The search and rescue operation for tracing soldiers trapped in an avalanche in the Namgya area of Kinnaur district was called off after the bodies of the last two missing soldiers were recovered on Thursday.
The remaining two bodies that have been traced are those of jawans from Himachal and Jammu. The body of NK Videsh Chand of Thrauna village, Nirmand, Kullu district, was shifted to Jhakri today and the last rites will be performed tomorrow morning at his native place.
The body of Rifleman Arjun Kumar of Kattal Brahamana village, Hira Nagar, District Kathua (Jammu) will be airlifted to Janglot tomorrow and will be sent by road from there to his native village.
It was on February 20 that six Army personnel were hit by an avalanche in the Namgya area of Kinnaur, close to the border with China, while they were patrolling along the border. The body of one jawan was found the same day.
Drunk jawan misbehaves, cops let him flee
Our Correspondent
Una, March 15
A Home Guard jawan, attached with the Transport Department and posted at the RTO barrier in Mehatpur, allegedly misbehaved with the Director of the department last evening.
The incident took place during a surprise visit by the official. The jawan was reportedly in an inebriated state.Director, Transport, Capt JM Pathania, said Home Guard jawans had been deployed by the department at RTO barriers for a period of one month, after which their duties were extended. He said the jawan at Mehatpur, identified as Jasbir Singh, was drunk and allegedly began misbehaving when he was inspecting the barrier.
Pathania said he contacted the Superintendent of Police, who sent two constables from the Mehatpur police station. However, instead of conducting a medical examination of the jawan, they allegedly let him flee from the scene.SP Devakar Sharma said on the second complaint of the Director, Transport, he himself visited Mehatpur. He said two police personnel, Head Constable Inder Kumar and Constable Sandeep, who were accused of allowing the inebriated jawan escape, had been called to the Police Lines for departmental action.
He said such dereliction of duty would not be tolerated.
Meanwhile, the Director, Transport, said a disciplinary action would be initiated against the Home Guard jawan. He said the department would also consider making amendments to the service period of the Home Guard personnel attached with the department so that they were more answerable to the system.
Inspirational! Jawan martyred in 2015, his wife now joins Army
Sishar was martyred in an encounter with Lashkar-e-Islam terrorists
Sishar of Gorkha Rifles was killed in an 8-hour long gunfight against the Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) terrorists.
LeI was founded in 2004 by Haji Namdar and Mufti Shakir.
On September 2, 2015, a search party, of which Sishar was a part, was fired upon by the terrorists.
In the ensuing encounter, two army troopers, including Sishar, sustained injuries.
He later died in a hospital.
Husband’s death, mother-in-law, motivated Sangeeta to join Army
Sangeeta was a teacher when her husband died and probably in that shock, had a miscarriage later that year.
She quit her job eventually to support her mother-in-law.
As time went by, she took a decision to join the forces.
According to her family, Sishar was the inspiration behind her decision to join the Army.
However, her main push came in 2016
Sangeeta’s real push came when husband was given award posthumously
In 2016, Sangeeta attended an investiture ceremony (an oath-taking program) in Ranikhet, where her husband was also awarded Sena Medal posthumously. According to reports, it was then she realized that she wishes to join the Army, like her husband, and serve the country
Sangeeta’s mother-in-law asked her to prepare for banking job
Sushant Malla, Sangeeta’s brother-in-law, said, “My mother supported her and encouraged her to study further and do a banking job.”
However, Sangeeta changed her mind after attending the investiture ceremony.
“She worked hard and cleared the OTA examination,” Sushant added.
After going through the 49-week extensive and rigorous training at the OTA, she qualified as a Lieutenant in Short Service Commission.
Combat drugs’ to reduce casualties in Pulwama-type attacks
With 90 per cent of gravely wounded security personnel succumbing to injuries within a few hours, DRDO’s medical laboratory has come up with a range of ‘combat casualty drugs’ that can extend the golden hour till the trooper is shifted to hospital.
The spectrum includes bleeding wound sealants, super absorptive dressings and glycerated salines, all of which can save lives in the event of warfare in jungle and high-altitude areas as well as in terror attacks, scientists said. Citing the February 14 terror attack in Pulwama where 40 CRPF soldiers were killed, they said the medicines could have brought down the death toll. — PTI
The hoarding bearing an image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in military fatigues, which had been put up at the canal rest house located in the heart of Rohtak town, has been removed.
The Tribune had reported that leaders of the Opposition parties, including the Congress, INLD and AAP, had taken umbrage to the putting up of the hoarding bearing a picture of the Prime Minister in military fatigues and accused the ruling BJP of politicising the defence operations and insulting the armed forces for getting votes. The hoarding had been put up in the wake of the recent airstrike in Pakistan and the escalating tension between the two countries.
Rafale papers stolen from defence ministry, govt tells Supreme Court
The three-judge bench was headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi. File photo
Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 6
As the Supreme Court began hearing review petitions on the Rafale jet deal today, the government told the court that Rafale papers were stolen from the defence ministry. The apex court, which is hearing petitions seeking a review of its December 2018 verdict refusing to order a probe into the deal, put off hearing until March 14.
The Centre took a strong exception to advocate Prashant Bhushan reading out from “secret” documents. Attorney General KK Venugopal said these documents were stolen from the government either by current or former officials.
“What have you done about it?” the three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the AG, who said an investigation had been ordered into the matter.
The Bench left it to the government to file an affidavit detailing the action taken.
The NDA Government signed a deal with France in 2016 for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets manufactured by Dassault Aviation at an estimated cost of Rs 59,000-crore in flyaway condition. The top court had last year dismissed petitions seeking a probe into the deal.
The top court refused to hear the petition filed by AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh seeking a review of its verdict, saying he had made “very derogatory” remarks on its verdict.
The CJI said the court would take action against him after completing the hearing on the review pleas. Before the action was taken, Singh would be given an opportunity to explain his conduct, said CJI Gogoi.
The CJI also refused to accept any new documents from Bhushan, including The Hindu reports, and asked him to confine himself to the documents on record.
Explaining the government’s case, the AG sought the dismissal of the review petitions. At one point he said without Rafale, how cpuld India resist F-16s (of Pakistan).
Venugopal requested the court to exercise restraint while commenting on the Rafale deal as such statements would be used to target either the government or the Opposition. As he asserted that courts cannot rely upon stolen documents, the Bench asked several pointed questions on the issue.
“When there is an allegation of corruption, can the government take shelter under national security?” asked Justice KM Joseph. The Bench said the government can’t take a general stand that no secret documents can be considered. There were judgments which said courts could look into secret documents even when the government had claimed privilege in terms of Section 123 of the Indian Evidence Act, Justice Joseph pointed out.
As Venugopal insisted that the petitioners must reveal the source of the documents, the CJI sought to know what if an accused established the plea of alibi based on a stolen document. “Should the Court ignore?” he asked.
Won’t give info on source: ‘The Hindu’
New Delhi: Documents related to the Rafale deal were published in public interest and nobody would get any information from The Hindu newspaper on the confidential sources who provided them, The Hindu Publishing Group chairman N Ram said. These were published because details were withheld or covered up, the veteran journalist said as the government told the SC that documents related to the deal have been stolen from the Defence Ministry and an investigation into the theft is on. PTI
Chidambaram demands publication of Rafale deal papers
New Delhi, March 7
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Thursday demanded publication of all documents related to the Rafale aircraft deal, saying Article 19 of the Constitution ensured people’s rights regarding freedom of speech and expression.
He said the celebrated judgment of the US Supreme Court in 1971 in the case of the Pentagon Papers was a “complete answer” to the attorney general’s arguments that the media could not publish “so-called secret papers”.
“We fully support the publication of documents pertaining to the Rafale deal. The argument that they are ‘stolen papers’ flies in the face of Article 19 of the Constitution,” he said in separate tweets.
The Article 19 of the Constitution ensures protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech and expression besides others.
On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court of the United States had overturned the Richard Nixon administration’s effort to restrain ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Washington Post’ from publishing a top-secret history of the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers.
The government had on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that documents related to the Rafale fighter jet deal were stolen from the Defence Ministry and threatened ‘The Hindu’ newspaper with the Official Secrets Act for publishing articles based on them.
Those who put documents on the Rafale deal in the public domain were guilty under the act as also of contempt of court, Attorney General KK Venugopal had said before a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. PTI
Pawar targets Modi over stolen Rafale documents
Mumbai, March 7
NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday termed as “shocking” the Centre’s statement that documents related to the Rafale fighter jet deal have been stolen from the defence ministry, and wondered what will then be the country’s situation on the security front.
He said it was now obvious the deal was done for the “benefit of some people” and sought to know why the government hid the theft from Parliament.
He also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of politicising the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) air strikes on Jaish-e-Mohammed’s camp in Pakistan in retaliation to the terror outfit’s attack at Pulwama in Kashmir where 40 CRPF personnel were killed last month.
The Centre told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that documents related to the Rafale aircraft deal being stolen, prompting the opposition parties to again raise questions over the Rs 58,000-crore defence deal which is already mired in controversy.
“If confidential papers are stolen, then what will be the situation on the security front,” Pawar wondered while interacting with NCP workers in Kolhapur through video- conferencing.
“How can confidential papers go missing from the Ministry of Defence. It is clear now that the Rafale deal was done to benefit some people. Why did the government hide the theft from Parliament. The papers definitely had some important information,” he said.
Terming the government’s stand on Rafale deal issue as surprising, he said, “These are the same people who are refusing an inquiry into the deal while having demanded a probe into the Bofors case.”
Taking a swipe at the prime minister’s earlier remark “na khaoonga na khane doonga” (would not take bribes, nor let anyone do so), Pawar alleged that during Modi government’s rule, the Rafale aircraft cost was increased.
“The contract was taken away from HAL and given to a new company of industrialist Anil Ambani which had no experience in aircraft manufacturing,” he further charged.
The government and Ambani have, however, been denying any wrongdoing.
Further hitting out at Modi over IAF’s air strikes in Pakistan, Pawar said, “It is not the opposition, but PM Modi politicising the situation, and that’s sad.”
India wanted peaceful and friendly relations with all neighbours, including Pakistan. “But Pakistan’s intentions are not similar,” he said.
Even the families of martyrs are saying sacrifices of soldiers should not be politicised, he added.
Pawar also claimed that during the recent all-party meeting over the issue, the BJP did not have a representative.
Criticising the BJP-led government over its demonetisation, he claimed around 15 lakh people lost their jobs due to the note ban decision.
There is no record of how much black money was unearthed, but people had to face lot of hardships, he said. Pawar also claimed that in the last two-and-a-half years, ” 11,000 farmers have committed suicide”.
He acknowledged the role of social media and said it played a “very important role” in BJP’s victory in 2014.
Referring to the Congress-NCP alliance in Maharashtra, Pawar said two joint rallies have taken place so far and discussions are underway for a couple of seats. “Talks are on for one or two seats. A decision on who will contest those one or two seats will be taken on merits.
There will be no issues. By the time elections are announced, seat-sharing formula will be finalised,” he said. PTI
Why PM can’t be probed; justice should be for all: Rahul Gandhi on Rafale
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 7
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday cited new documents to allege corruption by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Rafale deal and wondered why the PM should not be probed.
“Justice should be for all,” Gandhi said addressing his 13th press conference on the Rafale matter.
He targeted the government for telling the Supreme Court that the Rafale documents had disappeared from the South Block.
“A new line has emerged that documents have been stolen. That documents disappeared. Two crore jobs also disappeared, fair price for farmers also disappeared, Rs 15 lakh also disappeared, after demonetisation, jobs disappeared. The court was told files disappeared but the one who committed corruption of Rs 30,000 crore will not face any investigation. The primary purpose is to protect him, no matter what institution and what means,” Gandhi said.
He said the government had only one job—how to save the watchman?
Asked if the Congress would file an FIR after the new documents appeared in the media saying PMO conducted parallel negotiations for the 36 Rafale jets ignoring the Indian Negotiation Team (INT), Gandhi said “I’ve said, do what you want legally, but justice should be for all. On the one hand, you say papers are disappearing. They say the PM was doing parallel negotiation. What were parallel negotiations for if not to help someone? Has there been no motive the PMO would have allowed the INT to do its job.”
Gandhi who addressed an early presser since he was to leave New Delhi for his maiden pre-Lok Sabha poll rallies in Punjab and Himachal, said, “We want courts to give justice to everybody. The PM is being openly named. The file says the PMO carried our parallel negotiations. Why should the PM not be probed?”
On Narendra Modi’s recent charge that the Congress delayed the Rafale jet procurement and had Rafales been around India would have been better placed than Pakistan in the ongoing conflict, Gandhi said, “PM’s parallel negotiations for Rafale delayed the delivery schedule. You delayed the delivery because you wanted to benefit industrialist Anil Ambani and put Rs 30,000 crore in his pocket.”
Playing ping-pong with the forces by Rajesh Ramachandran
How many terrorists were killed in Balakot — 250 or 300? How many more seats for the BJP in the General Election — 30 or 60? Unfortunately, the questions that have come up after the first Indian air strike into the Pakistani territory after 1971 are only political, that too, over possible electoral gains for the ruling party. A minister in the Punjab Government echoed the Pakistani army when he asked whether the Indian Air Force was ‘uprooting trees or terrorists’. Well, the BJP has to be blamed for turning a new Indian doctrine of visible and effective response to a terror attack into a political weapon to subdue its rivals during crucial polls. When the Prime Minister personalised a military success and the ruling party owned it up lock, stock and barrel, the Opposition was left with just one option — to debunk the ruling party’s claims.
Unfortunately, when a military operation is pooh-poohed, the ones who get hit are the men and women who had planned the operation meticulously and executed it to perfection. As a copybook military, which doesn’t meddle in politics or has never allowed the political or communal venom to seep into its soul, the nation owes a great debt to the Indian armed forces. They should be left alone. Sadly, Indian politicians are playing ping-pong with a professional force. The Prime Minister’s play of words on a ‘pilot project’ soon after the Balakot strike and BJP president Amit Shah’s claim of 250 terrorists getting killed there should have been avoided. For an Opposition which was confidently hoping of bringing the government down within two months, the BJP’s appropriation of the aerial strike has brought out the worst instincts within them. It didn’t care for the credibility of the armed forces while seeking proof of the attacks.
The attack on the credibility of the IAF forced Chief of Air Staff BS Dhanoa to say that the Air Force counts only targets, not casualties. As the electioneering hots up, it is only going to get worse. Soon, after every rally where the BJP claims credit for forcing the Pakistanis to ban the terror outfits and to hand over Wg Cdr Abhinandan Varthaman in three days, it will be forcing the Opposition to question all these claims. And there is reason to question these claims. There was probably no basis for the news TV channels to scream about 250-300 terrorists getting killed at Balakot. Once the dust settled, The Tribune reported that the real number could be much less — about 30 — and that the Mirage 2000 jets could have missed the main building.
Yet, the ruling party’s politicisation of the Balakot strike has demolished the Indian media’s credibility, too. In the absence of proper official briefing, the media hung on to every word spelt out by officials tasked to plant stories. This tactic has come back to bite the government, with the Opposition questioning these news reports. Worse, the Indian media has come in for a nasty attack from the international media for being ‘the BJP’s propaganda machine’. Ironically, it is coming from newspapers which had no qualms about inventing Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, justifying the complete destruction of a fairly progressive country, and had gleefully embedded their reporters with the invading army. After all, these arbiters of the freedom of the press have forgotten how they had refused to report the genocide of 30 lakh people of East Pakistan (going by the Bangladeshi count, which could be nationalistic propaganda) and the displacement of one crore refugees who poured into India in 1971 because it did not suit the US interests of humouring Pakistan, which was brokering a deal with China.
So, if some newspapers like The Tribune did not print the picture of Abhinandan’s bloodied face, it was out of sheer respect for our armed forces and the thorough professionals who run them. And not because the newspaper agrees with anyone’s attempt to own up a hero in captivity. Sadly, the BJP’s attempt to politicise the strike has dampened an otherwise brilliant military move, which is being hailed as a great moment in the history of the IAF. The real questions which the Indian and the international media ought to be asking have all got drowned in dubious claims of the number of terrorists killed. Did an ageing MiG-21 shoot down an F-16? Did the Pakistani establishment use an F-16 against India, violating the contract with the US? Did the Pakistanis send a package of aircraft towards the LoC on February 27 to hit at Indian military assets as a retaliation to Balakot? Why did a certain section of the media term Imran Khan a man of peace after he nearly triggered a full-fledged war with India? After all, the international media is investigating poorly informed Indian journalists and not Lockheed Martin to verify the Indian claim of downing the F-16 or the Pakistanis shooting a US-made AMRAAM missile into an Indian military compound.
Even an honest assessment of the strategic merit of the aerial strike is eluding us as all we have is a partisan attempt to praise or slam the BJP. We may have to wait till the parliamentary polls to examine whether a Kasab strutting around the Victoria Terminus with an automatic rifle in hand is a better memory than a hilltop getting hit by a few Indian missiles. Till then, if the BJP is a truly nationalist party it should keep the armed forces out of the political crossfire, which is only going to get nastier and more feverish. As for the godi media, it too ought to wait for the election results. What if it has to switch masters?
The Ferozepur police today nabbed a former Army driver who had absconded after killing a Chandigarh resident while attending a relative’s marriage five years ago. He was staying with a changed identity in Ludhiana for the past five years.
Sandeep Goyal, SSP, said the accused identified as Ranjit Singh, who was booked in a murder case five years ago, had been working as a driver in 11 Fd unit of the Army in Bathinda in 2014.
The SSP said Ranjit had gone to attend his cousin’s marriage on December 11, 2014, in Makhu where he allegedly killed Gulshan Dhiman of Chandigarh with his licensed revolver following an altercation.
After committing the crime, Ranjit reached Bathinda Military Station, where he continued his service in the Army for the next three months.
When the police reached Bathinda, Ranjit escaped. Later, he was declared as Proclaimed Offender (PO) on August 7, 2015. Subsequently, he was declared PO by the Army also due to his continued absence. For the next five years, Ranjit kept evading arrest and continued to dodge the police, the SSP said.
“At present, he was working as a driver with a local businessman from where he was nabbed,” the SSP added.
Rahul Gandhi pays tribute to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev on ‘Shaheed Diwas’ BJP not given a thought till now
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday paid tribute to freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru on their death anniversary observed as ‘Shaheed Diwas’ (Martyr’s Day), saying the spirit of revolution espoused by them is running in our veins.
Gandhi said we will continue to fight the battle for their thoughts and ideals.
“Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru are not mere names, they are the spirit of revolution running in our veins,” he tweeted in Hindi.
भगत सिंह, सुखदेव, राजगुरु, सिर्फ़ नाम नहीं हैं; हमारे रगों में दौड़ता क्रांति का एक जज़्बा हैं।
उनका जीवन, आज भी, हमें मज़बूत बनाता है, आज़ाद बनाता है, इंसान बनाता है।
शहीद दिवस पर हमारे वीरों को शत् शत् नमन।
उनके विचारों और आदर्शो की लड़ाई हम जारी रखेंगे।#ShaheedDiwas
“Their lives make us strong even today and make us free and human. On Martyrs Day, we bow our heads to our bravehearts. We will continue to fight the battle for their thoughts and ideals,” Gandhi wrote. — PTI
‘Horses for courses’ lesson for Pakistan by Vikash Narain Rai
The significance of the Balakot airstrike 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.
Flawed: The Balakot episode has confirmed that the predominantly national security approach to the Kashmir issue is fraught with the danger of war with Pakistan.
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.
When Pakistan handed back Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman to India, the spectacle of the graciously quick return of the MiG-21 pilot, shot down and captured by Pakistan, elicited both international plaudits and misplaced triumphalism. But the spectacle also masked more important military and political factors at play.
The two military rounds played between Pakistan and India on February 26/27 in the wake of New Delhi’s aggression against Islamabad, after the February 14 Pulwama attack, have important lessons for deterrence as well as the question of whether limited war options are possible between a nuclear dyad.
India has, since long, accused Pakistan of playing the conflict game at the sub-conventional level while denying India its superior conventional capabilities by signalling the resolve to introduce nuclear weapons first and early into a conventional conflict. This line of reasoning, simplistic though it is, has been widely lapped up, not only by Indian analysts but also Western scholars.
Meanwhile, India, since the limited conflict in Kargil (1999) and then the 10-month long Twin Peaks crisis (2001-02) has been conceptualising how to punish Pakistan conventionally while remaining below the nuclear threshold.
Pakistan and India came closer to a devastating war than they have in almost 17 years. As the dark clouds of impending all-out conflict begin to dissipate, it is important for both to see what the current tensions can teach us about deterrence and preventing a repeat
Put another way, India thought — and many experts agreed — that there was a band in which India could act militarily and punitively. That, if India were to play within that band, it would make it extremely difficult for Pakistan to escalate to the nuclear level because such escalation would be considered highly disproportionate and would draw international opprobrium and consequences. The argument was that the certainty of international diplomatic and economic isolation would force Pakistan to stay its hand and not escalate to the nuclear level.
The banal equivalent of such a situation would be someone punching another person in a crowded bazaar and the victim, instead of keeping the fight to fisticuffs, chooses to draw and fire a pistol. Not only would such a person lose the sympathy of the crowd, he would also invite the full coercive and normative weight of the law.
Corollary: whoever ups the ante in a basic fight ends up as the loser.
India’s Cold Start doctrine dates back to 2001-02 but has only now been deployed by PM Narendra Modi | Reuters
However, while the Indian military planners were thinking about this for the past two decades, until the arrival on India’s political scene of Narendra Modi and his éminence grise, Ajit Doval, New Delhi shied away from actualising a short, sharp military option against Pakistan, focusing instead on exploiting diplomatic channels using its diplomatic heft.
According to India’s official figures, the 2001-02 standoff cost India three billion dollars with hundreds of soldiers killed without any exchange with Pakistan. The mobilisation was a political decision and as then-Indian Chief of Army Staff S Padmanabhan noted, in an interview to The Hindu, “You could certainly question why we are so dependent on our strike formations and why my holding corps don’t have the capability to do the same tasks from a cold start. This is something I have worked on while in office. Perhaps, in time, it will be our military doctrine.”
COLD START DOCTRINE
This was the beginning of India’s Cold Start doctrine that envisaged creating eight Independent Battle Groups, placed closer to the border and capable of a short, sharp, punitive action against Pakistan without the long mobilisation delays India experienced in 2001-02. Interestingly, while India for long denied that such a doctrine existed — despite having done some field exercises to validate it — the current Indian army chief, Bipin Rawat, acknowledged its existence in an interview barely three weeks after taking office on December 31, 2016.
As an explainer in The Economist put it, “Cold Start is the name given to a limited-war strategy designed to seize Pakistani territory swiftly without, in theory, risking a nuclear conflict. It has its roots in an attack on India’s parliament in 2001 … by the time its [India’s] lumbering Strike Corps were mobilised and positioned on the frontier, Pakistan had already bulked up its defences, raising both the costs of incursion and the risk that it would escalate into a nuclear conflict. Cold Start is an attempt to draw lessons from this: having nimbler, integrated units stationed closer to the border would allow India to inflict significant harm before international powers demanded a ceasefire; by pursuing narrow aims, it would also deny Pakistan a justification for triggering a nuclear strike.”
Let’s consider the underlying assumptions in all this.
The ‘theory’ assumes that:
(1) There is a band in which India can use its conventional military option;
(2) that band can be exploited;
(3) India has the conventional superiority to make it work;
(4) if it does so in response to an attack it can pin on Pakistan, it has enough diplomatic weight to have the world opinion on its side for such a strike;
(5) it can make it work through a military surprise which can gain its objectives;
(6) Pakistan, having suffered a setback, will be hard pressed to retaliate because it will have to climb up the escalation ladder, a costly proposition both for reasons of the earlier military setback as well as international diplomatic pressure;
(7) given India’s upper hand, both militarily and diplomatically, Pakistan will choose to not escalate;
(8) if, however, Pakistan did choose to escalate, India will still enjoy escalation dominance because of its superior capabilities and because it will have international diplomatic support; and
(9) India, given its diplomatic and military heft, will be able to raise the costs for Pakistan in an escalation spiral.
Result: Pakistan will weigh the consequences as a rational-choice actor and prefer to climb down.
Modi from the word go has been hyping his masculinity and informing his right-wing Hindutva vote bank that he could and would act where his Congress predecessors failed to, namely that he would teach Pakistan a lesson and create a “new normal”.
The interesting assumption in all this, and one that should not be missed is this: the first-round result. Every subsequent assumption flows from what India could achieve militarily in the opening hand.
Pakistan’s jointly developed JF-17 Thunder jets acquitted themselves well in the current tensions
Somehow, barring a few analysts, most literature took for granted that the first round would, of necessity, go in favour of India. And therefore, Pakistan’s cost for retaliation would increase both militarily and diplomatically. In fact, this does make sense if it can be guaranteed that India’s gambit will work. Except, the opening round success could be guaranteed only if India were applying force on an inanimate object or if its conventional capabilities were far superior to Pakistan’s.
As Clausewitz noted, “War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.”
The second crucial point in unpacking these assumptions is the limited nature of the engagement. It should be clear that India’s politico-military strategy post the 2001-02 standoff looked at any punitive military action in a limited, not full-scale, mode: military action below the nuclear threshold.
Pakistan has never drawn clear red lines, managing risk through ambiguity. The only time a former — and longest-serving — Director-General Strategic Plans Division, Lt-General Khalid Kidwai, enunciated four parameters for resorting to nukes was during an interview to two visiting Italian physicists:
(1) India attacks Pakistan and conquers a large part of its territory (space threshold);
(2) India destroys a large part of Pakistan’s military forces/assets (military threshold);
(3) India strangulates Pakistan economically;
(4) India destabilises Pakistan politically or through internal subversion.
As Dr Nitin Prasad says in his book, Contemporary Pakistan: Political System, Military and Changing Scenario, Kidwai was using hypothetical scenarios, and his four thresholds — geographic, military, economic, domestic-political — were not red lines, defined and understood by the adversary or other parties, because clearly defined red lines dilute deterrence and provide room for conventional force manoeuvring.
The point about the limited nature of India’s military plans is important because, while a case can be made for India possibly overwhelming Pakistan in a drawn full-scale conventional conflict which brings in other factors, a limited thrust or strike — if there’s not a huge differential in technical and other capabilities — may not necessarily play to the stronger adversary’s advantage.
Put another way, if the presumably weaker side denies the stronger side success in the opening round, draws its own blood successfully while showing restraint, it can raise the costs for the stronger actor by upending the latter’s assumptions based on the success of the opening round.
DIMENSIONS OF DETERRENCE
This is exactly what has happened in the two rounds fought this time. One can put it thus: deterrence has held because the aggressor has to factor in the nuclear dimension and keep its military options below that threshold. The defender, having defended successfully and then drawn blood, shows restraint. Third parties get involved knowing and realising that any attempt by one or both sides at escalation dominance could spiral. [Note: Dr Moeed Yusuf has a brilliant book on third party brokering (2018), which studies US diplomacy during three crises — Kargil (1999), Twin Peaks (2001-02) and Mumbai (2008).]
But what exactly is deterrence?
After his capture, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman being escorted to a military facility | APP
It can have both the conventional and the nuclear dimensions. Essentially, deterrence is the ability to discourage an actor from undertaking an unwanted action, including an armed attack. It is, in other words, about prevention, i.e. convincingly stopping an actor from an action. The sister concept, what Thomas Schelling described as compellence, is about forcing an actor to do something in line with what the compeller (adversary) wants it to do.
By India’s reasoning, its limited military options are about deterring Pakistan to undertake actions at the sub-conventional level and to deter India from making use of its conventional strength because of the existence of nuclear weapons.
This is where the problem begins.
Deterrence is not just about threatening an adversary with punitive action. In order for it to be successful, it must shape the adversary’s perceptions, i.e., force the adversary to change its behaviour by estimating that it has options other than aggression and which are more cost-effective. Shaping perceptions of the adversary that needs to be deterred would then require the deterrer to understand the motives of the actor who has to be deterred. Without that exercise, any limited action, even if it were temporarily successful, would fail to impact a behaviour change or incentivise a state actor to do something different.
Also, deterrence by denial, the ability to deter an action by making it infeasible is a far better strategy than deterrence by punishment which, as the term implies, promises the resolve and the capability to take punitive action(s) and inflict severe punishment.
So, in the case of the rounds played, deterrence has worked at two levels.
First, the overall, umbrella deterrence that flows from the possession of nuclear weapons on both sides. This level ensures that even if one or the other side decides to undertake military action, it must keep it limited.
Kashmiri children hold placards and shout freedom slogans in Srinagar: the root cause of Indo-Pak tensions is ignored by India | AP
The second level is about conventional deterrence. If X has undertaken a military action, Y can prevent it from achieving its objective and, by successfully undertaking its own action, can force X to rethink its use of any military option. The rethink is important because, in such a play, if Y has prevented X’s action and successfully undertaken its own, X cannot simply retaliate to a reprisal. X will have to climb up the escalation ladder, i.e., it has to scale up by using an escalatory option to defend his commitment. Escalation is about a higher cost and the rethink is a function of forcing X into that cost-benefit analysis.
It is precisely for this reason that the opening round is so crucial for the aggressor, in this case India. To recap, as noted above in the list of assumptions, every subsequent assumption flows from the success of the opening round.
MODI-DOVAL CALCULATION
At this point it would be instructive to view all this from the perspective of the Modi-Doval duo. Both men believe, or at least had convinced themselves into believing, that the previous Indian governments did not make use of a conventional military option because they were weak-kneed. Modi, by referring to his 56-inch chest, from the word go has been hyping his masculinity and informing his right-wing Hindutva vote bank that he could and would act where his Congress predecessors failed to, namely that he would teach Pakistan a lesson and create a “new normal”.
In September 2016, following an attack on an army camp in Uri in Occupied Kashmir, one morning the Indian Director-General Military Operations announced to a packed press conference that India had conducted “surgical strikes” in Azad Kashmir, across the Line of Control (LoC) and destroyed “terrorist” bases. He also said that he had told his Pakistani counterpart that India did not intend to take any further action and that its action was only directed towards non-state actors.
The Indian media, as well as serious analysts, went into a tizzy. Days on end, there was nothing on Indian TV channels and newspapers other than this “great victory” against Pakistan. We were told that Pakistan had not retaliated because Pakistan Army posts and troops in the area were caught off-guard and Pakistan was playing it down because the action was an embarrassment for it. Even serious analysts began talking about a new normal.
This is what Shashank Joshi, then based at the Royal United Services Institute in London, wrote in the opening paragraph of his op-edin The Hindustan Times: “India’s ‘surgical strikes’ on Wednesday night… — barely a few kilometres across the Line of Control (LoC) — … represent one of the most important changes in India’s military posture to Pakistan in over a decade.” He did acknowledge that this hadn’t happened for the first time and the fact, as he put it, “that Pakistan will not reverse seven decades of policy without a diplomatic process” but there was headiness, nonetheless. And this is just one example. There are scores of others.
Pakistan did not retaliate because it was a fire raid where Indian troops were blocked at two points of ingress but managed to sneak in at the third, fired at some hutments and withdrew.
Pakistani Kashmiris carry the coffin of a civilian who was killed in a gunfight between Indian and Pakistan troops on the Line of Control | AFP
By hyping it, Modi locked himself further into a commitment trap. Apart from some discerning commentators in India, everyone chose to forget that such actions had been undertaken at the LoC by both sides in the past and that there was nothing ‘surgical’ about India’s fire raid.
On February 14, therefore, when a bomber mounted the deadliest attackon Indian paramilitary troops in recent times, Modi was left with no option but to act. With a tough election staring him in the face and his chest blocking a clear view of rationality, he decided to use a limited military option. Only this time it had to be more than just a raid across the LoC. He jumped a few rungs on the escalation ladder by deciding to use his air force.
The story about what happened on the morning of February 26 has now become a laugh and it has been walked back a few miles and some more by India itself, so those details are not necessary. Whatever little was left of India’s fantastic claim about hitting a “training camp” and killing “terrorists” has been finally laid to rest by a Reuters story that reviewed satellite imagery from Planet Labs Inc.
However, what is important is not whether Indian planes came into Pakistan (original claim), whether they struck in a stand-off mode (i.e. when aerial platforms are used from a safe distance, away from defensive weapons, and use precision munitions such as glide bombs to attack a distant target without actually coming upon the target and swooping down for a bombing run) or even whether they could or could not make a hit. The important and crucial point was that India had challenged Pakistan and Pakistan needed to put an end to the “new normal” talk. Pakistan chose its targets, struck to show resolve and capability and then also won the dogfight.
Later, we are told that India had thought of using missiles to hit nine targets in Pakistan. But Pakistan readied its missiles and informed India that it will hit back. That forced India to back off. If this is true — and it comes to us from a briefing by Prime Minister Imran Khan — then it seems that Modi had nursed the idea of playing a very dangerous hand, which he couldn’t because that would have meant exchange of missiles between a nuclear dyad — a development which has remarkable escalation potential. Missilery between nuclear powers is a big no. There’s no known technology in the world that can determine whether the incoming missile has a tactical or a strategic (nuclear) warhead and that can lead to response miscalculation.
The two sides are back to the ‘old normal’ — artillery and small-arms duelling across the LoC. The attempt by an Indian submarine to enter Pakistan’s territorial waters was also deftly picked up by Pakistan Navy, with the sub forced to return. It could have been sunk but Pakistan, in keeping with its policy of not escalating, chose not to make a hit.
From here on, there’s nothing more for India but to understand the imperative of positive engagement through a sustained dialogue. The framework for such engagement is already in place. There is no alternative to talking and walking that talk. But that will not happen until we see the electoral contest in India and its results.
At the same time, Pakistan must not underestimate India based on these limited rounds. While India could not coerce Pakistan militarily at this moment, if the growth differential between Pakistan and India continues to grow, the technological asymmetry will increase to the point where strategies of coercion could kick into play. That scenario could see very different results on the ground. For instance, India will possess the anti-access, area-denial (A2/AD) S-400 system by 2020. That system is not just defensive but can also be employed in a preemptive offensive role. Typically, A2/AD systems ensure that they can deny a mission to incoming hostiles (anti-access) and ensure safety of their own area against any hostile action (area denial mode). If things do not change through engagement, we could see India use the S-400 in any future round. That would be an entirely different ballgame altogether.
The writer is Executive Editor at Indus News and specialises in defence and security.
