Pakistan has been escalating border clashes and upgrading the level of hostility against us. There is manifold increase in terrorist activities from border infiltration to border firing and shelling ever since Modi took over as Prime Minister of India. The latest is the attack on the border village of Kathaar in Arnia sector where four fully armed LeT fidayeen sneaked into our side of the border, opened fire on innocent civilians killing five of them and then attacked our post where they gunned down three Army jawans and seized the bunker. The Army, BSF and State police swung into action and liquidated all the four of them.
How did Pakistani terrorists succeed in sneaking in when, according to Army authorities, security bandobast in the sector had been upgraded and all preventive measures taken to deny Pakistan any opportunity of infiltrating into our territory? Those responsible for security shall have to answer the question. It is obvious that in view of Pakistan’s determination to disrupt our administration, our security paraphernalia has to be extraordinarily vigilant and alert. Their slackness is questionable.
PM Modi’s initial effort to leave the past acrimony behind and start a new chapter in Indo-Pak relationship had prompted him to invite Pakistani Prime Minister along with other SAARC heads of Governments to the oath taking ceremony. Pakistan army was not in favour of Nawaz Sharif warming up to Modi. This has been their policy from the very beginning. Kashmir is the lubricant that greases the Army machine of Pakistan. Once Kashmir issue is resolved, Pakistan army will be bereft of its enormous funding sources that keep men in olive green happy with what they have done to the civil society. Three days before the oath taking ceremony of Modi in New Delhi, LeT and Pak army contrived fidayeen attack on Indian mission in Herat, Afghanistan. That reminds us of ISI sponsored attacks on Indian embassy in Kabul some time back.
Lashkar-e-Toiba is the frontline of Pak offensive against India. It essentially comprises indoctrinated youth with the single objective of cutting away Kashmir from India and merging it with Pakistan. LeT has a widespread network in Pakistan and it has created modules in Afghanistan and India including J&K. Usually one or two senior commanders of LeT commanding local saboteurs from Kashmir or other parts of the country make up the group of the outfit. They have their feeding agencies and their indoctrination in Wahhabi and Salafi Islamic ideology is a pre-requisite. This anti-India organization functions from Pakistani soil. It has opened many training centers including in PoK where volunteers receive calibrated training in terrorism and violence and in handling deadly automatic weapons, bombs and RDX materials.
Entire world knows that LeT has one-point agenda and that is of creating disruption in Kashmir and whipping up communal passions among the locals so as to paralyze the Government and bring it down, They want that elections are disrupted, law and order set aside and mayhem given currency. LeT’s “non state actors” have been deployed along the LoC in Kashmir and the IB as well. In the meanwhile Pakistan has raised the pitch of its propaganda that Kashmir is a flash point and could flare up into nuclear clash. Pakistan has been trying to raise the issue at international forum like the UN General Assembly, Security Council, British Parliament and with President Obama of the US. She has met with rebuff especially from the UN Secretary General and President Obama both of whom have said that after signing Shimla Agreement, only India and Pakistan were the parties to the dispute and they are called upon to resolve it bilaterally without banking on the intervention of a third party.
With this development, Pakistan is hopeless of any redeeming factor from the Western powers. At home, tension between the elected Government and the Army is playing a see-saw game. Army suspects that Nawaz Sharif is soft- paddling on Kashmir issue and foreign policy and if that is allowed, it would mean a blow to the interests of Pakistani army. It is the Kashmir issue that is indirectly forcing Pakistani army to oppose its own elected regimes. Needless to remind our readers that the US and particularly President Obama has been telling Pakistan to mend fence with India and seek India’s cooperation for overcome her economic difficulties.
Fidayeen are trained in hidden terrorist training camps opened by LeT at many places including PoK territory and even parts of Eastern Afghan territory like Kuner. Throwing a veil of secrecy over them enables Pakistani authorities and the ISI-army combine to lend credence to their theory of deniability. They would not want to give any cause of suspicion to the people of Pakistan. This is why ordinary Pakistani citizen does and cannot think rationally and independently about Indo-Pak relations. Hate India propaganda is expressly pushed down the throat of ordinary Pakistani.
The question is that since Pakistan operating through State sponsored actors is hell bent on continuing its aggressive designs against India, what the State of India should do to counter these designs against her sovereignty and territorial integrity. Talks have failed, persuasions have failed, friendly advice from well wishers has failed and retaliation by way of tooth for tooth and eye for eye has failed. What then is the State of India going to do to humble the arrogant neighbour? Economically, Pakistan is in no good a situation and internal dissensions on account of divisive politics and Army’s hegemony are sapping her energy. The Prime Minister, though having a majority in the Parliament, has been reduced to a signing machine by the Generals who have ganged up behind former General Pervez Musharraf to fight to the finish if the power, influence and authority are taken away from its hands. For fear of disapproval and derision of world opinion Pakistan army is reluctant to embark on staging coup, its favourite panacea for the ills of Pakistan. Thus the Army is left with no option except that of diverting the attention of the people to Indo-Pak scenario.
In these circumstances, Indian policy planners have to be somewhat realistic and pragmatic in handling the situation. The bottom-line of India’s reaction is that she has not to be the initiator of hostilities. But at the same time, hostilities have to be countered without allowing escalation graduate to full-fledged war. Surveillance and security along the border have to be increased; vigil has to be intensified; retaliation has to be calibrated and denial theory has to be advanced. We reserve the right to effectively counter Pakistan. India must shun its timidity, over-step unreasoned international commitments and make it clear to the world community that to preserve her sovereignty and territorial integrity and to promote the democratic and civil and human rights of the oppressed people in her neighbourhood, she has the moral duty of lending them whatever support she can. World democracies cannot escape the historic responsibility of standing solidly behind India in her supreme endeavour to save democracy as the cherished political arrangement of contemporary world from the onslaught of religious extremism.
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