Lt Gen DS Hooda (retd) is right
when he talks about needless hype over operations like the surgical strikes.
Note, of course, that he is not arguing that such strikes are wrong, but that
the accompanying hype, often aimed at playing to the political gallery,
undermines their military value.
There is, of course, the larger
question as to the very nature of the so-called surgical strikes of September
29, 2016, that had been launched to avenge the Uri militant strike of September
18. Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Ranbir Singh who, as DGMO, announced the
strikes, responded to Hooda by saying that the strikes were a successful
tactical operation that had conveyed a message to Pakistan.
Lt Gen Ranbir Singh’s statement is
not borne out by facts. Pakistan did not stop its ‘misadventures’ as he
quaintly put it. Almost two months later, on November 29, Jaish militants
attacked an Army base in Nagrota and in the ensuing shootout 10 soldiers,
including three officers were killed.
The Nagrota strike was far more
serious than the Uri one. Unlike Uri, which is very close to the LoC and more
vulnerable, Nagrota is somewhat inland. More important, it is the headquarters
of the huge 16 Corps and should thus have had a much higher level of
protection.
But by far the more damaging was the
fact that the Indian Army did not react to this provocation. If the surgical
strikes after Uri were meant to deter further Pakistani ‘misadventure’, the
only way it would work as a strategy, would be if the Army hit Pakistan hard
every time it launched an attack.
The next year, 2017, there were
several attacks across the LoC attributed to Pakistani jihadis and forces. In
one, an Indian patrol was attacked in Krishna Ghati sector of the Poonch
district, killing two soldiers. In December, a Pakistani Border Action Team
(BAT) came half a kilometre into Indian territory and killed four soldiers,
including a Major.
Early this year, there was another
Jaish attack on the Sunjuwan camp housing soldiers and their families, a few
kilometres to the east of Jammu City. As many as 11 soldiers and a civilian
were killed and 20 injured. Yet, there was no reaction comparable to the
surgical strikes. So it is evident that the strikes did not deter
Pakistan.
You can draw many conclusions from
this. One is that the Indian policy of surgical strikes was flawed to start
with. Perhaps publicising it the way it was done was not a good idea. Or, the
Army had not thought through its strategy because if it was aimed at sending a
signal that India would no longer sit back and tolerate attacks such as the
ones on Pathankot and Uri, the Army needed to demonstrably hit back at
Pakistan every time jihadis or BAT attacks took place.
Clearly, there are hazards in the
latter policy. If demonstrable strikes take place, the two countries could get
locked into an escalatory cycle which could eventually lead to war. That
neither side wants this is evident from the fact that their cross-LoC activity
remains limited. Even episodes of cross-border bombardment that occasionally
take place on the LoC or the border in Jammu, usually end in a ceasefire. That
is why, it is important to keep a tight control on the escalatory framework.
The way of doing this earlier was to keep the retaliatory cycles secret and not
let them enter the political or electoral cycles in either country because hype
tends to be the hand-maiden of politics. That the strikes were politicised is
no secret. Whether it is in the speeches of BJP leaders or the posters that
came up, the strikes were widely featured in the Uttar Pradesh state Assembly
elections of 2016.
At the end of the day, there is the
challenge of deterring Pakistan. It is one thing to deter it from the point of
view of nuclear weapons and large-scale conventional conflict, and quite
another to make it cease and desist from sending groups of militants in the
name of ‘political support’ to the Kashmiri militancy.
India has not yet found the formula
of dealing with them. The so-called surgical strikes were mooted as the
solution, but they have clearly not worked.
Having initiated a policy, it was
important for the Army to follow through with that policy, which it did not,
because the main purpose of the strikes was to make a political statement which
was aimed at the UP elections. The Indian challenge was neatly side-stepped by
Islamabad which simply denied that such strikes took place and did not feel
compelled to respond to the Indian action in word or deed.
New Delhi certainly has the option
of using military retaliation every time the Pakistanis act. The politicians do
not mind basking in the glory of the strikes because they took out a few
terrorist launching pads for no loss of life. But escalation, even a larger
skirmish, always has the possibility of going awry and putting pressure on the
government to enhance the level of violence when things don’t go according to
plan. We cannot be sure just how Islamabad will react and we should not
exaggerate our capabilities with regard to Pakistan. In such matters, sober
realism is the best approach, and this would tell us that we need a different
menu of options when it comes to bringing down and eliminating the violence in
Jammu & Kashmir.
This article originally appeared in The Tribune.
By
Observer Research Foundation By
Manoj Joshi
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