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Pakistan army, stop provoking India for war

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DC Pathak
DC PathakNov 03, 2014 | 11:27

Pakistan army, stop provoking India for war

The escalation of border incidents in Kashmir in which the Pakistani rangers first stepped up their unprovoked mortar firing on the LoC and then extended it to the international border in Jammu region, is a desperate reaction of the Pakistan army to the recent events that clearly had the potential of disturbing its own apple cart at home.

Developments

Unfortunately, the army generals in Pakistan take to tactical ways of dealing with matters of strategic import and presume these would succeed against India once again. They are still to realise the scene in South Asia has changed.

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Three developments have marked this change and they have all happened for the first time. First, in a totally democratic exercise Indians have ousted a regime perceived to be incorrigibly corrupt and firmly installed the main party of the Opposition in power whose leader promised probity in public life, effective governance and restoration of pride in the Indian nation. Secondly, the new government in India lost no time in working out a foreign policy that invoked healthy bilateralism towards nations - big or small - within a declared commitment to a peaceful world order. In a short span of time PM Modi lent authenticity to this policy while dealing with not only our neighbourhood but also the major powers outside including Japan, China and finally the US as well.

For the Pak army the success of Modi in getting the international community to acknowledge his valid stand that India could not talk to a regime that did not abstain from using the instrument of terrorist violence was disconcerting enough but the fact that he also ensured that there was "de-hyphenation" of Pakistan from the Indo-US relationship, must have come as a bitter pill. For 10 years, the Pak army had made a weak-willed government in India put up with its mischief in Kashmir by reminding this country every now and then that Pakistan was a nuclear power. Even at the time of beheading of Indian soldiers on the border that had led to a national furore, this ploy of Pakistan had apparently worked. That mindset and idiom of the government response have changed now and become fittingly harder.

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India while exercising the right to give a stern reply on the border can feel confident about the world opinion being clearly on the side of our credibility as a non-aggressive country. The world community appreciates India’s declared nuclear policy of "no first use" and has stakes in not permitting any adventurism of Pakistan in this regard. This has made an impact on Pakistan in the current context.

Extremism

The third factor behind the Pak army's aggression on the border relates to the domestic political situation in Pakistan that has in the year gone by, witnessed a sharpening divide between the leaders who blamed the rising extremism in Pakistan on the pro-US inclination of the "corrupt" ruling elite and the others who want to hold India responsible for all the ills of their country. Both groups prefer to be on the right side of the army which is a booster for the latter. The Pak army - undiminished in its hold as the real power wielder, felt it necessary to show up its hand as it discovered that the prime minister had been able to dismiss Nawaz Sharif's scripted speech at the UN on Kashmir as an inconsequential rant.

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The Pak army's aggression on the Kashmir borders is a play of tactics designed to step up its proxy offensive against India on one hand and raise the stakes for the US which is enlisting Pakistan's support for the American "exit plan" in Afghanistan, on the other.

Infiltration

The targeting of civilian areas deep inside the Indian territory is for facilitating infiltration as much as it is for creating the impression that Pakistan's eastern border was now a disturbed front requiring priority of attention of the Pak army. During the decade of "war on terror" Pakistan repeatedly pressurised the US to get India to yield on Kashmir by playing up the argument that trouble on its eastern flank would come in the way of its army fighting the American war on the western border.

India has rightly taken up the challenge of befittingly dealing with the Pak mischief on the Kashmir border and keeping the world community apprised of the situation. The apologists for Pakistan always crop up in such situations but unlike in the past they are not cutting much ice with the policy makers this time around.

India has to be prepared to face a determined bid of the ISI to create internal trouble by exploiting the communal front for fomenting militancy. Pakistan will not be deterred by the significant neutralisation of the Indian Mujahideen elements by our agencies in recent times. The hostility shown by Al Qaeda and IS towards India will encourage the Pak agency to step up its proxy war against this country and even use the label of these radical forces for it. We also have to particularly watch out for developments in Afghanistan where the Pak army is intent on increasing its stranglehold with or without the concurrence of the US.

Indo-Pak relations were never about people to people contact or exchange of cultural delegations. They were determined by an army-controlled State that wanted to show down democratic India by twisting the issue of Kashmir on communal lines and pretending to be a stake holder in the domestic polity of India by talking of the position of Muslims in India directly or indirectly. The Pak army needs to keep up discordance with India to maintain its position at home. The desire for friendship with India has to emanate from the political leadership of Pakistan and this can happen only when it acquires a democratic hold in its country.

Last updated: November 03, 2014 | 11:27
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