Sealing the entire 3,323-km border will be anything but easy

Walled in: Politically, this could be interpreted as an admission of defeat.

A NEW strategy toward Pakistan, it was supposed to be auguring — our strikes on the LoC 10 days ago. The doctrine of ‘jaw for tooth’ by a ‘New India’ was supposed to compel Pakistan to realise India has a ‘different leader’. But fundamental questions remain unasked.Is such a strategy viable against a nuclear country? So far, the only doctrine of military strategy and national security policy that has been taken seriously is based on the theory of deterrence, which Pakistan has embraced, which presumes that the use of nuclear weapons would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.The doctrine is based on a kind of ‘Nash equilibrium’ — India and Pakistan are both assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of each other, and neither has anything to gain by changing one’s strategy unilaterally. The Indian policy makers are acutely conscious of this stunning reality. Ten days after the surgical strikes — military analysts increasingly feel comfortable calling it ‘surgical raids’ — it is clear that the government does not have any new strategy toward Pakistan. Home Minister Rajnath Singh announced on Friday that the new strategy means fencing the entire India-Pakistan border. The fellow travellers of the establishment in our strategic community can stand down.Rajnath Singh was very clear-headed. He even christened the strategy as the Border Security Grid. The entire 3,323-km border will be ‘completely sealed’ by December 2018 — six months ahead of the next parliamentary poll due in 2019. A time-bound action plan will be prepared. The progress of the work will be properly monitored on a monthly basis to avoid shoddy performance.Of course, some confusion still remains, which is understandable, given the mammoth challenge of implementation. For example, what about the stretches of riverine or low-lying marshy areas in Gujarat where erection of physical barriers is not feasible? Digital India could, perhaps, deploy ‘technology solutions’ such as cameras, sensors, radars, lasers, etc. Conceivably, Israel could be sub-contracted so that there won’t be any breakdown in technology.Even at the peak of insurgency in the 1990s, we never thought of such an impractical idea. Politically, this is an admission of total defeat. The government obviously seems to resign itself to the conclusion that Pakistan will continue to wage the asymmetric war, and doesn’t care two hoots as to who is at the helm of affairs in India and no matter India’s formidable national security czarism. Not only that, we seem to apprehend that Pakistan will now expand the asymmetric war from the Kashmir theatre and wage it in the marshes of Gujarat and the deserts of Rajasthan as well, in a deliberate thrust at the heartland of the BJP. The International Border (IB) has been traditionally peaceful, except in times of war.However, Rajnath Singh did not seem to be aware that India and Pakistan’s conduct on the IB is guided by the mutually agreed Border Ground Rules (1960-1961), which, although not signed, has been largely observed. This is a matrix of the code of conduct, which specifies the kind of structures that can be built along the IB — how tall the watchtowers could be, how deep inside they should be from the border, and so on. Evidently, the government is either ignorant of the Border Ground Rules or abandoning the framework altogether. There will be consequences. The point is, in the downstream of the Border Ground Rules a welter of confidence-building measures also was created, which has its practical uses.What is possible is that the government can fill in the gaps in the IB fence that runs through the states. In Rajasthan, the fence in Thar Desert gets impaired by shifting sand dunes. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s idea of erecting a spiritual line of defence, Rashtra raksha yagna —employing 21 ‘patriotic Brahmins’ to chant mantras ‘to protect troops from the enemy’ — will not work. Giving such religious symbolism to utterly worldly things can only confuse people that the government is utterly helpless and has no alternative but to seek divine blessings to ward off the evil that is Pakistan. (It is appropriate that Rajnath Singh failed to show up at the ceremony at Shri Mateshwari Tanot Rai temple in Jaisalmer.)The big question remains: Can Pakistan be reduced to a law and order problem? There is an international dimension to India-Pakistan relations. And that dimension causes serious worry. Despite the brouhaha over cancellation of the SAARC summit in Islamabad following the PM’s decision to boycott it, Pakistan is far from “isolated”. The period since Uri attack testifies to the reality that none of the big powers — the US, China, Russia or the EU — will pay heed to the Indian demarche to ‘isolate’ Pakistan or impose sanctions on it as a state sponsoring terrorism.It will be a reality check to acquaint ourselves with the ‘strategic dialogue’ that Pakistan last week held with the EU. The joint statement issued after the meet in Brussels on October 4 agreed to develop a medium-term Strategic Engagement Plan between the sides. The Joint Communique stated: ‘The EU acknowledged the significant efforts by the government of Pakistan and the sacrifices made in the fight against terrorism and reaffirmed EU’s continued support… They also agreed to strengthen dialogue on defence matters… The Pakistan side apprised the EU about recent developments in the region, including the current situation in Kashmir. Noting with concern the recent developments, the EU side underlined the need for resolving disputes through dialogue and constructive engagement.’The birds are coming to roost. The government’s self-centred attempts to turn the country’s foreign policies into an exercise of self-glorification for the Prime Minister are back-firing. We stare at a two-year chronicle of wasted time in Indian diplomacy. On Thursday, the US state department spokesman John Kirby added to the usual mantra about the crucial importance of India-Pakistan engagement a pointed reminder that terrorism is ‘a common threat, a common challenge in the region’ and a cooperative approach is needed in tackling it effectively.Referring to the Kashmir issue, Kirby underscored the importance of ‘meaningful dialogue’. The writing on the wall is unambiguous. The international community is getting restive as regards our strikes and it intends to have a say on how two nuclear powers should sort out their problems, because they also happen to be vitiating international security as a whole.Fencing is not the solution. It may supplement the ‘muscular’ grandstanding by the Modi government. But it is about time the country gets real. Life is real.The writer is a former ambassador