India should grant asylum to Baloch nationalists

New Delhi: With India raising the issue of Pakistani brutalities in Balochistan, it should now be clear to the world that New Delhi means business. Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned Balochistan in his Independence Day speech from Red Fort, things have been moving quite fast on the Baloch front.

After Pakistan’s decision to approach the InterPol for a Red Corner notice against Baloch freedom movement leader Brahmudagh Bugti, who has been living in self-exile in Geneva, he has sought asylum in India. More such demands from Baloch leaders may come up in future as Pakistan is gearing up to deal with India’s policy shift on Balochistan which has largely taken both Islamabad and Rawalpindi (and even Beijing) by surprise.

Brahmudagh Bugti’s asylum request opens many issues which South Block will have to deliberate upon before any decision is taken. After, Modi’s speech at the all-party meeting where he talked about human rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Northern Areas, and Balochistan, it is certainly not easy to deny asylum to Baloch freedom movement leaders. ALSO READ: BALOCHISTAN: PAST IMPERFECT, FUTURE TENSE

Sources in Balochistan report that the Pakistani Army has ramped up efforts to conduct anti-India propaganda in Balochistan. These include doubling grants to local newspapers and patronage to those in Baloch academia who are willing to cooperate with Pakistan in propaganda warfare against India. In such circumstances, it may not be enough for All India Radio to just air cultural programs on its Baloch service. It will mean something if Baloch nationalist leaders are allowed to address Baloch masses reeling under the Pakistani Army's onslaught.

When the Pakistani Army launched Operation Searchlight in the last week of March 1971 to crush the freedom movement in East Pakistan and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was flown to West Pakistan and imprisoned in Faisalabad, India allowed Awami League leaders to set up a government in exile in Kolkata. Former Pakistani Home Minister and close confidant of Bhuttos, Rahman Malik, has already blamed India of creating East Pakistan like situation in Balochistan.

India also granted asylum to Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama and has allowed Tibetans to run a government in exile for more than six decades now. In 1999, a teenager Karmapa Lama who was able to escape from the protective custody of Chinese security services was immediately granted refuge by India. India formally granted his asylum demand on February 3, 2001 despite all the warnings of serious implications for bilateral relations from Bejing.

Grant of asylum to Tibetans helped save Tibetan Buddhist culture from extinction, earned respect for India throughout the Buddhist world, left India with a diplomatic card to deal with Chinese territorial claims, and also made us an important factor in overall US policy with respect to China.

Afghanistan already hosts thousands of Baloch refugees fleeing from persecution.  But Pakistani terror haunts them even inside Afghanistan. Baloch refugee camps in Spin Boldak and Nimroz have come under repeated attacks from ISI proxy Afghan Taliban. Even Brahmudagh Bugti and his family were targeted multiple times by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda suicide bombers after they moved to Afghanistan following Nawab Akbar Bugti’s assassination by the Pakistani Army in 2006.

Islamabad pressurised the Afghan Government to deny political asylum to Brahumdagh Bugti after which he had to relocate to Switzerland. The Swiss authorities rejected his formal asylum request this year under Pakistani pressure but his appeal against the decision is still pending in Switzerland.

The issue of granting asylum to Baloch leaders against whom Pakistan is moving the InterPol to issue notices is of not much botheration to New Delhi as Pakistan has been, for decades, housing and financing India’s most wanted fugitives and UN designated international terrorists like Dawood Ibrahim. Even the recent UN verification of Dawood’s clandestine addresses in Pakistan has not moved Islamabad to come out of denial mode. UN designated terrorists like Hafiz Saeed are allowed to freely carry out public and political activities in Pakistan.

Both Afghanistan and Bangladesh have welcomed India’s latest position that human rights violations in Balochistan, and for that matter anywhere, cannot be any country’s internal matter. As Afghanistan already hosts a large number of Baloch refugees, India could provide humanitarian assistance to them by aiding Afghanistan’s refugee support programme. Bangladesh’s public expression of concern over human rights violations in Balochistan also opens up another asylum avenue for Baloch activists.

However, there is also a caveat to all this. New Delhi may opt for being selective in granting asylum requests as Pakistan may try to push certain rotten apples in Baloch movement into India who can be used latter to embarrass Indians, Iranians and genuine Baloch nationalists. There have been many such notorious characters in the history of Baloch insurgency.

Recently, the Pakistanis were able to co-opt a miniscule Baloch group in London to organise a small protest against India-Iran cooperation in developing Chabahar port. The ISI is well known for fomenting trouble inside Iranian Balochistan through Jihadist Baloch groups like Jundullah and Jaish-ul-Adl.

Iran has in past repeatedly shelled Pakistani positions after cross-border attacks on its border guards. The ISI plays a notorious game of infiltrating secular and genuine Baloch nationalist groups through such jihadist proxies.