Beyond Balakot

The pursuit of a military option, or an outright war with Pakistan, to resolve the Kashmir issue will only push it further away from a solution.

Published : Mar 13, 2019 12:30 IST

Army patrol at Umbala  Top in front of “Tiger Hill”, which was re-captured on July 25, 1999, during the Operation Vijay Diwas celebration at Dras in Jammu and Kashmir. A file picture.

Army patrol at Umbala Top in front of “Tiger Hill”, which was re-captured on July 25, 1999, during the Operation Vijay Diwas celebration at Dras in Jammu and Kashmir. A file picture.

Wars between nations are envisagedin the stratosphere of domestic and international politics, planned by generals, and executed by middle and junior rank commanders and soldiers. The effects of shooting wars are suffered by soldiers and civilians on all sides of the conflict. In present times, shooting wars are not only about destruction, about loss of life and property, social disruption and general misery. Wars and armed conflicts of every sort provide benefits to the “deep state”, which comprises behind-the-curtain commercial-political interests combined with parts of government that operate at the highest political levels in every country. The deep state is essentially shadowy and not possible to pinpoint, but its existence is apparent to a keen observer of national affairs.

Albert Einstein had said that war would have disappeared long ago “had the sound sense of nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press”. This rightly pre-supposes that sound sense is a part of national thought. But today, the deep state uses sophisticated information technologies that are virtually instantaneous and amenable to manipulation to deliberately create fake news, misinformation, disinformation and propaganda, in order to engage in shooting wars.

The tool for manipulating public opinion to obtain the political impetus for war is the electronic (TV and social) and print media. Public opinion can be excited so as to induce people to demand war, out-shouting those who may represent the “sound sense”, and even branding them as cowardly or anti-national. We live in an ambience of information (cyber) warfare, which can initiate, prevent or pre-empt a shooting war, according to the interests of the deep state. Deep-state interests extend across national boundaries and influence, if not actually manipulate, domestic politics and diplomatic initiatives.

Wars, especially between countries with nuclear capability, have the undeniable possibility of escalating to the nuclear dimension, with unacceptable global consequences.

At the core of India-Pakistan tensions is Pakistan’s refusal to accept the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, and especially the Kashmir valley, to the Indian dominion in 1947. Immediately following Partition, war erupted between India and Pakistan, and India succeeded in securing Kashmir and Ladakh. This was followed by short, sharp wars in 1965 and again in 1971. Since 1984, there has been an ongoing undeclared war on the icy heights of the Siachen glacier in northern Ladakh, and India fought “Operation Vijay” in 1999 to vacate Pakistani military encroachments across the Line of Control in the Kargil area of Ladakh. Besides these, the militaries of India and Pakistan engage in cross-border and cross-LoC exchanges of fire and patrolling as a regular feature, which only vary in location, intensity and frequency.

The large-scale killing of civilians by the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan in 1971, which caused a popular Bengali uprising, resulted in the birth of Bangladesh. This was assisted by India’s military, which accepted the humiliating, unconditional surrender of Pakistan’s military governor of East Pakistan along with 93,000 Pakistani soldiers taken as prisoners of war. The anger felt by Pakistan’s military and ruling elite at this “dismemberment” of Pakistan is directed as much against India’s military as against the Indian state. The several military engagements have ended with Pakistan’s relative disadvantage, and emphasised the superiority of India’s military and political-economic strength over Pakistan’s.

Recognising the futility of a direct military confrontation with India, General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan President in 1978, adopted the “India doctrine” of “bleed India with a thousand cuts”, through waging a covert war against India using low-intensity warfare by infiltration, insurgency and indoctrination, and stoking militancy among the body politic of Kashmir.

Militancy in Kashmir

The Kashmiri people were disillusioned with the continuing dishonest politics of governments disrespecting the aspirations of Kashmiris, and especially in 1953 with the imprisonment of Sheikh Abdullah, and in the obviously rigged elections in 1987.

In the late 1980s, the cumulative effect of misgovernance made the political situation ripe for Pakistan to scale-up implementation of its 1978 India doctrine, and active militancy among the Kashmiri population increased with the formation of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. This resulted in the JKLF and Islamist groups targeting Kashmiri Hindus, and in late 1989 and early 1990, around 5,00,000 Hindus fled for their lives. Today, perhaps only around 3,000 remain in Kashmir.

Militancy in Kashmir has crystallised into two streams—one that looks for “azadi” for a Kashmir independent from both India and Pakistan, and the other comprising those who want Kashmir to join Pakistan. Both oppose India’s position since 1947 up to the present. Thus, starting 1947 with just India and Pakistan claiming stakes in Kashmir, today more entities are involved.

People everywhere and in the current context, including Kashmir, want peace and tranquility. But in Kashmir’s politically troubled situation, people are trapped between militants, often members of their own families on the one hand, and government security forces on the other. At the very least, security forces suspect them of harbouring or sympathising with militants, and militants suspect them of being informers or supporting the security forces. This does not of course deny that as radicalisation increases with increasing use of police-military force in the absence of credible political measures, more people, especially youths, are becoming more militant, evidenced for example by the increase in stone throwing on security forces, or actually the growing number of young people joining militant groups.

It is no consolation that the Pakistani deep state’s doctrine of “bleed India with a thousand cuts”, implemented over decades, has turned out to be its Frankenstein’s monster, radicalising its own people and causing the flowering of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan itself, to the point that Pakistan’s deep state has lost control. This has seriously depleted Pakistan’s economy and its financial sector, reportedly taking it to the brink of collapse.

Internal security

Successive governments at the Centre and in the State have treated Kashmir’s sociopolitical unrest as law and order or internal security problems, and accordingly increased the presence of security forces as the situation worsened, without instituting political measures to address people’s problems. The political class has withdrawn into secure, sanitised places and lost contact with the people. It is the security forces, at high cost to themselves and to the civilian population, that have repeatedly provided periods of reduced militancy (or relative peace) in Kashmir.

Noting that all Kashmiris are Indians since Kashmir is an unalienable part of India, in addition to its routine counter-insurgency operations the Indian Army initiated “Operation Sadbhavana” in 1998 among the rural Kashmiri population, especially youths. Meant to develop mutual faith and trust with civilian populations which the Army enjoys elsewhere, “Operation Sadbhavana” was reasonably successful in Kashmir. But regrettably, political parties across the board, both at the Centre and the State, have failed to take advantage of these initiatives to reach out to the people with sociopolitical initiatives during periods of relative peace.

The continued neglect of substantive political issues and use of police-military force has caused all stakeholders to the problem to take rigid positions, obviating talks or search for a political solution. The political problem of 1948 has become a complicated sociopolitical problem. The Indian government, influenced by public opinion elsewhere in India, increasingly feels that use of more force is unavoidable, even while more Kashmiri youths are willing to sacrifice their own lives for “the cause” of opposing India. The Pulwama suicide bombing of the CRPF convoy is only its most recent manifestation.

Thus, over the years, India has willy-nilly assisted Pakistan’s India doctrine, with militancy peaking in Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Delhi and elsewhere, and the birth of the Islamic State monster within India.

Especially after Pathankot-2016, Uri-2016 and Pulwama-2019 (PUP, for short), the question staring us in the face today is whether more muscular action within Kashmir and across the border against Pakistan will “tame” Pakistan to change its India doctrine, or reduce militancy and eventually eliminate it.

India’s recent military actions have been largely predicated upon post-PUP public outrage and public demand for strong action against Pakistan. Public sentiment is about India re-obtaining custody of Masood Azhar—released by India in 1999 at Kandahar—or making a United States-style 2011 “Operation Geronimo” to take him out. The notion that killing militants will kill militancy and restore the faith of Kashmiris in the good intentions of the Central and State governments is belied by ground realities. Only statesmanship can prevail over popular anger peaking with the Pulwama suicide bombing, for the larger, long-term benefit of the nation.

Public discourse

Article 370 of the Indian Constitution provides special status to Jammu and Kashmir, including limiting Parliament’s powers to make laws for the State. However, Article 370 provides that the President may, with certain provisions, declare this Article to be inoperative by issuing public notification. There is a school of thought that Article 370 should be made inoperative or removed, to permit populating the State with people from other States of India, and giving the displaced Kashmiri Hindus incentive to return home. But such a demographic change is vehemently opposed by Kashmir’s Muslim majority population. In the final analysis, removing Article 370 may do little to undo the 1953 and the 1987 mistakes, which were responsible for the unrest in the first place. Rather, it may exacerbate the situation.

There is also a school of thought that seeks to bring pressure upon Pakistan “to behave” by abrogating the Indus Water Treaty and stopping flow of water of three of Indus’ eastern tributaries into Pakistan. Apart from the technical impossibility of instantaneously stopping the flow, the possibility of China interfering with water flow of the Brahmaputra can take the problem to another level, to India’s diplomatic disadvantage.

At the forefront of the current public discourse is the effectiveness of the Indian Army’s 2016 post-Uri surgical strike and the recent post-Pulwama air strike on Balakot. Some have questionably questioned whether the first strike actually happened, and others have asked how many were killed in the second, thereby displaying ignorance of the distinction between military aims and objectives and the political directions that enable military action.

Military action is not a numbers game of “militants killed so many of ours and we killed so many militants”. The post-Uri army strike force could not have taken time to count the militants who were killed because they had to return to base before daylight, and the fighter pilots who bombed Balakot could not have “applied parking brakes and climbed down” to count the dead at the target, because that was not their mission. Mission success is based upon achieving the aim of striking at and neutralising the target, and the post-Uri and post-Pulwama strikes were militarily successful.

Questioning effectiveness of the air strike in terms of buildings destroyed and numbers of dead detracts from the fact that the Balakot air strike demonstrates India’s will to strike deep inside Pakistan in response to its established support and encouragement of militancy and terrorism.

International sympathy for India following the Pulwama attack has to an extent strengthened India’s justification for launching the Balakot air strike. Put on the political back foot, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan decided to repatriate IAF Wg Cdr Abhinandan Varthaman as a “peace gesture”, and has declared taking control of 182 religious schools and cracking down on Islamist militants within Pakistan.

Although keeping our military strong and ready to resist and defeat attack by any country upon our sovereignty is essential, initiating a war against Pakistan to stop its support and encouragement to cross-border militancy may not be a valid strategic option. Discounting the probability of China joining in the war in support of Pakistan by creating a second front for India’s military, would be a grave strategic error.

Only the armaments industry and politicians and bureaucrats connected with it benefit from war. Everybody else loses directly or indirectly. These considerations are clearly not in the calculus of India’s keyboard and TV-screen armchair warriors who bang the drums of war, since they may be only marginally affected by the economic crisis, which inevitably follows war, and remain well fed, comfortable, safe and secure during war.

Opposing war does not mean or imply that cross-border strikes should be ruled out. On the contrary, these may be necessary after careful consideration, provided that they are not politicised domestically or internationally by chest-thumping, which may only uncontrollably escalate the levels of military action. Opposing aggressive war is not pacifism or cowardice. It is good sense, because war benefits only the military-industrial complex nexus with the deep state, while everybody else loses.

The way forward

Treating Kashmir as an internal law-and-order problem over the decades has exacerbated the political situation and its connected militancy. Punishing Pakistan with military strikes for its well-established involvement in militant and terrorist activities in Kashmir is unlikely to solve India’s internal Kashmir problem, which is political at its root. Also, as post-Independence history has shown, war will not get Pakistan to change its 1947 stance regarding Kashmir. The India-Pakistan situation is effectively a deadlock. Therefore, the question today is what would be the way forward.

The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) takes decisions on internal and external national security matters, and the three-tiered National Security Council (NSC), formed in 1998, forms the national security management structure, with an NSA advising the Prime Minister on national strategy. But more than 20 years down the road, the NSC is yet to come up with a comprehensive document on national security strategy, to effectively and comprehensively address external political, economic and military (including low-intensity conflict) challenges and internal security issues, within the ambit of the Constitution.

Such a strategy document, drafted with expert consultation and finalised after discussion in Parliament and amended as required from time to time would, in the current context, inform and guide the government of the day on handling the internal and external issues concerning the Kashmir imbroglio. Or, for that matter, our north-eastern States.

Recognising that the external India-Pakistan problem or Kashmir’s internal problem are not going to be solved in a short period, perhaps the most important step on the way forward would be to immediately prepare a draft document on national security strategy. This would enable the CCS of successive governments to make out its doctrine on balancing social, economic, political, diplomatic and military measures to achieve strategic aims.

In order to draft a strategy document or obtain valid military advice, the NSC needs to differentiate between internal and external security, both highly specialised fields. The NSA, being a civilian, cannot offer valid military advice. The NSC needs to immediately create the post of chief of defence staff (CDS) for a military officer superior to the three defence chiefs, to render single-point military advice to the Prime Minister, and serve as the NSA for external security to draft and implement national strategy. Failing to appoint a CDS will be strategic myopia.

Some truths

India’s Kashmir problem needs honest and sustained sociopolitical efforts in the State and at the Centre. Immediate measures like limited military operations may be inescapable but can only provide short-term change. The police-military is a political antibiotic, the continued use of which has created resistance to the antibiotic and reduced its efficacy.

The truth is that use of police-military force internally or war against Pakistan are not a long-term solution to a problem which is political at its core. This is borne out by India’s decades-long experience in the north-east and in Kashmir. Truth also is that there is no substitute for honest sociopolitical outreach, which will take time and is not easy, but is both doable and necessary for long-term national benefit. Truth again, is that there is no silver-bullet solution, that the road to peace is long and difficult but preferable to the terrible path of war. But often enough, the truth hurts those who live by untruth.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “Our fight is for Kashmir, not against Kashmir and not against Kashmiris.” That needs to be translated into political action, with the police-military presence and action within Kashmir gradually reduced in keeping with the gains of sociopolitical engagement with Kashmiris. India also needs to take diplomatic advantage of the Balakot air strike to assure the international community that armed conflict with Pakistan will not be escalated by India, even while retaining the right to punish Pakistan again only if and when necessary. These measures will surely raise India’s international stature and work towards securing India a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council.

Major General S.G. Vombatkere, commissioned as an officer into the Corps of Engineers (Madras Sappers) in 1962, retired in 1996. In 1993, he was awarded the Visishta Seva Medal for distinguished services rendered during military service in the high-altitude region of Ladakh .

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