Another Nehruvian edifice seems falling - that is Iran's antagonism towards a Hindu India :::: Baloch people exhibit fiercely independent streak

 'Another Nehruvian edifice seems falling' 

People know about Jawaharlal Nehru's utter frustration with the 1962 war when his self-proclaimed Indi-Chini Bhai Bhai slogan with the then Chinese leadership came down falling like a pack of words.  On another front he had suffered a shocking setback -- of course after his death, India 'suffered' the real setback. So much for his efficiency as India's first foreign minister and his world figure status. 

It was with Iran. Nehru wrote in his hyped book 'Discovery of India': - "Few people have been more closely related in origin and throughout history than the people of India and the people of Iran".

Bur during the 1965 and 1971 war with India, Iran was the first country to hurriedly help Pakistan. 

During Indo-Pak war, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, said "Iran will not accept any attempt to liquidate Pakistan. The Power and India must be fully aware of our resolution.... We do not want a new Vietnam on the frontier of Iran".

Iran supplied Pakistan with arms, sold its oil and went to the extent of acting as an 'arms dealer' to keep the Pakistani war machinery running on both the occasions - 1971 (when Nehru's daughter Indira was PM) and 1965 (When Lal Bahadur Shastri was the PM). 

Jump to 2024 -- Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister and Dr S Jaishankar - the External Affairs Minister - and Iran launches missile attack on Pakistan. No one is suggesting, India or India's minister Dr Jaishankar could influence Iran's decision. But it is a matter of fact that two Islamic countries have launched aerial attacks on each other. In other words, the Iran-Pakistan bonhomie has made way to antagonism. 

And this could signal end of antagonism between India and Iran. 

The recent stand-off is in complete contrast to the bond referred to in 1960s and 1970s.  A visibly embarrassed Pakistan has expelled the Iranian envoy and also recalled its ambassador from Tehran.

There is another nugget of information from the legacy point of view. 

India had supported Egypt as the 'leader' of the Arab world; and as expected, Iran was furious with New Delhi's stance. Iran and Pakistan 'found' a friend each i n both sides for long. but this time around the military attacks have taken place on either side and altogether 11 people including children have died.

Experts say, the foundation of Iran-Pakistan relations was laid with the birth of Pakistan. Iran became the first country to recognise Pakistan's sovereignty on August 14, 1947. They even signed a treaty of friendship in May 1950. Shah Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, became the first head of state to visit Pakistan in 1956.

Pakistan also opened its first embassy in Tehran soon after. The friendship helped Pakistan during both the wars against India.  In the 1971 war, Iran provided Pakistan with 12 helicopters and military equipment like artillery, ammunition and spare parts. Iran also provided Pakistan with oil, during the war, at cheaper rates, according to a Foreign Relations Of The United States document.

In 1965 earlier, Pakistan faced crisis of military hardware from the West. But Tehran jumped in soon and Iran bought many F–86 jet fighters, air-to-air missiles, artillery and ammunition from West Germany. Some aircraft were delivered to Pakistan, via Iran, while others were home-delivered to Karachi.

Both Iran's attack and Pakistan's response were unprecedented, given their scale and timing against the backdrop of a region in crisis.

A version in 'Dawn' article:

In the 1970s, Baloch politics in Iran and Pakistan trended towards leftist ideologies. Amid the global tension between capitalism and communism, Baloch nationalists aligned themselves with the communist school of thought.

Progressive Baloch and Pakhtun leaders, under the banner of National Awami Party (NAP), briefly governed Balochistan and the former North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in the early 1970s until Zulfikar Ali Bhutto disbanded the NAP government in February 1973.

In her book, Songs of Blood and Sword, Fatima Bhutto, Bhutto’s granddaughter, suggests that Bhutto’s dissolution of the NAP provincial government was influenced by “pressure from the Shah of Iran”, who feared the rise of an armed Baloch movement in Iranian Baluchistan.

It also says, "Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran’s harsh treatment of the Baloch has fuelled Sunni radicalism in Siestan-o-Baluchistan. Even before the Iranian revolution, ethnic Baloch from Iran migrated to Balochistan and Karachi, engaging in political activities against the Shah of Iran." 

Over time, the diaspora turned more religious, diminishing the once-prominent factor of nationalism seen as a challenge by Iran and Pakistan in the 1970s. This is why the king of Iran, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, fearing the Baloch insurgency’s potential spread to the 1.2 million Baloch residing in eastern Iran, sent 30 Cobra gunships with Iranian pilots to assist Islamabad during the Baloch incursion in Pakistan from 1973 to 1977, as noted by scholar and journalist, Selig S. Harrison.

Pakistan calls Iranian missile strike “an egregious violation of international law" 

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is majority Sunni – the dominant branch of Islam – while Iran and its “axis of resistance” is largely Shia.  

The Baluchis believe they were colonised or annexed by Pakistan since 1948

The opening salvo in this fast-moving sequence of events began Tuesday when Iran conducted strikes on Pakistan’s Balochistan province – killing two children and wounding several others, according to Pakistani authorities.

Pakistani security officials inspect the scene of a blast in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, on January 17, 2024. (CNN) 

Iran claimed it had “only targeted Iranian terrorists on the soil of Pakistan” and that no Pakistani nationals were targeted.

But the attack sparked anger in Pakistan, which called the strike “an egregious violation of international law and the spirit of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran.” Iran’s state-aligned Tasnim news agency said it had been targeting strongholds of the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl, known in Iran as Jaish al-Dhulm, or Army of Justice.

The separatist militant group operates on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border and has previously claimed responsibility for attacks against Iranian targets. Its ultimate goal is independence for Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province.  The two countries share a volatile border, stretching about 900 kilometers (560 miles), with Pakistan’s Balochistan province on one side and Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province on the other.

Both nations have long fought militants in the restive Baloch region along the border. But while the two countries share a common separatist enemy, it is highly unusual for either side to attack militants on each other’s soil.

The latest strikes come as Iran’s allies and proxies in the Middle East – the so-called axis of resistance – launch attacks on Israeli forces and its allies against the backdrop of the war in Gaza.  

Why now?

Pakistan and Iran’s struggle against separatists operating on either side of each other’s borders is not new.

Deadly clashes along the turbulent border have happened regularly over the years. Just last month, Iran accused Jaish al-Adl militants of storming a police station in Sistan and Baluchestan, which resulted in the deaths of 11 Iranian police officers, according to Tasnim.

What is highly unusual, however, is each side’s willingness to hit targets across those borders, without informing each other first. And all this is happening against the backdrop of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has sent repercussions coursing through the region.

The larger regional conflict may have emboldened Iran to be more proactive in pursuing targets beyond its borders, experts say – especially as the United States walks a tightrope between de-escalating hostilities and flexing its own military might to deter further moves by Iran.  

The Baloch people, also spelled Baluch, live where Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran meet. They have long exhibited a fiercely independent streak and always resented being ruled by both Islamabad and Tehran, with insurgencies bubbling across the porous border region for decades.

The area they live in is also rich in natural resources, but Baloch separatists complain that their people, some of the region’s poorest, have seen little wealth trickle down to their communities.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by area, has witnessed a spate of deadly attacks in recent years, fueled by a decades-long insurgency by separatists who demand independence from the country, angered by what they say is the state’s monopoly and exploitation of the region’s mineral resources.

Iran has also faced a long history of insurgencies from its Kurdish, Arab and Baloch minorities.

Jaish al-Adl is just one of many separatist groups operating within Iran. It was originally part of a larger Sunni militant group called Jundallah, which fractured after its leader was executed by Iran in 2010, according to the US government’s National Counterterrorism Center. Jaish al-Adl emerged instead and has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department.

The group often targets Iranian security personnel, government officials, and Shia civilians, according to the National Counterterrorism Center.

In 2015, the group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed eight Iranian border guards, with militants reportedly crossing into Iran from Pakistan. And in 2019, it claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that hit a bus carrying members of the Iranian military, killing at least 23 in Sistan-Baluchestan.

Baloch gunmen 

The Baluch tribe is a group of people from the Balochistan region and the area is divided into three regions. The northern part is in present-day Afghanistan, the western region in Iran is called the Sistan-Baluchistan region and the remaining in Pakistan. The region was the centre of a power struggle during British rule and even after that.

The Britishers governed the region with the 'Sandeman system', where an indirect rule was established with autonomy to tribes governed by 'sardars' or 'jirgars'. 

It was established by Robert Groves Sandeman and was called the "Sandemization'' of tribes. 

Pakistan took control of the region in 1948 and the accession agreement led to the first uprising for autonomy, resulting in systemic suppression of the independence movement in Balochistan with violence.