Soldiers' beheading: Whom should India punish in Pakistan?
Post the Poonch beheading incident, the media has been going viral in discussing the Indian response. Every TV channel highlights anger within the Indian community. The government is being questioned and asked to retaliate. Social media is filled with anti-Pakistan rhetoric and demands for action.
This is neither the first, nor will it be the last. Strategic writers have been suggesting various options open to the government. Options include removing Pakistan from the list of Most Favoured Nation (MFN), abrogating the Indus Water Treaty, cross-border strikes, open war and recalling of ambassadors, apart from curtailing sporting and cultural ties.
However, there is a rationale which needs to be understood before we expect the government to act.
Internally, anger is expected. For Indians, mutilation of a body is unthinkable. It crosses all levels of acceptance and intensifies hatred. Further, the Army has been in the limelight in recent times, facing stone-throwing mobs, militants and so-called human rights activists, who question its every move.
It has never responded to criticism, however at the same time never let the country down, irrespective of the task or mission. Hence, blessings and good wishes of the common Indian remain with it.
Within Pakistan, the deep state, comprising the army and the ISI, which controls terror groups, is an institution by themselves. They are neither answerable to the civil government nor its populace. The Pakistani ambassador to India is responsible to and takes his orders from their military, rather than their foreign ministry. Hence, considered an army supporter, he was overlooked for the post of foreign secretary, despite being senior to the present incumbent.
The recent tweet by a Major General, head of their Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), challenging the directions issued by the office of the Prime Minister, indicates the power it holds. It created panic within the government, to the extent that the PM had to call a closed-door cabinet meeting seeking ways and means to diffuse the situation.
It is the deep state which has never permitted talks to be conducted and peace restored between the two nations. When Agra was in the pipeline, Mumbai was being launched, when Vajpayee went to Lahore, Kargil followed and when Modi visited Lahore, Pathankot was immediately thereafter.
Each act was planned and launched by the ISI on the directions of the army, to ensure that any progress made is pushed under the carpet, and it has succeeded. Similar was the reason for the latest incident, ensuring that relations are at the ebb again.
While it was stated at the time of his appointment that new Pakistan army chief General Qamar Bajwa was not staunchly anti-India, these comments need to be accepted with a pinch of salt. Failure and defeat in every war and Islamisation of their army has created deep-rooted distrust and anger against their Indian counterparts.
Similarly, seeking to destabilise Afghanistan, it continues to support the Taliban and the Haqqani network. There too, relations are at such an ebb that the Afghan president turned down an invite to visit Islamabad, knowing talks with the civilian leadership imply nothing, with the deep state controlling terror groups.
The rise of tempers in Kashmir, increased infiltration and spurt of attacks on security forces and local police is again an orchestration of the ISI. The ISI chief is chosen by the Pakistan army chief, however, for diplomatic niceties, he is appointed by the Prime Minister.
Pakistan officially claims that the ISI functions under the PMO, however, in a recent statement, post the announcement of the team for probing the Panama Papers scandal, the Dawn newspaper of Pakistan announced that the ISI and Military Intelligence, nominated as part of the probe team, do not report to the PM, but to the army chief.
Regular chants on human rights in Kashmir by their Prime Minister and the bureaucracy is to ensure that army-civil relations remain intact. It is almost like singing a chorus at the end of each verse.
Hence, when we mention punishing Pakistan, we need to consider whom we should punish - while simultaneously seeking to create an environment for improving relations. Their government is hapless when dealing with India, facing the brunt of criticism internally and internationally, unable to reign in its army or ISI. The people are being misled with false propaganda from their deep state.
Their army claims that its anti-terror operations are bringing in a sense of security within the nation, hence seeks popularity and support from the public, in which it has succeeded. Its control is such that no one dares mention that the groups which operate against their own people were created by the ISI, but went rouge and turned their guns inwards.
No one mentions that internal strife in Balochistan, PoK and Gilgit Baltistan is the result of their army’s high-handed and repressive role. No one mentions that it is because of their own military’s doing, especially against Afghanistan and India, that the world treats Pakistan with disdain and considers it almost a rouge state. In reality, their army remains rogue, while the nation and government suffers.
The Pakistan army has such internal control that its true losses are never declared and hidden from their own public, with no human rights agency even questioning missing personnel, thus giving it an almost invincible status within the nation.
In a recent case, there were reports that activists and bloggers who went missing for days were tortured and sodomised and hence in fear fled the shores of the country. Pakistan refused to accept bodies of its soldiers killed in Kargil, possibly declared those killed in the surgical strikes as "missing" and has never admitted to losses in Indian counter-strikes, hiding soldier deaths in multiple ways.
This is not an army comprising soldiers who respect their comrades even in death, but an army willing to sacrifice their own, solely to keep generals in power and maintain a façade in the public eye.
In Pakistan, any action against the nation would not impact the army, because a force which does not care for its own soldiers would never bother for its people. Hence, Indian action should aim at targeting the Pakistani army in particular. The targeting should be from multiple directions, seeking to hurt and damage its standing and reputation within the nation and across the world.
Thus, we need to look for options within these parameters. Actions seeking to extract revenge for the recent killings should be left to our local Army authorities, who would ensure Pakistan pays for its latest misadventure.
At the strategic level, we need to openly and effectively support anti-Pakistan groups operating from the Pakistan-Afghan border. The support should be such that the Pakistani army realises increased capabilities of the groups targeting them.
Since Pakistan employs air power, we can always provide the groups with anti-aircraft missiles. We need to create an environment where Pakistan is compelled to move forces from the Indian border or its reserves to handle the deteriorating situation.
To increase pressure at that stage, we enhance deployment of own troops on the borders. Let Pakistan cry to the world – we, like them, would ignore. Balochistan should be supported to secede, not diplomatically, but militarily and financially.
Creating and supporting fidayeen groups seeking freedom in PoK and Gilgit Baltistan should be pushed across the border, starting an insurgency, threatening the potency of the Pakistani army. Their army should face the brunt, not the government.
Simultaneously, we should begin a surreptitious media campaign, highlighting that the problem their nation faces is because of the misdeeds of the deep state, through anti-Pakistan radio stations established in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
We could also consider projecting that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor would be a big loss to the nation in the long-term and is being pushed by the army for personal gains of the Fauji Foundation, not by the government. The rift between the army and government should aim at lowering the army’s image.
Strategically, we should project Pakistan's army rather than the government as being responsible for the ills of the nation. We should aim at discrediting the army in its campaigns, lowering its image and creating an environment of doubt, not blind faith, which exists.
Only this approach may change the relationship and reduce tensions in Kashmir. They must play by our rules, not we by theirs.