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Lt Gen Surinder Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, visits field formations and border areas in Jammu on Friday. a tribune photo

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 14

General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, Lt Gen Surinder Singh, visited the Army’s field establishments in Pathankot, Samba and Jammu during a two-day visit to these sectors.He also inspected forward areas and reviewed the operational preparedness of formations in the border areas and had detailed deliberations on various aspects with the local commanders.He also interacted with troops and appreciated the high state of readiness and high morale of the troops. Exhorting them to remain alert and operationally ready, he emphasised the need to ensure foolproof security measures.

India has to climb down after the triumph of the surgical strikes because Pakistan cannot afford to look any weaker

A nyone who has a child knows the importance of not over-playing your hand. He was up all night playing some game on his smartphone and you feel like saying that if it happens again the phone is gone. Forever. Till he is old enough to buy his own. Till then he can have your old Nokia.

NITIN KANOTRAThe best way to secure the border is to get local people to start looking out for terrorists, which is what ultimately helped us in Punjab

The question is always whether, when it comes to it, you will feel up to carrying out the threat — knowing what his friends will say, realising how delighted the neighbourhood bully will be to get such an opportunity to get to him, worrying about all the other bad things he could get up to. The rational economist in me says why would he, knowing the consequences, ever get to the point where you have to act, but then a rational economist is not a 15-year-old with a fragile sense of himself and a strong desire to be proved that he is a man.

At the risk of sounding patronising, Pakistan is that troubled adolescent, unsure about the kind of country it wants to be, caught between the mad dreams of powerhungry theocrats and the more middle class aspirations of much of its population, a country born in the rejection of its conjoint twin and committed, above all, to step out of its long and looming shadow. China is that neighbourhood bully, secure in its immense power and recently earned economic credentials, happy to play its neighbours off against each other with gentle needling and occasional encouragement. And, we, alas, are the hapless parent, trapped between uncertainties about how to deal with the troubled teenager and our own, not infrequent, childish impulses.

Let me be clear about one thing: I don’t have an opinion, or at least a considered opinion, about whether the “surgical strikes” were a good idea or a bad one. If the strikes were successful in taking out the next group of attackers on one of our army camps or civilian destinations, they would indeed have served an important purpose. What is indefensible is what we have done since — the tom-tomming of our great success — the chest thumping that Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned us against but continues, seemingly unabated, in the media.

If you were the Pakistani government how are you supposed to react to that? Pretend that it never happened? They tried that but it did not stick. Admit that our security forces succeeded in pulling off a fast one over their Pakistani rivals? What Pakistani government could even think of that without risking a coup? The Pakistani army has not only pride riding on the image of their being the one institution that works in dysfunctional Pakistan, but also real money. It is well known that the army in Pakistan controls a substantial part of the country’s GDP (I have heard the number 15%) through its various trusts. According to Dawn, the Fauji Foundation has oil refineries, natural gas companies, power, fertiliser and cement plants as well as a bank. The armed forces are also a leading real estate developer in Pakistan. That gravy train would be upset if people started to question the army’s competence and relevance. Isn’t that why no peace attempt is allowed to go very far?

With the local media not convinced by the State propaganda so far, the Pakistani State is probably under pressure to do something to salvage the army’s honour — not revenge — one cannot take revenge for something that one is claiming never happened — but something definitive and surely violent. The question for us is what if that does happen. More strikes? This time they will be ready for it, happy to have our soldiers walk into a trap and the opportunity to humiliate us. Abrogate the Indus waters treaty? Good heavens no. We forget that we are downstream from China, which is always happy for an excuse to capture more water in dry Tibet, especially if it also helps a friend in need. It may not be a coincidence that just when we were talking about doing something with the Indus waters to punish Pakistan, China announced the building of a dam on the Brahmaputra. So what’s left? All-out war? Nuclear weapons?

Let us face it. We overplayed our hand. The strikes themselves Pakistan might have swallowed as a move in our age-old game of tit for tat. The propaganda, the public display of our delight at their expense, force their hand — it’s the smartphone moment. And we may very well come to regret it.

The question is how to climb down from here. It has to come from us. They cannot afford to look any weaker. The problem is that our present government has often shied away from disappointing its most rabid supporters, which might seem strange, since those supporters have nowhere else to go.

But it is also time to think hard about Kashmir. The best way to secure the border is to get local people to start looking out for terrorists — which is what ultimately helped us in Punjab. For that we need the local people on our side. The most compelling case we can make to the Kashmiri people is that the real alternative for them is to be swallowed up by the mess called Pakistan, and we can surely offer them better than that. But we severely undermine that case every time we tolerate anti-Muslim hysteria, or some arm of the India State shoots an unarmed student in the Valley.

Abhijit Banerjee is Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics, and director, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, MIT. The views expressed are personal.

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, October 10

A soldier was injured on Monday in a gunfight that erupted after suspected Jaish-e-Mohmmad militants opened fire on security forces from a government building in Sempora area of Pampore on the outskirts of Srinagar, the police said.

Two to three militants were trapped inside the seven-floor hostel building of Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI) located on the banks of the Jhelum River, some 12 km from the Srinagar city centre, police officials here said.

Security forces have laid a cordon around the EDI complex after fires were shot from inside one of its multi-storey building and a fierce encounter is under way, they said.

A soldier was hit by a bullet and has been evacuated to a nearby hospital, a police officer said.

The militants launched the “fidayeen” attack early morning today.

The incident came to light when the top floor of the building caught fire and the fire tenders rushing towards the location were fired upon from inside the building, a police official said.

The militants later also fired at the police, the official said.

The militants are believed to have taken position in the rear building of the EDI complex, which served as a hostel and temporarily housed its office.

The EDI complex was the site of a major “fidayeen” attack earlier this year, which had continued for three days.

The institute, situated on the strategic arterial road connecting Jammu and Srinagar, has three buildings — a guest house, a hostel complex and the main office building — on a 3.5-acre land on the Jhelum. With IANS inputs

Major General DN Singh, Chief of Staff, Chetak Corps, interacts with participants before flagging off the expedition in Bathinda on Saturday. Tribune photo: Pawan sharma

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 8

Major General DN Singh, Chief of Staff, Chetak Corps, flagged off a bicycle expedition-cum-camel safari of ‘Team AREN’, the Chetak Signallers, here today.This expedition comprising one officer, two junior commissioned officers and 12 jawans will cover 712 km, traversing through Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, and culminating in Bathinda on October 22.Steering through the sand dunes of the desert, the team will also reach out to the veterans, to know their problems, to brief them about latest schemes.They will also meet school and college students to spread the message of national integrity and educate the youth about opportunities available for joining the Indian Army.The team will also spread awareness various initiatives of the Government of India viz Digital India, Swacch Bharat Abhiyan and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao.An Army official claimed that the bicycle expedition with camel safari would provide an opportunity to the team members to exploit the arid desert, interact with the local population and reach out to the youth.It is an initiative of Sapta Shakti Command at Jaipur to reach out to veterans of the Indian Army.A number of similar rallies are being organised to spread awareness.

There has been no explanation from the White House so far.

Washington, October 5

More than 50,000 new signatures have been added to the final count of the White House petition seeking to designate Pakistan “a state sponsor of terrorism”, making it the most popular US petition so far.

The petition, “We the people ask the administration to declare Pakistan, State Sponsor of Terrorism (HR 6069)”, was archived by the White House on Monday with 613,830 signatures.

By Tuesday afternoon, the number of signatures on the petition had increased to 6,65,769, a jump of 51,939 signs.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

This is believed to be the most popular White House petition so far as the highest number of signatures received by any White House petition so far had not crossed 3,50,000.

There has been no explanation from the White House so far.

However, it is possible that these signatures, which were signed before the petition was closed by the White House, were added to the final tally after being duly verified.

In that case, the chances of a fraud being committed appear unlikely.

Another possibility could be that the petition was flooded with signatures. And since the petition had already reached the mandatory threshold of 1,00,000 to earn a response from the Obama administration, a decision could have been taken to archive it stop accepting any new signature.

The White House is expected to have an official response to the petition within stipulated 60 days.

Meanwhile, the White House is still looking for signatures that did not meet the criteria for the petition which was created on September 21 by someone who identified himself with initials R G, after Congress man Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher introduced a Bill in the US House of Representative, seeking to designate Pakistan as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.

It met the threshold of 1,00,000 signatures in less than a week. With various groups both inside and outside the US actively campaigning on the social media for people to support the petition, the signature count increased at a fast pace, sometimes more than 1,00,000 signatures in less than 24 hours.

In the process, it became the first-ever petition to cross half-a-million mark. A day after it was closed for signature, the final count as of now stands at 6,65,769 signatures.

While there is no official ranking of popular petitions, the one seeking “charges against the 47 US Senators in violation of the Logan Act in attempting to undermine a nuclear agreement” in April 2015 appears to be the second most popular petition with 3,20,000 signatures.

According to a website – WHpetitions.info – that keeps track of unanswered petitions, so far 323 White House petitions have met their signature thresholds.

The White House has responded to 318 of them (98 per cent) with an average response time of 117 days. Average waiting time so far for five unanswered petitions is 36 days. This does not include the latest petition.

Baloch-Americans have also launched their own petition on “Free Balochistan from Pakistan’s illegal occupation”. — PTI

New Delhi is warming up to the UAE at a time when Islamabad has earned the wrath of many Arab states, especially the Emirates

When Narendra Modi visited Abu Dhabi and Dubai last summer, the Pakistani daily Dawn wondered if the Indian prime minister had “stepped into the recent breach between Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates over Islamabad’s refusal to actively join the Yemen war?” The need for the question-mark was removed this week, with the announcement that Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, will be the guest of honour at India’s next Republic Day celebrations

REUTERSCrown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan waves to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Rashtrapati Bhavan, February 11

There are plenty of reasons for Modi to make Sheikh Mohamed his chief guest, not least the $60 billion in IndoUAE trade, and the 2.3 million Indians who live and work in the Emirates. But the timing of the announcement made it especially piquant for Pakistan, for it came in the middle of New Delhi’s campaign to isolate Islamabad diplomatically in the aftermath of the Uri attacks.

Islamabad should have seen this coming. On his August, 2015 trip to the UAE, Modi made pointed barbs at Islamabad during his public speeches, eliciting no reproach from his hosts. Earlier that year, Pakistan had earned the wrath of several Arab states, including the UAE, when it refused to join a coalition led by Saudi Arabia in an assault on Yemen, where Iran-backed Shia militias known as the Houthis had toppled a Saudi-friendly government. The UAE was especially blunt in its expression of displeasure. Minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Mohammed Gargash rounded on Islamabad for its “vague and contradictory stand”, and warned Pakistan would pay a “heavy price”.

In the language of diplomatic politesse, such words are the equivalent of schoolyard curses, but Gargash had even harsher invective to deliver. He suggested Islamabad cared more for Iran than for the Arab states: This, in the context of the Sunni-Shia conflagration across West Asia, came within a whisker of accusing Pakistan of apostasy, a heinous and contemptible crime in Islam.

Pakistan was right to stay out of the war on Yemen, which continues to this day, bringing ever more destruction to the Arab world’s poorest nation and still more dishonour to its richest. Although Islamabad does little to discourage the persecution of the Shia (and other minorities) within Pakistan, it cannot, for many reasons, afford to participate in the wider sectarian conflict. Having long been assured that their military was busy protecting them from the designs of India, and the depredations of internal enemies, like Baloch separatists and Pashtun terrorists, ordinary Pakistanis showed no interest in sending their troops to fight for a dubious Arab cause.

Even so, saying “No” can’t have been easy for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, or for army chief Raheel Sharif. The Arab states are Pakistan’s principal economic benefactors, as well as a diplomatic bulwark against India. The UAE is one of Pakistan’s largest donors of aid, both humanitarian and economic, and its largest trade partner. Around 1.8 million Pakistanis live in the Emirates. The Arab states also bankroll Raheel’s troops, and helped underwrite Islamabad’s nuclear programme. In return, they have long regarded the Pakistani military as theirs to summon.

It is hard to know if the Pakistani military would have swung the conflict in Yemen decisively in favour of the Saudi coalition, which has proved singularly incompetent, despite overwhelming superiority in arms. Earlier this summer, Gargash announced the UAE was pulling most of its forces out of Yemen, citing the death of 80 of its soldiers — a large number for such a small country. (The war continues to exact a toll, however: Over the weekend, a UAE vessel was sunk by Yemeni rebels. They claim it was a warship, the UAE says it was delivering aid, and the US says it belonged to a dredging company.) For a nation that takes pride in its ability to buy the world’s best war weaponry to be forced into a withdrawal by a rag-tag band of rebels was an utter humiliation, and many Emiratis must wonder if they may have been spared the ignominy if Pakistan had joined the fight.

Since Gargash’s outburst last year, Islamabad has tried desperately to make nice with the Arab states, and especially with the UAE. But its efforts have mostly been in the shape of words, including a speech from Nawaz Sharif to the effect that Pakistan “does not abandon friends and strategic partners”. This has gone down like a lead balloon in the Emirates. On a trip the Dubai earlier this year, practically everyone I met were still asking why Pakistan was sitting out on the war.

Unable to do anything substantive to mend relations, the Pakistani leadership will have squirmed at Modi’s announcement of a “strategic partnership” between India and the UAE during his visit. Their discomfiture will have been the more acute for hearing that the India-UAE joint statement called “on all states to reject and abandon the use of terrorism against other countries, dismantle terrorism infrastructures where they exist, and bring perpetrators of terrorism to justice”. Subtle, it was not. With Sheikh Mohamed’s participation in India’s Republic Day now confirmed, there’s additional pressure on Pakistan’s leaders — political and military alike — to get back into the UAE’s good books. There’s little prospect that the Pakistani military will be deployed in Yemen, and even if that were to happen it would earn Islamabad few brownie points with the Emiratis, since they’ve themselves all but abandoned the battlefield. Nor are there any meaningful economic inducements that Pakistan can offer in recompense: The UAE already enjoys unrestricted access to the Pakistani market.

It’s a good thing that Pakistan’s leadership has had much recent practice in squirming uncomfortably. They will be doing a lot of it on January 26.

On my first, and perhaps last, visit to Pakistan in the spring of 2008 to attend Pugwash Conference in Islamabad, I was told by my daughter, a doctor by profession, “Please get me the CDs of ‘Tanhaiyan’ and ‘Dhoop Kinare’” (two most popular TV shows of Pakistan).She had taken a fancy to Marina Khan, who played the lead role in these two shows. But, she knew her as “Dr Zoya Khan”, a character that turned bright the dull life in a hospital in the multi-episode Pakistani serial “Dhoop Kinare”.On the eve of my departure from Pakistan, I decided to buy the CDs. In the lobby of Marriott Hotel, I spotted Mehbooba Mufti, then an MP and now Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. I asked her if she would like to accompany me to the market. She agreed to my great surprise. BJP leader Nirmal Singh, now Deputy Chief Minister, also came along.Omar Abdullah was also there, but he was not to be seen around, except during the conference where he was the star articulator of all problems under the sun, particularly South Asia. And, Mehbooba never forgot to compliment her political rival back home.As we stepped out of the hotel, I could see deep annoyance in the eyes of ISI spies shadowing Mehbooba. “She moves in and out like a bird. We are left clueless. It is becoming difficult for us to tail her,” one of the spies had confided to one of the delegates, who now holds an important position in the Mehbooba Mufti government. That was one such occasion when they felt uncomfortable with her unannounced movement.It was getting dark. Mehbooba suggested, “Let’s walk up to the market.” She is a walk buff. But she was not wearing her usual sports shoes, but sandals. Suddenly the straps of her sandals fell apart, as we were negotiating the under-repair footpath. We hired a cab to complete our small journey to the market.At the shop, a long-bearded customer, wearing a typical Khan dress, was asking the shopkeeper, “Do you have a CD of songs of ‘Jannat’ (Indian movie)”. The shopkeeper nodded and pulled out a CD for him.On my turn, “I asked for the CDs which my daughter had demanded. The shopkeeper, who later identified himself by his first name, Iqbal, looked at me with extreme curiosity and I found myself hearing, “Are you from India?” “Yes” was the answer to his expectations.Why are you asking for such old dramas? I explained my daughter was a Marina fan. She has watched these dramas as serials but not in one go. He was all smiles which reflected a unique hospitality and friendliness. After getting the CDs, he told me that his shop had more Indian movies than Pakistani. It was a genuine admission because I was not shopping the Indian stuff.Where was I? A Hindu from India in Pakistan, an Islamic country. The two countries have often been viewed as enemies and have fought wars. Did this incident reflect hostility or friendship? These thoughts crossed my mind as we headed back to our hotel.“Here is your ‘Dr Zoya Khan’,” I told my daughter on my return. She was so excited that she started playing it at once.Does Marina, “Dr Zoya Khan”, mean a Pakistani to my daughter. No, her love for Marina transcends all boundaries. She still watches the dramas, whenever she needs solace, or wants to laugh with her role model.Marina was playing the role of a doctor, and my daughter is a doctor by profession. Can I draw boundaries between the two? No. I better not. In fact, no one should think of creating such chasms. We have nothing in common as far as our history and culture is concerned with America or China, but we share much more with Pakistan than with any other country in the world. We are just a little distance away, then why are the tanks on the border and why are we all getting hysterical with maniac thoughts of eliminating each other?Terrorism is the biggest enemy. That should be understood. Indians love “Dr Zoya Khan” but it is for Pakistan to eliminate terrorism from its soil and its export is proving costly.The idea of “Dr Zoya Khan” can help us clasp our hands. From this side, we have “Bhai Jaan.” Both India and Pakistan need to clear the clouds of war, decimate terrorism, so that the role models of hope and love grow and prosper on both sides with mutual admiration.

US DELIVERS A BLUNT MESSAGE TO ISLAMABAD — ‘EXERCISE RESTRAINT’ ON NUCLEAR TALK AND MISSILE CAPABILITIES

WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI: Defence minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday threatened Pakistan with a “befitting reply again” if it continues to sponsor terrorism, the tough talk coming a day after the US bluntly told Islamabad to stop its rhetoric on nuking India.

Parrikar’s warning came two days after New Delhi said Indian forces carried out surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control — the de facto border between the two countries in Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian strike was in response to a militant attack on an army camp at Uri that left 18 soldiers dead. Pakistan has no idea what happened because its condition is like that of an “anaesthetised patient” postsurgery, who has no idea what has happened, the minister said at Pauri in Uttarakhand. Islamabad has denied New Delhi’s claims about conducting surgical strikes in Pakistanoccupied Kashmir.

PM Narendra Modi met President Pranab Mukherjee and is understood to have briefed him about the surgical strikes.

According to TV reports, Parrikar gave an analogy of Lord Rama, the protagonist in the epic Ramayana, who won Lanka and gave it to Vibhishana.

“We did the same in Bangladesh. We do not want to harm anyone, but if someone harms us, a befitting reply will be given…Lord Hanuman did not know of his powers before going to Lanka, I made our armed forces realise their power,” he was quoted as saying.

Parrikar’s tough talk against Pakistan comes when New Delhi’s diplomatic encirclement of Pakistan seems to be paying off. The international community, including Pakistan’s traditional allies, has maintained a studied silence on India’s surgical strikes, while underscoring the need to act against terrorism, indirectly bracketing Pakistan.

In a blunt message delivered publicly on Friday, the United States told the Pakistani government to “exercise restraint” regarding the use of nuclear weapons, or the talk about it. “I would just say nuclear-capable states have a very clear responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities,” US state department spokesman Mark Toner said at the daily briefing in response to a question, about “some of the rhetoric from the Pakistani government”.

“And that’s my message publicly and that’s certainly our message directly to the Pakistani authorities,” he added.On Monday, Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Asif had threatened to “destroy India” in the event of a war. “We have not made an atomic device to display in a showcase. If such a situation arises we will use it and eliminate India,” he told a TV channel, raising alarm in capitals around the world already worried about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of terrorists.

On Saturday, Indian army chief General Dalbir Singh also reviewed military preparedness at the northern and western borders.

He visited the Udhampur-based Northern Command and interacted with the special forces men who destroyed seven terror launch pads in PoK, killing at least 35 terrorists and their handlers. He later visited the Chandimandir-based Western Command to take stock of the army’s readiness along the Punjab border.

Special forces across the world keep their operations secret. The euphoria over a ‘kill’ is never celebrated and there is no sense of complacency after an operation ends. National security is a larger concept not based on jingoism or revengeful actions.

The Army’s Sept 28-29 surgical strikes inside Pakistan mark a watershed in our strategy to combat terrorists and their sponsors. Not that such strikes had never happened; this time, a convincing response was well acknowledged. Covert ops are seldom publicized and these have an in-built element of deterrence. Our larger and more significant strategy would be a deeper understanding of the enemy and an ever-vigilant security apparatus. Almost 17 years ago and just six months after the Kargil War, the Indian Army on January 22, 2000, killed 16 Pakistani soldiers after over-running a Pakistani post across the Line of Control (LoC) in the Chhamb sector. The bodies of five Pakistani soldiers were reportedly dragged back by Indian troops and later handed over to the Pakistani Army. This was one of many such attacks carried out from time-to-time by the Indian Army consequent to Islamabad’s continuing proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir. The Pakistani Army, too, has been carrying out similar attacks on Indian positions after crossing the LoC along with enjoying the advantage of having an army of terrorists to whom it routinely outsources terror attacks as it did most recently in Uri.These trans-LoC attacks by both armies stopped for a while after the November 2003 ceasefire came into effect along both the LoC and the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) with Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). But there have been occasions when, even during the current ‘ceasefire’, India has been conducting retaliatory attacks across the LoC such as, for example, in response to the decapitation of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistani Army in January 2013. Indian Army soldiers are reported to have then beheaded between five and ten Pakistani soldiers in response.So what is new about the shallow-distance ‘surgical’ strike carried out in the wee hours of September 29? One, that New Delhi has officially acknowledged what the Indian Army has been doing for many years now. Second, the Army carried out simultaneously coordinated surgical strikes across the LoC at seven launch pads located over an arc of 250 km spread across both the Jammu and the Valley sectors. Third, the attacks were directed specifically against terrorists in their launch pads rather than against the Pakistani Army. In doing so, India has made it publicly known that it has the resolve and capability of crossing the LoC to strike at terrorists who Pakistan officially denies supporting. 

Some questions

Last Thursday’s action gives rise to three questions. First and foremost, how qualitatively and quantitatively effective were the Army’s strikes against terrorists in PoK? The government has indicated it will furnish evidence and some details about the effectiveness of the strikes. Until then, we only have the government’s word for it. Sooner or later questions are bound to rise. Second, and most important, will this deter Islamabad from continuing to support terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country? Third, will surgical strikes of high intensity and quality henceforth become state policy to be repeated as and when thus truly marking a paradigm shift in India’s response to Pakistan’s support to terrorism? Or, will this be a one-off strike aimed at quelling public anger over the terror attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri? Furthermore, will this action be milked for political gains by the ruling party, especially during campaigning in the forthcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab?Such strikes cannot and must not be an end in itself. The aim of such action has to be to make it expensive for Pakistan to support terrorists and also for the terrorists themselves if not altogether stop Islamabad from making terrorism an instrument of state policy. Leave aside ceasing to support terrorists, Pakistan is expected to become more hostile towards India in response to which New Delhi will need to be ever vigilant and prepared. The Army’s limited ‘surgical’ strike on is so far a reactive measure – a response to the September 18 terror attack in Uri. It was not, truly speaking, a pro-active measure initiated without an immediate provocation. Besides, a solitary military action of this nature is never enough. For, this cannot be a number game where the killing of 19 Indian soldiers must be matched by an equal or higher figure after which India waits for the next terror attack to occur before again responding. 

Draw a policy

Rather, New Delhi needs to consider making it a policy to conduct pre-emptive surgical strikes on Pakistani terror factories on a relentlessly continuous basis in order to truly making it expensive for the terrorists and its Pakistani patrons. Prevention, rather than cure, is ideally the answer. But for this, Indian intelligence agencies will need to develop an intelligence gathering network par excellence comprising human intelligence (HUMINT) and electronic intelligence (ELINT) sources to obtain real time actionable information; Well-equipped special forces will have to be on permanent stand-by and work in conjunction with intelligence agencies. The political executive irrespective of the political alliance in power will need to maintain a steely resolve and keep the nerve to ‘go for it’ each time. Both the Indian intelligence and military establishments will need to develop capabilities to overcome Pakistani measures to prevent such attacks; and India will have to be in a ‘state in being’, i.e. in a perpetual state of alertness and preparedness including for setbacks as does happen in this long drawn out game. Only then would India have truly ‘arrived’ such as like Israel, which some Indian commentators love to quote. 

Dangerous game

The question is whether India has the stomach, resolve and capability for this kind of a response? Then again, the September 29 strike was across a shallow distance of up to between 2 and 3 km. How deep will India be prepared to go should Pakistan relocate its launch pads well inside Occupied Jammu and Kashmir? Is India prepared for an escalation, and to what extent? Soon after the terror attacks in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major told the government that the Indian Air Force was unable to conduct air strikes on terror camps in Pakistan since they did not have specific coordinates. In other words, there existed no actionable intelligence despite supposed reforms in intelligence gathering carried out after the May-July 1999 Kargil War. 

Covertly overt?

The Army’s trans-LoC action has been greeted with and commented on with much jingoism and chest thumping by some in India, especially by some sections of the ruling party, as had occurred when India exploded nuclear devices in May 1998. Covert operations and surgical strikes are more effective when not publicised. While overt announcements are good for the domestic audience and gives the ruling dispensation political mileage, it does not serve its true purpose; certainly not at such an early stage. Ideally, covert operations should strike hard and remain covert. It should be left on officers to refer to it in passing in their memoirs written well after their retirement. If at all it must be made public by the government, it is best done when Pakistan’s terror factory is sufficiently degraded. Until then maturity lies in silent but relentless continuous action. A tool in the boxDuring the height of militancy in Punjab when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) engaged in a series of covert operations in Pakistan which was partial cause for some dent in Islamabad’s support to terrorism in the state. In 1989 killings by terrorists declined to 1,188 from 1,949 in 1988 only to escalate after the VP Singh government came to power. With RAW’s operations then ceasing and the VP Singh government adopting a ‘liberal’ outlook, terrorism escalated and in just two years (1990 and 1991), terrorists killed 5,059 people in the state (2,467 in 1990 and 2,591 in 1991). This was equivalent to the figure of a total 5,070 people killed in the preceding 12 years (1978 to 1989) before terrorism in the Punjab began tapering off following a regime change in New Delhi and the formation of an elected government in Chandigarh.Strategy is the employment of all means for an end. Surgical strikes have to be viewed as a tool in the box. It cannot be the sole instrument. Equally important, the 29th September action must never be a one-off. It should mark the beginning of pro-active measures to end Pakistan’s long standing roguish game of using terror against India. The journey has just begun and India has a long way to go. It is for successive governments in New Delhi to complete this journey.

dkumar@tribunemail.com

The platoon bridge on Ravi river being constructed. Tribune photo

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, October 1

Fearing a retaliation attack by Pakistan on a cluster of seven villages situated across the river Ravi, the state government has ordered PWD to get the 750-feet long pontoon bridge constructed within 72 hours.The bridge at Makkoran Pattan village, the confluence point of rivers Ujh and Ravi, is dismantled in June every year and is reconstructed in the first week of November. However, this time, keeping in view the volatile situation the structure will be ready by October 3.Construction work is going on in full swing with the PWD authorities working overtime to meet the deadline.“In the event of a conflict, residents will be forced to cross the river in boats before reaching Gurdaspur.The boats, in any case, are unable to take such a heavy load. The state government has taken the decision of getting the pontoon bridge ready a month ahead of schedule after a lot of deliberations. The army and the BSF have also been consulted,” Gurdaspur DC Pardeep Sabharwal said.The bridge, when completed, can take a load of 5 tonnes which is enough for army trucks and tractor-trolleys to move.   Residents, however, are not satisfied. They claim that for the last several decades they had been demanding a permanent bridge instead of a pontoon bridge.“Education, transport and health facilities are non-existent in our villages. They can improve only if we have a permanent structure that can connect us to the city throughout the year. We have requested the authorities many times but all we get is the “lack of funds” excuse. If the government can not give us a concrete bridge better merge the island with Pakistan which is just a stone’s throw away,” Jaswant Singh of Mummy Chakranga village said.The official line is that neither the Army nor the BSF are willing to give permission for the construction of a concrete bridge.“Funds are not a problem. The fact is that the security forces refuse to give a green signal. They say construction of a permanent bridge is not possible because of security considerations,” the DC said.