Anil Anand
Should the details of an Army operation, whatever be its nature be made public? In the traditional sense of the term the answer would be a big no and rightly too as armed forces would like to keep all their operational activities under wraps ultimately to become part of the military history and be judged at a later date.
However, this question has acquired the dimension of national discourse if not agenda as India and Pakistan have entered into a psychological slugfest and so have the country’s political parties in the aftermath of Indian Army’s surgical strikes across Line of Control in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Almost all the political parties have lauded the Modi Government’s decision but still they disagree and demand clinching evidence. It indeed is a paradoxical situation and something new which was never witnessed during the course of earlier conflicts with the hostile neighbour.
So the dictum ‘divided we stand and united we fall’ amply fits in describing the current political discourse and volley of charges and counter-charges being hurled at each other by the ruling and opposition camps. Though, this is a disturbing situation but an interesting one which needs a calibrated analysis from all angles.
Do we entirely blame the opposition parties for seeking evidence for an Army operation? It would be naive and unjust to heap entire blame on them though they cannot be absolved. There is a drastic change in internal dimensions from the earlier years whenever the Indo-Pak conflicts took place and that is why only the opposition cannot be blamed for current confusion.
Why so? True to its aggressive and high octane style the Government itself blew the lid of secrecy from the Army operation. It was evident, that pushed to the corner by militant attack on Army establishment in Uri resulting in martyrdom of 20 army personnel, some kind of a retaliatory action would be round the corner as means of silencing the critics and satisfy the growing public criticism. But no one had ever perceived the Government itself confirming the operation through high-profile media briefings within short span of time. This was followed by equally strong statements by senior BJP leaders crediting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for strike across the LoC.
That, in fact, was the beginning of the political slugfest which saw the opposition parties demanding evidence of the Army operation. This perception has germinated out of strong view that the Government (read ruling BJP) had a political agenda behind permitting the Army to strike at terrorist launching pads and later claim credit for it.
In the face of a carefully crafted atmosphere based on patriotism and nationalism by the ruling party, it was but natural for the opposition parties to be seen as backing the Government on this issue of immense national interest lest they were misunderstood. As a natural corollary to the jingoistic stance of the ruling party and its affiliates backed by a section of the media, the rivals perhaps could not resist the temptation of getting even with the BJP in scoring political brownie points.
An entirely new doctrine was at display vis-a-vis Pakistan when the Government of the day admitted crossing over the LoC for a retaliatory strike. Not that it had never happened earlier or that our armed forces had been mutely witnessing the periodic Pak onslaught. But such actions were never publically owned for diplomatic and military reasons.
The clamour of the ruling party in portraying this across the LoC operation as first of its kind and owing it to Mr Modi’s tough persona and capacity to take daring decisions was trigger enough for a counter-reaction. The Congress leadership lost no time in making public the dates and time of earlier such strikes during the UPA rule to nip the BJP propaganda in its root.
So the cover of secrecy was blown to smithereens both by the Government (ruling party) and the opposition. This is a sad commentary on how the issues of critical national security are being politicised. It is fraught with more dangers for the armed forces as the government itself has chosen this path with ruling party eying the coming round of elections to politically important states of UP and Punjab, and the opposition dutifully following the same path.
The ongoing furious rounds of allegations and counter-allegations should stop immediately as at the centre of this theatre is the Indian Army. It would be in the national interest if the government desists from making public the operational details of the Army action to prove a point.
If the reports are to be believed the Armed forces top brass is against any such public display. This should be honoured both by the ruling and opposition parties. The jingoism must give way to restrain and political parties led by BJP should shun tendency to draw political mileage out of an Army operation by embarrassing the force in olive green.
The Government, at best, should share the operational details with top leaders of the political parties with an oath that both the sides would stop the slanging match on this issue. It should be left to the judgement of the people that in the ultimate scheme of things who gets the credit or not. Definitely the credit goes to the Army.
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