Chapter 250: India (1)

"Kingo Sunen III, the Indian movie star... We only managed to find him because he's too famous. Honestly, I think his grandfather Kingo Sunen and his father Kingo Sunen II also fit your criteria, but they've been dead for a long time," Ophelia said.

"...Have you ever considered that all three of them are actually the same person?" Josh crossed his legs and smiled.

Just as he expected, Ophelia was talking about Kingo Sunen—the Eternal who had spent centuries in Bollywood, blending in as part of a famous film industry.

Heh, India, huh? Not long ago, because of the Java situation, India had already made it onto Josh's personal blacklist. This was the perfect time to get even.

"If I remember correctly, India and Pakistan are still fighting in Kashmir because of the Mountbatten Plan, right?" Josh asked.

"Yes, but by the end of last year, both countries had taken the dispute to the UN. The UN set up a special committee, but they're still at war. If someone adds just a little spark, it'll explode immediately," Ophelia replied, immediately understanding what Josh was planning.

"I want you to arrange an incident where Indian forces clash with UN personnel. Make sure the attackers are linked to Kingo Sunen so that he becomes an internationally wanted criminal. Any problems with that?" Josh asked after a moment of consideration.

"Not at all. This will be easy!" Ophelia replied quickly. It wasn't hard to pull off, and whether India believed it or not didn't matter—the key was making the UN believe it.

"Also, I want you to meet with the Bengalis—West Bengal, specifically—on behalf of the Council," Josh said.

The Bengalis were one of the oldest ethnic groups in the Indian subcontinent.

They had established their own kingdom as early as the 9th century, but in the 16th century, they were absorbed into the Mughal Empire. Then, in the 18th century, when the British took over India, Bengal became a British colony.

During the 1947 Partition under the Mountbatten Plan, Bengal was split into two—West Bengal went to India, and East Bengal (East Pakistan) was given to Pakistan.

The problem was that Pakistan was in the west, while East Bengal was on the other side of India, making it a separate territory.

So in the 1970s, East Bengal decided to declare independence and eventually became Bangladesh.

However, because of West Bengal, Bangladesh continued to have territorial disputes with India even after independence.

Now that Josh wanted to stir up trouble in India, why not take advantage of the still-unstable political climate and push for West Bengal's independence?

After all, the combined population of East and West Bengal was massive—larger than Pakistan at the time.

The only issue was that they were extremely poor.

They lacked food and weapons.

But were these really problems for Josh?

Of course not.

The only thing was, this couldn't be done under the name of the CIA or Ouroboros.

So the blame would have to go to the Council.

But since Josh was one of the top figures in the Council and Hydra specialized in these kinds of operations, there was no issue at all.

As long as India fell into chaos, Josh could cause all kinds of trouble while capturing Kingo Sunen, and no one would even care.

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In July 1948, the First Indo-Pakistani War was raging on, just as it had in the original timeline.

In the original history, India and Pakistan fought three major wars, with countless smaller regional conflicts. Even in the 21st century, tensions between the two nations remained unresolved.

At first, the main point of contention was Kashmir, but over time their disputes expanded beyond that.

In most of these conflicts, India has generally had the upper hand.

Even in this alternate world, the situation remained the same.

To achieve its strategic goals, India was playing a cunning game—on one hand, it was requesting UN mediation, while on the other, it continued large-scale military operations in Kashmir.

Despite gaining independence from British rule after centuries, India had certainly inherited some of Britain's more unscrupulous tactics.

Of course, from a national perspective, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

A country that values its reputation too much can easily suffer losses.

For centuries, Western nations have maintained their dominance in global affairs not only because of their military might, but also because of their willingness to play dirty when necessary.

But India's call for UN mediation led to an unexpected incident.

A UN investigation team, while observing the battlefield, was attacked in a suicide bombing. Four UN officials were killed—two Americans, one Soviet, and one British.

This immediately escalated the situation.

Judging by the circumstances, the attack was unlikely to be an accident or a case of mistaken identity. It appeared to be a premeditated assault.

At that time, the UN team had displayed not only the UN flag, but also the flags of the U.S., the U.K., and the Soviet Union.

Since the UN flag was relatively new and not widely known, UN officials often displayed the flags of these three great powers to assert their authority.

In this era, those three flags carried far more weight than the UN flag itself.

Despite these precautions, the attack still occurred.

Both India and Pakistan were so alarmed that they immediately declared a ceasefire, while the UN was furious.

The three nations affected quickly began assembling a "peacekeeping" force to be deployed in Kashmir, along with intelligence personnel to investigate the attack.

In the U.S., the responsibility naturally fell to the CIA, with additional involvement from Army Intelligence—especially since one of the two Americans killed was a U.S. Army colonel, while the other was just an ordinary politician.

"Such a pity. These two had promising futures ahead of them," said an Army intelligence investigator aboard a flight to New Delhi. Though his words carried a tone of regret, he couldn't quite hide the schadenfreude on his face. (TL/N: Schadenfreude is a German word that means feeling joy or pleasure when someone else experiences misfortune. It's often thought of as deriving pleasure from someone else's discomfort or gaffes.)

The reason was simple: this investigator was a member of the secretive Council, while the two deceased Americans had belonged to political and military factions opposed to the Council's influence.

Although the attack was originally orchestrated by Josh to create chaos in India and weaken his position, eliminating a few political rivals in the process was an added bonus.

"Better fix your expression—we're about to land," Josh, sitting beside him, said calmly while closing his file on the Indo-Pakistani War.

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