Securing The 'Chicken's Neck' For India

However, the most critical aspect that’s emerging is that the USA, jointly with Pakistan and China, is trying to deliver a strategic blow to India, all for their different respective reasons, through Muhammad Yunus, who is acting as a trusted pawn in their hands because he wants to stay in power, by hook or by crook.

He doesn’t mind playing this dangerous game as a proxy on behalf of both China and the joint team of the USA and Pakistan, even at the cost of a self-goal that is bound to rattle Bangladesh’s interest in the long run, as there can't be any other country to be a true well-wisher of Bangladesh than India.

This fact is well-known to all Bangladeshis, including their army. In fact, recently, Yunus has been sternly warned and advised to hold elections even by the radical Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, whose unstinted support is his main source of strength.

However, the taste of power is known to be a notorious aphrodisiac for such temporary fly-by-night power grabbers, who can jeopardise the national interest for the sake of their own gain.

His most provocative rhetoric in the recent past on the seven northeastern states of India and West Bengal, with the ultimate ulterior motive, indicating cutting off the chicken neck, also called the Siliguri corridor, poses a big worry and potential threat, which China and Pakistan want to exploit.

In addition, there is the absurd and funny claim by China about the Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh being south Tibet and going to the extent of renaming some of its areas clearly to give a strategic blow to India that can not be taken lightly.

Pakistan, China, and now Bangladesh, have opened several fronts to create problems with India in this sensitive yet critical corridor, which is the main connecting lifeline of all these eight Indian states with the rest of the country, and if disturbed, can impede India’s growth and rise.

PM Modi and his Cabinet colleagues, including the CMs of Assam and West Bengal, have repeatedly expressed the view that the East and Northeastern states would be the engines of progress for the country.

In fact, immediately after coming to power in 2014, PM Modi had given the clarion call for a ‘Look East Policy’, indicating the region emerging as the new strategic growth hub of the country.

The whole world is aware of China’s focus on this sensitive and vital Indian corridor to succeed in its ever-increasing hunger to grab and annex adjacent territories belonging to other sovereign countries like Tibet.

It has been providing bait for Bangladesh to revive the British-built, World War II-era airport at Lalmonirhat near Rangpur, to keep India under constant pressure, which indeed is an important strategic and security challenge. But it is well-known to the Chinese that India can manage this challenge well.

Sankaracharya Kanchipuram Jagatguru Sree Vijendra Saraswati Swamiji had categorically told me long back in 1999 something that he often reiterates: For peace and progress in the Northeastern states, as well as adjoining countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar, etc., it’s important for West Bengal to remain strong, both financially and administratively (read civil-militarily).

The fact of the matter is that as long as West Bengal was economically strong, ie., before the Left engulfed the state in the 1970s, there was peace in the Northeast and all its neighbouring countries. 

On the chicken's neck issue, one thing that should be conclusively understood is that the Pakistan-Bangladesh Islamists, ie., Jamaat-e-Islami, in cahoots with the ISI, have formed a deadly cocktail.

And they have been conveniently using the porous Indo-Bangladesh borders to push radicals, including terrorists, to change India's demography and create sleeper cells with the sole aim of taking revenge for the 1971 war, which Pakistan lost.

In Tripura, Assam, and several districts of West Bengal, illegal immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh have changed the demography and can pose a threat to national security interests.

It’s learnt that to achieve its ill-motivated plan, the radicals from Jamaat, along with ISI, with support from China, would try to create public unrest sooner than later, in the border areas of West Bengal and Assam, mainly in the chicken's neck corridor, by provoking one faction of the population against the other, with support of insiders in form of illegal immigrants who are readily available to be activated.

There’s a need to learn from history. It has been seen repeatedly in Punjab and J&K that in situations like riots, the Army is often the last but surefire option to stop such unrest. As the process of calling upon the Army is cumbersome and time-consuming, the chances of loss of lives increase.

To prevent this, state police authorities, as well as central government agencies like CRPF, should take cognisance and remain on their toes. Regular flag marches and cautionary advisories to the public, with stern actions against culprits, can be effective tools to control such a situation, if it arises.

While diplomatically, all-out efforts must be continued to deter such events with Bangladesh, Pakistan and China; a strong message is also necessary from the Indian side that they should not meddle in our security interests.

That's best achieved when political parties across the ideological spectrum come on the same platform to express solidarity over national interest and security concerns. In the near future, it is in India’s interest to consider all these factors and plan to broaden the chicken's neck corridor.

This article was first published in Millennium Post

(The writer is a security & geopolitical analyst, a senior IAF officer and has served in various state & central government agencies and ministries. Views are personal)