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‘Horses for courses’ lesson for Pakistan

NEED we view separately the Pulwama and Balakot incidents? The two seem cause and consequence; the sheer magnitude of the Pulwama attack shocked the nation and culminated in the Balakot bombing; the expanse of India’s political and diplomatic response against Pakistan was extended to include economic sanctions and military strikes.

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Vikash Narain Rai
Former Director, National Police Academy, Hyderabad

NEED we view separately the Pulwama and Balakot incidents? The two seem cause and consequence; the sheer magnitude of the Pulwama attack shocked the nation and culminated in the Balakot bombing; the expanse of India’s political and diplomatic response against Pakistan was extended to include economic sanctions and military strikes. However, there is no denying that keeping the peace in Kashmir has continued to be as arduous after Balakot as it was before Pulwama. Simply put, the internal security dimensions need a fact check independently too.

According to an old aphorism, a specific racehorse may perform differently depending on the course on which the race is held. The laws of operational surprise are supportive of a small and swift profile. These could be seen, on the fateful day in Pulwama, arraigned against the vast target of slow-moving CRPF convoy of vehicles. ‘Horses for courses’, or lack of clarity thereon has again proved to be the nemesis of our internal security policy-makers. Both the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) have so far refrained from making any exclusive statement explaining the Pulwama attack. Both are operating without the services of credible advisers in the field of internal security.

Based on national interest perceptions, the profile of a border between two countries may be offensive, defensive, restrictive, facilitative, neutral or a combination of such orientations. Or, like the Indo-Pak border, the picture may be an amalgamation of all possible shades. From the adrenaline-pumping Retreat ceremony at Attari-Wagah to surgical strikes in terrorist-infested stretches, from the Lahore bus and Samjhauta Express friendship journeys to the smuggling of jihadis and armament under intensive fire cover, from trade and religious corridors to hi-tech barriers, it is a strategic map drawn along the contours of peace talks and war histories. The story has gone on too long, inconclusive and uninterrupted. 

From the national security angle, it was only waiting to be announced that India, too, had added a third-dimension border perspective to the conflict over the Kashmir issue. The highly publicised Balakot airstrike in response to the Pulwama terror attack was exactly that. Since the Simla Agreement, the two countries officially acknowledged the existence of a two-character border in Kashmir: International Border (IB) in the settled area and the Line of Control (LoC) in the claimed area. Pakistan, or rather the Pakistan army, in due course, managed to push terrorism wider and deeper into Indian territory and supported it as the third character of the hostile border. India paid them back regularly through its intelligence and security operations, and now with the Balakot strike, the third dimension in its border response has been formally unleashed.

The significance of the Balakot strike, however, will wane if the gains do not lead to stabilisation of the turbulent internal security scenario in Kashmir. The stress and strain on national security from LoC intrusions or airspace violations are not as complex to deal with as the internal security stress arising from tackling the Kashmir unrest. While the Balakot air response is a typical ‘horses for courses’ lesson for Pakistan, the Pulwama attack is to be bracketed as a suicidal setback, the result of a long-term faltering of political will to apply this time-tested strategic doctrine in limiting Kashmir militancy. Here the familiar sequence of events cannot be lost sight of: Pulwama preceded Balakot, the internal security catastrophe leading to a national security situation. It was made to look like a compelling threat of war between nuclear neighbours over an operationally avoidable tragedy!

Let us count the types of hostile borders and lines of control that presently divide Kashmir from the rest of India. The status of Masood Azhar as a global terrorist is one of the foremost issues on the mind of a nation kept obsessed with the national security threat from Pakistan. Either way, though, it would resolve nothing in Kashmir. In contrast, lying uncertain is the relevance of Kashmiri nationalism, which is based on a special status under Article 370 of the Constitution and is equated with deshdroh under the compulsion of supremacist majoritarianism. Simultaneously, it seems Kashmir is destined to be policed differently from the rest of India, by the Army and CRPF. Instead of integrating the trust of a civil police system in day-to-day affairs in Kashmir and using the CRPF as a subsidiary armed support against militants, there is an offensive reliance on strengthening the boastful presence of the Army and the CRPF. There exists, therefore, a visible ‘LoC’ between the Indian Army and the Kashmiri people.

The Balakot episode has confirmed what the Kargil conflict, coming months after the Lahore peace declaration, had warned about, that the predominantly national security approach to the Kashmir imbroglio is fraught with the danger of war with Pakistan. Irrespective of India’s insistence on bilateralism, this approach can at best hope to bag a geo-political solution in the long run. It presupposes strong diplomacy and a capable military — and India boasts of both. A predominantly internal security approach will require bipartisan politics and statesman-like leadership; India has none at present.

It is perceived that Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf had almost resolved the Kashmir dispute at the Agra summit in 2001. I was a witness to both leaders looking disappointed at not signing the prepared draft. However, the fragility of such a document could never have been in doubt. Parliament was attacked in December that year by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, two Pakistan-based terrorist organisations, resulting in a prolonged standoff. Even the much-referred Vajpayee peace doctrine of Kashmiriyat-Jamhooriyat-Insaniyat, testimony to his statesmanship, will have no chance to grow in soil kept infertile by the manure of outdated internal security.

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