New Delhi: The Washington Post continues its series on, what it calls, the shadowy secrets of India’s intelligence activity abroad. A few months ago, its reportage focused on the United States and Canada. This time, the Post has two back-to-back articles on alleged Indian covert activities in Pakistan and the Maldives.
In the latest report, ‘In India’s shadow war with Pakistan, a campaign of covert killings’, the Post alleges that since 2021, India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), has deployed “a methodical assassination programme to kill at least a half dozen people deep within Pakistan, according to Pakistani and Western officials”. India has not yet responded to the claims.
The report examined six alleged cases of targeted killings in Pakistan with inputs from officials on both sides of the border. It concludes that India has an “assassination programme” in Pakistan that’s very similar to their operations in North America.
The US and Canada have alleged that the Indian government has links to the murder and attempted murder of Sikh separatists and designated terrorists Hardeep Singh Nijjar and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, respectively. India has vehemently denied the allegations.
“The killings are a delicate subject in Pakistan because they call into question the counterintelligence capabilities of its security services — and Pakistan’s claims that it does not shelter terrorists,” reports Gerry Shih. “But some Pakistani officials now argue that as India under Modi grows into a world power, it should be exposed for carrying out extrajudicial killings with impunity.”
Historian Srinath Raghavan tells the newspaper that the Modi government has publicised raids conducted by the special forces in Pakistan and encouraged the production of Bollywood films that glamorise India’s covert operations.
“The whole tagline is, ‘This is the New India,’” Raghavan is quoted as saying. “The Modi government came in with the view that you need to strike back, and you need to signal publicly that you’re doing it. It’s aimed at telling Pakistan that we’re willing to come and hit hard, but it also has a domestic component.”
In an earlier article, ‘A plot in paradise and India’s struggle for influence in Asia’, the Post alleges that India tried to oust the country’s pro-China president, Mohamed Muizzu. While India has not responded to the allegations, former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed said “India would never back such a move”.
R&AW agents were allegedly working with Maldivian opposition leaders to try and bribe at least 40 members of the parliament to vote to impeach Muizzu, according to the article.
“After months of secret talks, the plotters failed to gather enough votes to impeach Muizzu, and India did not pursue or finance an attempt to oust him,” Gerry Shih reports for the Post.
Still, the report says, the “plot and its backstory offer a rare view into the much broader, often shadowy struggle between India and China for influence over a strategic swath of Asia and its surrounding waters.”
“This competition has unfolded particularly in the smaller nations around the Indian Ocean, where the continent’s two largest powers have offered generous loans, infrastructure projects and political support — both public and covert — to bolster their preferred politicians.”
The rivalry with China has always been a foreign policy dilemma for India, the Post writes. India always tried to cultivate leaders across South Asia by supporting secular, democratic movements, it writes—and yet it often “contradicted those democratic ideals and stoked local resentment by aggressively undermining elected leaders who are perceived to be close to Pakistan — and increasingly today, China”.
A foothold in the Maldives would be a leg up for any country in the Indian Ocean, the Post says, further alleging that India went to great lengths to prop up the Maldivian Democratic Party to act in its interests. In fact, Indian interference is one of the reasons why Muizzu of the People’s National Congress, who ran on an “India Out” platform, won the election.
While two intermediaries—a former Indian police and a former BJP spokesperson from Goa—confirmed to the Post the “existence of plans to remove Muizzu”, they declined to “say whether they were working on the Indian government’s behalf”.
“It is unclear how seriously India considered backing the impeachment scheme, or whether the plan was approved by senior officials in New Delhi,” the Post concedes.
Muizzu reportedly learned of the conspiracy and acted to neutralise it, flipping 11 members and stopping the impeachment. “With Muizzu firmly ensconced in power, India quickly pivoted to another approach to preserve its influence: helping him,” the article says.
And the plot seems to have been forgotten, especially with Muizzu calling New Delhi a “valued partner” during his state visit in October. The meeting also reaffirmed India’s role in the Maldives, continuing various activities.
“One member of Muizzu’s party said India never had reason to pressure Muizzu through covert means,” the Post reports. The president reversed course “not out of fear”, but “fiscal reality”, the ally told the newspaper.
Meanwhile, in a Bloomberg opinion article, columnist Mihir Sharma says that “India Is Shooting Itself in the Foot on Trade — Again’.
According to Sharma, it’s not Donald Trump that poses a threat to India, India’s trade policy is doing that all by itself. And the real bugbear is the latest weapon in the bureaucratic arsenal: quality control orders (QCO).
“QCOs are apparently innocuous demands that imports into India satisfy quality standards. In practice, however, they have become over the past two years an instrument to restrict imports and minimize competition,” Sharma writes.
“Indian officials should know better. This country has had decades of experience with such import restrictions before liberalization took hold three decades ago. The inevitable consequences include inflation, the growth of monopolies, failing small businesses, and a collapse in productivity and competitiveness.”
Calling it a “self-harming policy”, Sharma says that QCOs end up hurting labour-intensive sectors like garment and leather, causing companies to limit their ambitions and the size of their factories to match the Indian market.
“Donald Trump needn’t worry that India’s trade policies are designed to benefit New Delhi at the expense of others. In fact, they’re set up to hurt us most of all,” he writes.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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