Is Ladakh Part Of The Buddhist Ring Encircling
China?
Saeed Naqvi
Hardline Buddhist
monks in Sri Lanka have celebrated the creation of a new Buddhist entity in
Ladakh. It is an optical illusion that Jammu and Kashmir has been neatly divided
into Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, that is, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist entities. The
projection of Ladakh as purely Buddhist is odd because in the combined
population of Kargil and Leh, Muslims are a majority according to the 2011
census.
New Delhi has
also been keeping a steady gaze on Sri Lanka where Buddhist, Muslim and Christian
factors came into play during the April 21, Easter Sunday massacre. Indian Intelligence
had alerted their counterparts in Colombo as early as April 4 that a major act
of terror would be executed in the island nation, possibly near Easter. When
the bombs were detonated in Colombo’s Churches and hotels killing nearly 300
people and injuring 500 more. Indian Intelligence looked very impressive after
the event. Then Intelligence agencies from the US, UK, Israel, Australia,
India, all descended on Colombo with state of the art technology. Everyone was
out to hold Colombo’s hand. A petrified establishment, it was hoped, would fall
into the Western lap. Machinations would then follow to steer Sri Lanka away
from the Road and Belt Embrace.
Spanish Anthropologist,
Joseba Zulaika’s famous dictum is worrisome: “Counter terrorism is terrorism’s
best friend.” Hints of terror cells in South India, the cover up in Sri Lanka,
the political turnstile in the Maldives makes this Indian Ocean triangle a
source of anxiety.
All the more worrisome
because the current phase of terrorism is not just Muslim anger, revenge,
vendetta. It has been identified as energy to be harnessed as an asset. It all
began with the Afghan Mujahideen in the 80s. Just take a look at what some
scholarly investigations in Sri Lanka have found.
Sniffer dogs,
making a round of the Hilton hotel found nothing but the hotel staff asked the
handlers to examine another branch of the hotel. At this new location something
mysterious was experienced. The dogs would not stop barking in front of one
room. There was some humming and hawing, and excuses by the management as to why
the room could not be opened. It was occupied by employees of the US embassy. According
to Dr. Michael Roberts of the University of Adelaide, Australia, when the
embassy officials ultimately opened the room, Sri Lankan police found two bomb
detectors which, the officials explained, were for their own safety. The overawed
Sri Lanka police appears not to have pursued the obvious line of inquiry. Sniffer
dogs would bark only if the detectors had been in contact with material which went
into the manufacture of bombs.
One complicating
factor is the divergent foreign policy preferences of the President, a votary
of China’s Belt and Road initiative, and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
who has exerted every muscle to sign the Status of Forces Agreement which would
give the US Military a free run of an island. Note the head on conflict. The Prime
Minister is keen that SOFA is signed before the Island’s general elections next
year.
There are some
tell-tale details. I have earlier mentioned a research paper, “Weaponization of
Religion” by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake. According to her, the growing Chinese
influence on the island may well have been the target of the Easter attacks.
Not only were
hotels targeted which had Chinese affiliations, but the six Chinese who lost their
lives were from the South China Institute of Oceanography. Western agencies
would not look at this data. They were, quite tellingly, focused only on the
clash of civilizations and conflicts across faiths.
Tibet, Ladakh,
Bhutan, Sikkim, Mongolia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, are all bound by Buddhism,
though sometimes of distinct Mahayana and Hinayana strands. How many of these would
possibly be brought into play in President Donald Trump’s strategy of
encircling China?
When Trump
entered the White House in 2016, his avowed aim was to upturn everything Barack
Obama had ever erected in the arena of foreign affairs, as in other areas. But his
demoniacal desire to eradicate Obamaism from its root has run into that
constant called American national interest.
The Obama-John
Kerry team’s priority became the nuclear deal with Iran, signed in 2015 for a
reason: focusing on West Asian affairs on a daily basis was keeping the
administration away from other global priorities that required urgent attention
– the pivot to Asia, for instance. Despite Israel and Saudi Arabia throwing
every monkey wrench at hand into the 5+1discussions with Iran, the team determinedly
concluded the deal with several objectives but one which often goes unnoticed.
Lyndon Johnson’s
colourful image was instructive. “It is better to have the camel in the tent,
peeing out, than to leave him out peeing in.” Iran was going to be part of West
Asian balance of power along with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Qatar. Washington
would then have the time to focus on Asia Pacific.
To be characteristically
contrary, Trump walked out of the nuclear deal, made a mess with Europe, North
Korea, raised stakes everywhere. But eventually he picked up the thread where
Obama had left it: “Pivot to Asia” but only after having soiled much turf
enroute. The US support to the protests in Hong Kong, playing up the
Taiwan-China differences, shady US behaviour in Sri Lanka, the Economic showdown
with Beijing are all part of Trump’s risky, untidy “contain China” movement set
by his predecessor. But with Trump you know nothing until you do. Who would
have expected him to propose a meeting with President Hassan Rouhani on the
margins of the UN General Assembly? Or that he would initiate direct talks with
the Houthis in Yemen either with Saudi concurrence or without it, sailing above
their heads? Either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be hopping mad at
this turn or he will be pleased as punch in case he was in the loop and these
leaks are only designed to set up adversaries. Who knows?
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