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चैत्र कृष्ण पक्ष, शुक्रवार, चर्तुथी

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Attack on military camp highlights India’s defence-related incompetence


Date:- 30 Mar 2018


From Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Lahore Declaration to Manmohan Singh's peace -at-any-price doctrine and Narendra Modi's Lahore visit statement, India's readiness to trust Pakistan's anti-terrorism assurances draws attention to the adage: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". India has been fooled repeatedly.

The bloody attack by Pakistan-backed terrorists on yet another military camp in Jammu and Kashmir, however, represents double shame for India: Coming after the ter­rorist strike at the Pathankot air base earlier this year, the attack on the army headquar­ters at Uri highlights defence-related incompetence. If Modi wishes to send a clear message, he must begin at home by fir­ing his bumbling defence min­ister and fixing the drift in his Pakistan policy.

For more than a quarter-century, India has been gripped by a vacillating leadership and a paralytic sense of indecision and despair over cross-border terrorism. This year's series of terrorist attacks on Indian targets — from Jalalabad and Mazar-i-Sharif to Pampore and Uri — signals that the ISI ter­ror masterminds, learning from the international outrage over their November 2008 strikes on civilians in Mumbai, are now concentrating their spectacular hits on symbols of the Indian state, including security forces.

The Uri attack is similarly intended to make India feel vul­nerable and weak while seeking to minimise the risk of Indian retaliation. This attack, howev­er, is likely to represent a turn­ing point for India, especially given the number of soldiers killed. Indeed, the lesson for India from its restraint despite Pathankot is that all talk and no action invites more deadly terrorism, besides encourag­ing Pakistan to fuel unrest in Kashmir and "internationalise" the J&K issue.

For Modi in particular, the Uri attack constitutes a defin­ing moment. He has completed half of his five-year term with his Pakistan policy in a mess.

Indeed, despite terrorists testing India's resolve from Herat to Gurdaspur and Udhampur after his election victory, Modi's response to the Pathankot siege underscored continuing stra­tegic naivete. Even before the siege ended, New Delhi sup­plied Islamabad communication intercepts and other evidence linking the attackers with then-handlers in Pakistan.

India later granted Pakistani investigators access to the Pathankot base. It was like treat­ing arsonists as firefighters. Pakistan set up its investigation team not to bring the Pathankot masterminds to justice but to probe the operational deficien­cies of the Pathankot strike and to ensure that the next proxy attack left no similar telltale signs of Pakistani involvement.

Today, India has little choice but to overhaul its strategy as both diplomacy and restraint have failed to stem Pakistan's relentless efforts to export terrorism and intermittently engage in border provocations.

India needs a comprehensive, proactive approach. The choice is not between persisting with a weak-kneed approach and risking an all-out war. This is a false, immoral choice that undermines the credibility of India's nuclear and conventional deterrence and encourages the enemy to sustain aggression. It is also a false argu­ment that India has no choice but to keep battling Pakistan's unconventional war on its own territory.

To deter Pakistan's uncon­ventional warfare, India's response must be spread across a spectrum of unconventional options that no nation will dis­cuss in public. Nuclear weap­ons have no deterrence value in an unconventional war. If the Pakistani security establish­ment is to get the message that the benefits of peace outweigh hostilities, it should be made to bear most of the costs that India seeks to impose. New Delhi should also be ready to down­grade diplomatic relations with Pakistan and mount pressure on its three benefactors, China, America and Saudi Arabia.

India's goal is narrow: to halt cross-border terrorist attacks. In keeping with the United Nations Charter, which recognises self-defence as an "inherent right" of every nation, India must impose measured and pointed costs on the terror exporters without displaying overt belligerence or brinkmanship.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, 19, September, 2016