Status quo is a self-defeating option for Indian forces, especially when a window of at least three to five years is available before stability comes to Afghanistan, after which the snowballing threat to ladakh would become imminent
One of the important national security issues that the next Government will have to grapple with is the impact of Afghanistan on Kashmir as the international forces wind up from the former. Interestingly, the Army, various intelligence agencies, paramilitary and Jammu & Kashmir Police are on the same page. All believe that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence will attempt to create instability in Kashmir by infiltrating more terrorists across the line of Control once the snow in the higher reaches starts melting. This will be done to make up for the decimated leadership within terrorist groups hit hard by security forces. As this trend is expected to continue till stability comes to Afghanistan and maybe Kashmir, the underlying message is that status quo should not be disturbed. Is this assessment correct, and do security stakeholders who are running India’s Kashmir policy really believe that Pakistan and China, known for imaginative thinking, will continue trudging the beaten pathIJ
Taking into account the transforming strategic and military dynamics in the border-State, I would argue otherwise. What has changed in Jammu & Kashmir since December 2010 is that China has come out in open support of its ally Pakistan on ownership of the divided state. By declaring that it does not have a border with India in ladakh (western sector), China has insinuated that the military-held line of Actual Control that it has with India there is on Pakistani land. Such thinking, when extrapolated, would suggest that China has implicitly accepted the Pakistani version of the 1984 Siachen glacier conflict: That the northern-most map point NJ 9842 of the loC should run eastwards and join with the Karakoram pass.
It was perhaps to make this strategic shift known in military terms that China demonstrated successful military coercion in April-May 2013 when its forces squatted 19km inside Indian land for three weeks. This showed that unlike all previous bilateral border talks when Chinese refused to talk about areas west of the Karakoram Range citing Pakistani sensitivity with Indian interlocutors, Beijing was now willing to openly support Pakistan’s military manoeuvres in the region.
This stance is further reinforced by three notable news reports. First, the Chief of Army Staff, General VK Singh had in October 2011 said that nearly 4,000 Chinese soldiers were spotted in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. This was around the same time that Chinese commenced regular and fierce intrusions across the lAC in ladakh. Next, in July 2013, Chinese Premier li Keqiang signed a memorandum with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to upgrade the Karakoram Highway that connects Kashgar with Gwadar port into a four-lane all-weather road by 2016, with both commercial and military possibilities. And, at the same time, China took responsibility to lay fibre-optic cable for secure and all-weather communications between Xinjiang, Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Given all this, the inevitable military conclusion should be that a Chinese-Pakistani military pincer in ladakh is a plausible threat. For the first time, the possibility of the Siachen glacier held by Indian troops in no-man’s land is threatened both from the west and east. And Pakistan’s objective of illegally ceding 5,180 sq km of Shaksgam Valley to China in 1963 seems near fruition. To recall, commenting on the impact of the Siachen conflict on Pakistan, the Pakistan COAS, General Mirza Aslam Beg had in 1989 said that: “India had foiled Pakistan’s attempt to have a common border with its ally China. Pakistan had in the past ceded territory in Karakoram to China, in order to realise this objective.”
Once this new two-front military threat is grasped, it should be clear that this threat ought to be contained within the Jammu & Kashmir theatre as broadening it outside the loC to the international border will bring nuclear weapons with Pakistan into war-planning. The better way to do this is not by continuing with the existing defensive and anti-infiltration stance adopted by the Indian Army but by reorienting troops to an offensive posture in order to keep the Pakistan Army under pressure. The objective is not to start a war with Pakistan, but to give Rawalpindi only two options: To either divide its attention between two hot-fronts, or to concentrate on its western front in Afghanistan by supporting the Nawaz Sharif Government in finding the Kashmir resolution with the next Government in India.
Translated in military terms, the Pakistan Army will find it necessary to check infiltrations across the loC as these would hamper the bilateral peace. Thus, for Indian security forces, the status quo is a self-defeating option especially when a window of at least three to five years is available before stability comes to Afghanistan after which the snowballing threat to ladakh would become imminent.
Here are 10 suggestions for the political leadership to mull over. First, road and air connectivity to ladakh should be improved on a war-footing. Of the two roads that connect ladakh with mainland India, the road through Himachal Pradesh (Manali-leh) is shorter but more treacherous, prone to landslides, reaching altitudes as high as 17,400 feet, and is closed for the good part of the year. The other Srinagar-leh road is longer, less difficult, and should be available round the year if the two-tunnels are constructed. Work on the ‘Z mod’ tunnel before Sonamarg should be hastened and the Zoji la tunnel should get sanctioned soon.
Second, the Nyoma Advanced landing Ground which is 102km from the lAC should be developed into a full-fledged runway with airport. More civil flight instead of the present four to leh in a day should be operated. New Delhi should know that welfare and integration of local population adds to border security. Third, leh and Thoise air stations across the Khardung la should be developed with Su-30 MKI aircraft stationed at both.
Fourth, 14 Corps in ladakh should operate at the operational level of war where the corps commander does not report to the Northern Army Commander but directly to the COAS. The single military satellite, called the Technical Experimentation Satellite in the low earth orbit about 450km from the earth launched in 2002 is not enough. More are needed on a priority basis.
Fifth, the Army should move up to 70 per cent of its 80,000 Rashtriya Rifles forces on counter-insurgency operations to forward zones close to the lOC. The task of internal stability should be handed over progressively to the paramilitary and State police with the Army helping them with training their Quick Reaction Teams in its two corps battle schools in the theatre.
Sixth, the fence (called Anti-Infiltration Obstacle System) along the loC should be dismantled as it instills a defensive mindset in troops. Seventh, the RR and troops in the forward zone should undertake conventional training and move away from the anti-infiltration posture.
Eighth, Special Forces available with the Northern Command should be moved closed to the loC, and Ghatak (Commando) platoons with loC battalions should identify and train on targets across the lOC.
Ninth, war wastage reserves should be made up, and operational logistics tunnel should be constructed earliest. An armour brigade each for ladakh and Akhnoor Division should be made available soon. And, tenth, Generals with vast experience in CI ops should be posted out of the theatre.
(The writer is a former Indian Army officer and now Editor, FORCE, a newsmagazine on national security)