As during the surgical strikes last year, the depth of the Indian punitive strike last week was hamstrung by operational imperatives
For the CRPF, the New Year in Kashmir started on a bad note. Three Jaish-e Mohammad fidayeen including, surprisingly, two locals, infiltrated their camp in Pulwama killing five and wounding three troopers. This is one of the several attacks on security forces in Kashmir in 2017 and perhaps related to the killing of the Jaish leader Nur Mohammad Tantray. It could also have been a revenge attack for Indian Army's action for a Pakistan BAT attack against Indian soldiers in Poonch. The tit-for-tat cross loC raids are a relic of the insurgency started three decades ago, perhaps even earlier, since my days on the Cease Fire line in the early 1960s. The fidayeen squad has once again demonstrated its motivation, capability and reach to strike at will targets in the heart of the Kashmir Valley invoking the demoralising ritual of coffins draped in the national flag.
Here is a snapshot of the insurgency in the year gone by. Pakistan is known to have maintained around 250 terrorists, 60 per cent being local, in the Valley. In his briefing to the media following Sunday’s fidayeen attack, DG Police SP Vaid attributed the success of Operation All Out to the elimination of the top terrorist leadership including 206 terrorists. Against this, 75 security force personnel and 24 civilians were reported killed while 117 local youth, the highest in a decade, joined the insurgency. Around 60 local boys were weaned away from the strife including some who surrendered their arms. Infiltration and ceasefire violations hit a new high. Despite these mixed developments including an end to stone-pelting, support for the insurgency has not diminished even as the Centre’s interlocuter Dineshwar Sharma does his routine rounds without attracting any significant hope.
last week, in a collective display of competing nationalism, most TV studios had created models of Kashmir centred around Poonch where Indian soldiers had avenged the ambush of their comrades.
The noteworthy feature of these reprisals is that while Pakistan employs its Army of jihadists for plunder and mayhem deep inside Indian Territory, the retaliatory action, varying from crossing a few hundred meters across the loC to at best three to five kilometers inside PoK is conducted by our Special Forces. As during the surgical strikes last year, the depth of the Indian punitive strike last week was hamstrung by the operational imperative to retrieve troops launched across loC before dawn to avoid being daylighted. Following the Indian revenge attack, Pakistan’s Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor said last week that no attack had been launched from the Indian side against Pakistani soldiers, that it was a lie, and added: “Even the surgical strikes of 2016 were a lie”. Denial is Pakistan Army's credo. After Kargil, they refused to accept the bodies of hundreds of Northern light Infantry soldiers who were killed in battle.
The ruling NDA Government has coined the term ‘befitting response’ which shows up in TV studios as jaw-for-tooth and instant publicity for the operation. In the past, such operations were covert and seldom claimed. Central to the objective of defeating Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism (CBT) under a nuclear shadow has to be a pragmatic strategy that goes beyond the one-time, rather modest, multiple raids against ‘terrorist launch pads’, as DGMO lt Gen Ranbir Singh categorically (and in hindsight mysteriously) stressed that the surgical strikes were not against the Pakistan Army. Typically, Pakistan denied any surgical strikes on its soil and has consistently maintained that position. The cardinal issue to emerge 18 months after the surgical strikes is that it has had little or no coercive effect on Rawalpindi to deter CBT. last year’s statistics post-surgical strikes on infiltration, cease-fire violations, encounter killings and so on showed no decline, rather the other way around. So, the hurried claim by the Government that surgical strikes (which were highly politicised during the elections) was the strategic panacea to teach Pakistan a lesson and/or stop CBT has not been realised as it is not the answer. That does not detract from the excellent planning, conduct and retrieval of special forces employed with the twin riders of: a) no own casualties; b) no escalation.
Back in the TV studios, military veterans and super-charged anchors go to town advocating punishment for Pakistan — light up the loC with artillery as in 2003, destroy Pakistani posts from where jihadists are launched, retake PoK, break up Pakistan, blow up Balochistan… the retributive tirade continues. India, unfortunately, has not developed covert capabilities and skills to successfully conduct some of these options. Even the space for surgical strikes has shrunk though the message from the operation remains: India is able and willing to cross the loC to conduct modest operations (in which New Delhi must control the escalation ladder). A rising India does not want to be side-tracked into the unintended consequences of a war. At the operational level surgical strikes have awarded a greater degree of decentralisation of matching fire with fire and with compound interest on the loC. The bottom line remains tit-for-tat.The taunt of our time by Pakistani commanders that to return their fire “you will have to ask New Delhi” has thankfully disappeared.
So, for how long will India stay at the receiving end of CBTIJ To start with, the Government has to be proactive and not reactive. Till India operationalises the vintage doctrine repackaged by former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar — to catch a terrorist, use a terrorist — and till a counter jihadist force is created (the idea was first mooted in 2003 in the last NDA regime), New Delhi will continue losing its soldiers while combating jihadists and fidayeen. Four years into his term and following volumes spoken on defusing CBT, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has not found the antidote. Till such a doctrine is in place a future jihadist crisis (like Uri or Pathankot) may require escalating the response beyond surgical strikes. Or at least that is what vociferous TV anchors will be clamouring for.
Is a rising India willing to be distracted in its growth trajectory by the fidayeen rather than opting for recommencing dialogue with Pakistan backed by active defence and deterrence including a new force of counter jihadistsIJ Anyone who thinks President Donald Trump will come to India’s rescue in times of crisis is living in lala land. The US can't coerce Pakistan to rein in the jihadists killing their soldiers in Afghanistan. So, aim and arm wisely.
(The writer is a retired Major General of the Indian Army and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the revamped Integrated Defence Staff)