A Leaked Cable that Tells a Post-Colonial Story

The leaked message from Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington Asad Majeed Khan, dated March 7, 2022, proves beyond any doubt that the source of India’s greatest strategic challenge is not China or Pakistan ––– but the US. In the shifting quicksand of global instability and energy insecurity, the only constant factor for the India subcontinent has been American intervention in domestic politics and policies. It is time to internalise this lesson, abandon self-defeating alliances like Quad and embrace BRICS.

The diplomatic cable or the for-your-eyes-only message from Majeed Khan to the private secretary to Prime Minister Imran Khan, Foreign Secretary, Chief of Army Staff and Direction-General ISI reveals the extent of US intervention in the internal affairs of the nations of the Indian subcontinent. Now onwards, when a no-confidence motion comes up against an elected government anywhere in the region, it would be difficult to outrightly dismiss the possibility of a US attempt at regime change. For that was what the US achieved in Pakistan against a hugely popular Prime Minister.

In what Imran Khan has alleged as the “London Plan”, Asim Munir, after being sacked as ISI Chief, was supposed to have travelled to London in 2019 to conspire with former PM Nawaz Sharif and members of the judiciary to bring down Imran Khan and install a government led by a US puppet. Finally, it happened in 2022. The trigger was Khan’s audacious Moscow trip when Russia attacked Ukraine. 

The leaked cable, which was published by news portal Drop Site, quotes then US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu threatening the Pakistan ambassador with an ultimatum: get rid of Imran Khan or face the music.

“I think if the no-confidence vote against the PM succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the PM. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead… I would argue that it has already created a dent in the relationship from our perspective. Let us just wait for a few days to see whether the political situation changes, which would mean that we would not have a big disagreement about this issue, and the dent would go away very quickly.”

In a month’s time, Imran Khan was thrown out of power, only to be jailed on trumped-up charges, his party de-legitimised, and the elections rigged to offer an open playing field for the Western actors. In three years, the Pahalgam attack happened with the West turning against India to celebrate the self-appointed Field Marshal, the key footman who tethered Pakistan back to Washington’s post. Imran Khan’s mistake was to have wrongly assumed sovereignty for Pakistan, going far beyond the role assigned by its British creators ­­to stand guard over the West Asian oil wells.

Donald Lu’s threat, Majeed Khan’s cable, the subsequent events leading up to Trump’s gushing endearments for his “favourite Field Marshal” and Pakistan’s elevation as a West Asian mediator establish the fact that there is a considered continuity of action between Joe Biden’s subtleties and Donald Trump’s eccentricities ––– at least, as far as Pakistan is concerned. Hence, India should be worried. The US has unambiguously pivoted towards Pakistan, away from its strategic partnership with India, using the former as a pawn and for leverage with its neighbour, Iran. 

Meanwhile, the last 10 days saw hectic summit meetings involving the heads of stateof world’s superpowers US, China and Russia in Beijing. The Donald Trump-Xi Jinping meeting was all bluster and little substance as is expected of the US President, who was seen prying into Xi’s personal folder at a dinner meeting ––– then to have the audacity to attack Asians for stealing technology! For the tech czars, it was business as usual; after all, the Chinese had never stopped selling or buying from the Americans.

Vladimir Putin landed in Beijing a week later, all alone, to a grander welcome. Xi and Putin condemned the US’s attempt to build a neocolonial world order in a joint statement released by the Kremlin later. The West rejoiced that Russia and China have not announced the Power of Siberia 2 ––– a 2,600 km pipeline project from Russia’s Arctic Yamal through Mongolia to China that can, when commissioned, carry 50 billion cubic metres of gas a year. This is almost equivalent to what the Nord Strean pipeline carried from Russia to Europe. A lack of declaration does not necessarily mean that the project has been shelved. 

Here is India’s opportunity. India had, in December 2024, launched the Chennai- Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor. The Power of Siberia 2 offers an opportunity to complement the maritime linkage with an economically vibrant Russia-China-India corridor that is powered by a gas pipeline that avoids all neocolonial chokepoints. West Asian peace is a chimaera, a mirage in the Western-controlled oil fields, that lures buyers to keep them starved of expensive energy. 

Whereas, an eastern corridor can possibly offer an assured energy supply chain that binds the region in peaceful coexistence, trade dependencies and shared resources. This is a throwback to the pre-colonial maritime trade between India and China, when neither tried to oppress the other. India’s troubles with China are a colonial legacy. Compared to the aggression India faces from Pakistan since October 1947, the China border has been largely peaceful. 

Despite four wars and innumerable skirmishes, India had previously envisioned a pipeline from West Asia through Pakistan to India. Well, it is time to reimagine that project from Siberia through the eastern border. That is the only way to diversify and secure the energy supply chain.

New Delhi is expected to host Xi and Putin at the BRICS summit as its rotational chair this September. Without any further ado, India should join hands with Russia and China to roll out the BRICS currency. A deep economic embrace is the best guarantee for lasting peace in the Himalayas; an Eastern Economic Corridor is the only strategic deterrent against a neocolonial West.