People have spent days bearing hunger, thirst and discomfort in hastily set up makeshift camps. It looks like evacuation was a just a bit of choreography to fluff out the “surgical strike” drama.

At the receiving end: Villagers in a relief camp after being evacuated from their village near the border with Pakistan in Ranbir Singh Pora, southwest of Jammu. Reuters.

ALTHOUGH newspapers and news channels have thumped the “surgical strikes” story non-stop ever since September 29, precise information on this strike has yet to emerge. Initially, an Army general was shown on television saying that soldiers crossed the LoC and inflicted “heavy casualties” on terrorist camps. Clumsy visuals showed soldiers sliding down from helicopters. The next day,  junior Information Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore denied that there were aerial strike and said helicopters were not used. Pakistan  denied that there were any strikes at all. Supposedly, Indian soldiers struck seven camps but where exactly were these camps and what were the casualties inflicted?Why isn’t full, exact information being released? One possible explanation is that the government (and ruling party) want to give the impression that the operation was much more heroic that it actually was. If it turned out that the targets were easy “small potatoes” of little military value, then coming out with the specifics would invite ridicule — and this can’t be good with four states gearing up for the Assembly polls within the next few months.As a consequence of the “surgical strikes,” people living in villages along the international border in Punjab were ordered to leave. The implementation of this order has been haphazard. Some left, some did not.Reporters who have visited the border have found that the Indian Army is conspicuous by its absence — here and there BSF jawans stand guard at bridges. That is about the extent of heightened military readiness to meet a Pakistani attack. If the threat of attack is not to be taken too seriously, then why were villagers ordered to be evacuated from their homes? Lack of securityA reporter for The Wire noted: “In over two hours spent travelling through the villages in the border district, no military personnel inquired about who they were, checked their papers, or even examined the contents of their car — most hotels in New Delhi appear to have higher security.”From the farmers’ point of view, this “surgical strike” couldn’t have come at a worse time. The rice crop is ready for harvesting. The Government of India says nothing about compensating the villagers for loss of crop or livelihood on account of this untimely hiatus. People have spent days bearing hunger, thirst and discomfort in hastily set up makeshift camps and increasingly, it looks like the evacuation was just another bit of choreography to fluff out the “surgical strike” drama.As it is, a farmer whose land is next to the border fence gets the short end of the stick. He is restricted to just a few hours each day in which to cultivate his crop. If he can manage to sell out, then he can buy land somewhere else — but since nobody can effectively cultivate this land, who will buy it? When land is acquired for constructing national highways, land-owners are compensated. The farmers whose land lies in the 1.5-km wide strip next to the border fence should be paid for their land so that they too can relocate. It is only fair to cover their loss.Years ago, the Government of India proposed to evacuate a five-km wide strip of land within the actual border of India and turn it into a no-man’s land. This plan was reversed only after a prolonged effort by Punjab human rights’ groups. However, the government still insisted on keeping a 1.5 km strip cleared on the Indian side of the border. How does the government then maintain that every inch of land in India is equally sacred?

Immune to war hype

People have grown immune to the hype over the years. When there is a lot of it, people automatically look around to figure out what it is that the hype-mongers want to distract them from. Things are not looking too good for the BJP in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. Voters in Punjab are fed up with the ruling SAD-BJP alliance. The party is facing the anger of Dalits all across India. In the South, even erstwhile supporters are deserting the party over the Cauvery issue. Were the “surgical strikes” supposed to make us forget about all these things?When things are not going well domestically, the time-honoured response is to whip up turmoil on the international front. Indira Gandhi invariably trotted out the “foreign hand” to maintain her grip at home. It’s nothing new: way back in 1597, Shakespeare was writing the scene in Henry IV in which the dying king advises his son: “Be it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out, may waste the memory of the former days.” One is reminded of a limerick: I like to see the rooster crow He’s like so many men I know Who brag and bluster, rant and shout And beat their manly breasts without The first damn thing to crow about.The writer, a human rights’ activist, is the Chairperson, Movement Against State Repression.