Why did Modi from India meet with Kashmiri leaders?
welcome to Foreign polices South Asia dossier. Highlights of the week: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaches out to leaders of Kashmir under Indian administration, Bangladesh locks in to curb a COVID-19 outbreak, and a new report highlights Indias offensive cyber deficiencies. If you would like to have South Asia Brief delivered to your inbox every Thursday, please sign up here. Almost two years ago Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked Article 370, the constitutional clause that gave the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir special self-government status. Massive government crackdowns followed, including internet shutdowns and arrests of civil society members, business leaders and high-profile politicians. Modi has since shown little interest in softening his stance on the disputed region. This makes his decision to hold a meeting with 14 senior Kashmiri political leaders on strike last week. Yet while the move represents an about-face, it may also reflect a shift in broader Indian politics that involves extending olive branches to rivals in the region. According to Indian press accountsModi focused during the meeting on the need to redesign the electoral districts in Kashmir in anticipation of future elections. Some observers say Modis outreach was driven by a desire to strengthen the electoral prospects of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party there. But it could also be intended to reduce tensions, giving India more bandwidth to deal with pressing domestic issues and a border challenge with China. India is still recovering from a devastating crisis second wave of COVID-19, and experts fear a third wave will arrive this fall. The Indian economy also needs attention: it has seen its worst performance in four decades in the last fiscal year. And more than a year after a deadly border clash with China in disputed Ladakh, India still faces an ongoing threat along its northern border, where it has deployed 50,000 additional soldiers. Bipin Rawat, Chief of Defense Staff of India, recently suggested that China is a bigger threat than Pakistan. In fact, hints of Modis conciliatory strategy towards regional rivals first emerged in February, when India agreed to a new cease-fire at the border with Pakistan. Tensions with Islamabad had been serious since February 2019, when the two countries almost went to war, and escalated after the revocation of Article 370. In 2020, their disputed border saw its highest number of ceasefire violations. fire in two decades. Then, several weeks ago, local media reported that India sought to open a chain communication with the Afghan Taliban. A diplomat from Qatar, where the Talibans political office is based, confirmed these reports this week. India probably recognizes that after the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban will strengthen itself either through a political settlement or through continued operations on the battlefield. India has a strong development footprint in Afghanistan, and its outreach to the Taliban is likely aimed at putting it in a better position to urge insurgents not to target Indian interests and nationals. If successful, establishing contact with the Taliban could strengthen Indias ability to assuage its security concerns in Afghanistan and allow it to once again focus on domestic issues and the Chinese challenge. This type of approach to rivals is delicate and difficult. In the case of Kashmir, Modis negotiations with local leaders will do little to stabilize the region. (A few days after the meeting, a drone hit an indian air base there.) Most Kashmiris, including leaders at the meeting, bitterly reject the revocation of Article 370. Many regions of 8 million people see India as an occupying force and will not be appeased by a potential election. Kashmiris too fear that the new policies introduced by the revocation of Section 370, such as less restrictions on investments and land acquisitions in Kashmir, could eventually change the demographics of Indias only Muslim-majority region. New Delhi has so far given no indication that it will revise these policies. Additionally, the Modis government was selective with the invitation list for the meeting, inviting more friendly leaders from New Delhi and excluding a pro-separatist political front called the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. India has refuse to include the Hurriyat Conference in any dialogue related to Kashmir. But given Modis steadfast stance on the region, his softer approach is still significant. In the future, the question is how long the Prime Minister will maintain it. Many analysts say his hard line on enemies has earned him more political forceand one overwhelming re-election victory in 2019. But Modi lost some of its vaunted popularity after its botched response to Indias second wave of COVID-19. Its olive branches can wither quickly. July 8: Carnegie India hosts a discussion on a new book on Geopolitics of India and Asia by Shivshankar Menon, a former Indian national security adviser. Bangladeshs next wave. It was first India, then Nepal and now his Bangladesh suffering from major pandemic outbreak. The number of new COVID-19 cases in the country has averaged 5,000 in recent days, with more than 8,000 Monday. Last Sunday marked a new record with 119 deaths, and nationwide positivity rates have reached 22 percent. This week in Dhaka, a city of 21 million people, authorities shut down most public transport and the military began enforcing a nationwide containment Thursday. The suspension of transport and the announcement of the lockdown triggered mass exoduses of migrant workers outside the cities to their villages of origin, recalling similar migrations in India last year. The Bangladesh pandemic outbreak has been attributed to the highly contagious delta variant first detected in India. Delta has now appeared in nearly 100 countries, including Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Rare attack in Lahore. Pakistani authorities moved quickly to investigate a destroy which killed three people and injured 25 people in Lahore, Pakistans second largest city, last week. The attack was unusual: Terrorism is relatively infrequent in Pakistani urban areas, and it took place outside the home of Hafiz Saeed, the leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a closely linked, India-focused terror group to the Pakistani security establishment. No one has claimed responsibility and Islamabad has not blamed any group, but authorities have already arrested five people. One, identified as Peter Paul David, was arrested while trying to leave Lahore last Friday. Some accounts identify him as a Pakistani national, others call it a foreign national, and still others describe it as a Double nationality from Pakistan and Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates. Indian Cyber Disabilities. India is one of 15 countries featured in a new report which classifies offensive cyber capabilities. The study by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies places India in its third and lowest tier, assessing that much of Indias cyber-espionage capacity has been directed in-house and in Pakistan, but that its skills are weaker further. The results have implications for Indias deepening rivalry with China, which the report places in the second tier category. New Delhi is concerned on the growing risk of Chinese cyberattacks: Analysts and some officials suggested that a Chinese hack into the power grid caused a large-scale power failure in Bombay last October. Electricity pylons explode across Afghanistan. The trend is not new: Afghanistans power infrastructure has been the target of the countrys relentless violence since at least 2016. But in early June, Afghanistans main electricity supplier declared that 23 pylons had been destroyed or damaged in a single month, causing blackouts in Kabul and seven surrounding provinces. the Taliban and the Islamic state claimed responsibility for certain attacks. Afghan observers blamed private criminal gangs and even government elements. The implications of the attacks on energy security are profound. Afghanistan generates only A quarter of its electricity at the national level, and many pylons transport electricity from Uzbekistan and Iran. The vulnerability of its electrical infrastructure amplifies its connectivity problems and presents another dilemma for a population already grappling with insurgency, terrorism, COVID-19 and drought. The Afghan nation is in [an] Moment of 1861, as President Lincoln, rallying to the defense of the republic, determined that the republic is defended. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Speaking to the press ahead of a June 25 White House meeting with US President Joe Biden  In Pakistan today, Mehmil Khalid Kunwar, who writes on social issues, denounces the failure of Pakistani governments to address the long-standing problem of so-called honor killings. Citing a recent case in Italy, she warns that Pakistanis living abroad also seem to be following this tradition, making sure they embrace whatever they leave behind in their home country. A editorial in Sri Lanka Daily Mirror salutes Namal Rajapaksa, Minister of Youth and Sports and son of the Prime Minister, for speaking on behalf of members of the Tamil ethnic minority who are languishing in prison. If the trend continues, we may be able to leave behind our baggage of ethnic, religious and similar differences, and once again be Lankan first, he concludes. In the Kathmandu Post, the author and director Sujeev Shakya contrast the experiences of communism in China and Nepal, arguing that the Nepalese Communists made the mistake of imitating the failed Indian Communist model.