India-Pakistan tensions: New Delhi must go beyond military action and use diplomacy, reach out to Kashmiris, say experts

The last three days of high tension between India and Pakistan now seem to be defusing, with Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan having announced the release of IAF pilot Abhinandan to India. Moreover, MEA handed over a dossier on the Jaish-e-Mohammed to Pakistan deputy high commissioner along with the demarche on Pakistan incursions through air strikes, clearly sending out a signal that India is not willing to up the military ante for the present. The dossier lists out specific details of JeM’s complicity in the Pulwama terror attack and the presence of JeM’s terror camps in Pakistan. There are a slew of defence experts who believe that India’s punitive action, by bombing the Balakot terror camp, has sent out a strong signal that India is not afraid of a full-fledged war. Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak (retd) emphasised, “These very daring and successful strikes have demonstrated our capability. It has shown we can operate independently and also use long range weapons. Not only is refuelling possible but the entire operation has taken place practically bloodlessly. Balakot is known to be a launch pad for terrorists who, following their training, use four routes from there to enter J&K.” Kak said, “The Indian government has not publicised the battle damage caused by the bombing in order to maintain a certain degree of confidentiality, though, in order to win the war of optics, we need to combine confidentiality with transparency.” “But my question is what will be achieved by a slow motion limited war? Some sections of the Indian media have been stating that Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan has been begging for negotiations. On the contrary, he is making a very rational statement, a very brave statement. Now that we have made this pre-emptive strike by targeting their camps, we have paid them back with their own coin. What is the purpose now of continuing this low intensity conflict?” [caption id=“attachment_6172821” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Kak also said, “India-Pakistan wars have been reasonably friendly wars. There have been no civilian casualties on a large scale. We have respected what we have said to each other unlike say the Vietnam and other wars.” On the subject of tension along the LoC, he believes that “bombardment along the LoC has been going on for years but the general atmosphere has been reasonable. The cancellation of the Samjhauta Express has been unusual but the Muzaffarabad bus service saw passengers travelling on both sides. Our threshold of tolerance had been breached post Pulwama and the public put pressure on the government to act, which it did after exploring multiple options,” Kak said. But other military men are not convinced. Leading this charge have been former army chiefs including General Bikram Singh and General Shankar Roy Chowdhury, both of whom insist that any “knee jerk” response to the Pulwama style attacks can at best mitigate, not eliminate, terrorism. “What India can do much more is to equip and protect its security forces,” said General Bikram Singh. Singh said India’s military went in to Pakistan to rein in JeM but Pakistan reiterated by attacking Indian military installations. “If we have to negotiate, we must do so from a position of strength, but are we in a position of strength?” he asked. He also warned against falling into the old trap of finding a diplomatic route to what has been an intractable problem all these decades. Defence expert Wing Commander Vinod Nebb (retd) insisted that “we started this operation with a set aim and objective and I do not believe that by closing the operation, this will see the end of terrorism. We should be prepared for a long drawn out war,” he said. “The end of the Bangladesh war saw India having 90,000 POWs in our custody. After such a major victory, our own political will collapsed and we let go of that opportunity. We had broken the back of Pakistan but we let that country off. Imagine the mayhem we could have caused with those POWs in our custody.” “We have lost around 26,000 lives post independence, with the majority of our wars having been fought with Pakistan. We need to take this conflict to its logical conclusion by using all the weapons in our control — military, diplomacy and social media. We should cross over to the LoC if need be for tactical reasons. Look at the number of training camps in the PoK where 30,000 to 40,000 people are known to being trained against us. We need to take this fight to its logical conclusion,” said Nebb. Another defence analyst Col Shivdan Singh (retd) warns that Pakistan’s 6,000 madrassas are presently nurturing 25 lakh students who are being radicalised everyday. We need demonstrable evidence to show that Pakistan is clamping down on these groups which have earned a place in Pakistani society. “Let us not be euphoric that the release of the IAF pilot will change the situation on the ground. Handing over the dossier or keeping diplomatic channels is all very well, but what we have to keep in mind is that we have started an initiative and we need to take it to its very end. As a nation, we need to understand what our final objectives are,” said Singh. There are other strategic analysts who question the manner in which the IAF strikes were conducted. A senior retired IAF pilot has reiterated on the futility of attacking “terror camps” as they do not yield any strategic enemy assets. He has gone to the extent of stating that using “conventional forces to strike at low-value tactical targets against an adversary that uses asymmetric warfare is an ill-advised action purely for propaganda purposes without achieving any strategic or tactical goal.” He further pointed out that the JeM strategic assets are in Bahawalpur, which has three airfields in its vicinity whereas India attacked a low-value target in Balakot that was undefended. He further said, “The choice of ammunition delivering 1,000 kg bombs makes it clear that we did not have a point target in mind. It is obvious the Indian government did not want to face the embarrassment of having one of their planes shot down.” Another defence analyst Brig Virender Sehgal (retd) also believes that “we need to finish what we have started. Otherwise, terrorist groups are going to recoup and re-strategise with new tactics,’ he said. Sehgal agrees that Modi has opened the envelope and crossed the red line but in order to achieve some levels of success, “we need to reach out to the Kashmiri people and start a dialogue with them. Dialogue with the Kashmiri public is one of the key ways to undermine the efforts of the terrorists and the Pakistani army and that must take place simultaneously to deterrent action,” said Sehgal. Strategic analyst and swayamsevak of the RSS, Seshadri Chari, pointed out that both countries are in an awkward position and so, “good sense will prevail”. “In all probability, Pakistan will release our pilot. All of a sudden, Pakistan is a responsible country, which is difficult to believe. I must emphasise that escalation can be done only by India, not Pakistan. But the question to be asked is: escalation at what cost? I believe that the political establishment is planning to soon hold a cabinet meeting and ask the president to announce elections. Parliament is not going to meet again.” Chari believes India has succeeded to a large extent in its objectives. “It has imposed a heavy cost in Pakistan by destroying their terror infrastructure,” he said. He also claimed that “India has also demonstrated that we can do what the US has not been able to do, and that is to penetrate deep into Pakistan. We have demonstrated our war capability. We have also avenged the Pulwama attack. Also, the IAF has demonstrated that the next generation of war will be fought by the air force because of the speed of their attack.” On the question of whether the Modi government has achieved its objectives of dismantling terror camps, Chari said, “That will require the dismantling of terror training camps and that in turn will require a long drawn out military engagement. For the present, the western powers led by the US and the Saudis are putting pressure on both India and  Pakistan not to escalate the situation any further.” Click here to follow LIVE updates on IAF pilot Abhinandan’s return to India.