglected Hindu terrorism.
During his whole trip, President Obama did not
take cognizance of the misdeeds of Hindu
fundamentalist parties like the BJP, RSS, VHP,
Shiv Sean and Bajrang Dal which have missed
no opportunity to communalize national politics
of India even under the Congress rule. With the
backing of Indian officials, these parties have
intensified anti-Christian and anti-Muslim
bloodshed coupled with the dissemination of
Hindutva (Hindu nationalism). Attack by the
Hindu terrorists on the Muslims, Christians and
their property have become a routine matter in
India.
Obama should know that besides previous
genocide of Muslims and destruction of the
Babri Mosque, more than 2500 Muslims were
massacred in2002 in the BJP-ruled Indian state
of Gujarat. Regarding that massive genocide,
both Human Rights Watch in 2002 and Amnesty
International in 2003 charged the “Gujarat state
administration” for involvement in “a massive
cover-up of the state’s role in that massacre” and
pointed out numerous police officials—
specifically ministers, high officials and leaders
of the VHP, BJP and Bajrang Dal as
participants.
It is mentionable that ideology of Hindu
nationalism prevails in every field at the cost of
other minorities. It is even supported by Indian
defense forces clandestinely. This fact could be
judged from the recent past, when on April 6,
2008 in the house of Bajrang Dal
fundamentalists in Nanded, a bomb went off.
The investigations proved that the militants
belonging to the Bajrang Dal were found in the
bomb-making and attack on a mosque in
Parbhani in 2003. Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS)
of the Maharashtra arrested a serving Lt. Col.
Srikant Purohit along with other army officials,
indicating that they were helping in training the
Hindu terrorists, providing them with the
military-grade explosive RDX, used in the
Malegaon bombings and terrorist attacks in
other Indian cities. ATS further disclosed that
Lt. Col. Purohit confessed that in 2007, he was
involved in bombing of Samjhota express, which
brunt alive 69 Pakistanis. Leaders of the Indian
extremist parties, Shiv Sena, BJP, VHP and RSS
are now pressurizing the Congress regime to
release the culprits.
Nonetheless, it is due to the ignorance of the US
Administration that New Delhi which has been
using Hindu terrorists to create frenzy against
the other religious communities has further been
encouraged by the President Obama who is
silent over Hindu terrorism.
Without any doubt, Obama’s visit to India has
left a deep impact in the region as he has further
emboldened India, directly or indirectly, to keep
on going with human rights violations in India
and the occupied Kashmir—to continue its anti-
Pakistan and anti-China designs, to create
instability in other regional countries like
Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives etc.
Setting aside nuclear war in the Sub-continent,
India which is already dreaming to become the
superpower of Asia has been encouraged by the
President Obama to de-stabilse whole the region
in wake of the modern world trends like
renunciation of war, peaceful settlement of
disputes and economic development in
cooperation with the neighboring states.