Modi’s strategic restraint against Pakistan is reaffirmation of Congress policy
India’s well-tested policy of "strategic restraint" has made a comeback. None other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi has restored the policy, after a brief hiatus of the government itself boasting to have given it up.
Through his Kozhikode speech, Modi has reinstated the policy of avoiding using force as an instrument of policy. The principle of restraint has been the mainstay of the country’s foreign policy since 1947.
The restoration of strategic restraint is not surprising but it’s embarrassing for the NDA government, especially for Modi. For, in essence the policy of meeting extreme provocations from Pakistan and challenges posed by external threat not with military force but diplomacy is nothing but reiteration of the Congress policy.
Modi’s declaration, therefore, to challenge Pakistan to join not a military war but a war on poverty, illiteracy and malnutrition reaffirms the continuity in a key strategic aspect of the country’s foreign and defence policies.
Modi’s baiter, Arun Shourie, would say the government policy is Congress plus cow. And now he could be even closer in his assessment of the Modi government than before.
Despite his high-pitched election campaign in 2014 against Pakistan, there was no evidence of Modi having eschewed or giving up the exercise of restraint. Therefore, few took Modi government’s repeated boasts of punishing Pakistan through military aggression seriously. The threat of war was interpreted as nothing more than usual rhetoric.
Even after the Pathankot attack of January, Modi as well as his National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s tough line on Pakistan was taken just as sabre-rattling aimed at coercive diplomacy and addressing domestic audience. After the initial posturing, both countries went about the usual rigmarole of suspension of talks, fighting war of words and attrition over terrorism and Kashmir. Everybody thought it would be business as usual in due course until Uri attack happened on September 18.
Barely in a week’s time, it seemed, India had overturned its policy that had stood the nation in good stead for 70 years over its head. From the government ministers to the BJP leaders, they were all heard and seen singing one rehearsed tune: An eye for eye, for a tooth, a whole jaw.
One could have understood the rhetoric and the ruling party’s political compulsion to cry retribution. One could have understood television channels’ compulsion for hyped-up coverage for the sake of TRPs. What one couldn’t understand was the conviction with which strategic affairs experts and retired diplomats declared with panache a so-called sudden and welcome change in the government’s policy.
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| For several days after the Uri attack, the only narrative in Delhi was that Modi government had drastically revised its policy of restraint in respect of Pakistan. (Photo: PTI) |
Notwithstanding scepticism, one tended to believe the people who are perceived to be close to the government, who claim they have their ear to the ground and who are associated with think-tanks and policy planning bodies close to the government.
For several days after the Uri attack, the one and only narrative in Delhi was that Modi government had drastically revised its policy of restraint in respect of Pakistan. The people were made to believe that the time for words was over and it was time for gun to do the talking. September 18, 2016 was a point of inflection in the history of India, they all said without exception.
Former diplomat and commentator G Parthasarthy, known for his rather hawkish stance over Pakistan and who claims to have knowledge of Modi government's thinking, announced with aplomb that India’s Pakistan policy had radically changed after the Uri attack.
There could be two explanations for why everybody went wrong. One, they had no knowledge of Modi-Doval’s line of thinking in which case all the loud talks about imminent military action was rhetoric and bluff. Two, Modi and Doval revised their thinking after having carefully undertaken the cost-benefit analysis of giving up restraint and exercising military options.
Perhaps, Modi’s meeting with the three service chiefs on Saturday (September 24) morning, before Modi’s departure for Kozhikode, determined the content and tone of his speech. He sprang a surprise signaling that in reality nothing had changed. The policy put in place by the first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and practiced by his successors down to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh continues.
Nehru delineated India’s policy of restraint during the first skirmishes with Pakistan in 1947. The delay on his part on rushing the troops to Srinagar, calling for halt and not pushing to capture what is now PoK defined the policy of restraint. That the nuclearisation in the subcontinent has further added to the strategic restraint is stating the obvious.
From then on, India has practiced the strategic restraint that has paid dividends. The world recognises India as a responsible regional power.
Vajpayee’s restraint after the 2001 Parliament attack, Manmohan Singh government’s restraint after the 2008 Mumbai mayhem - both much graver and more provocative than the Uri assault - was reassertion of the policy.
Stephen P Cohen, the US professor and strategic affairs expert on India and Pakistan, in a 2011 paper summed up the policy of restraint thus:
"The consequences of an end to restraint could be revolutionary, but the doctrine’s strong roots and its survival despite failures, including against China and Pakistan suggest that it will endure."
If it has to endure, Modi’s government has to avoid knee-jerk response to Pakistan’s provocations.
Even more importantly, the government, the party and the media have to stop their war cries.