Lesson from Nagrota: Military, financial ‘surgical strikes’ haven't deterred militants

The Nagrota attack by Pakistani infiltrators on 29 November — heavily-armed terrorists stormed the premises of the highly-protected 166 medium artillery regiment and held Indians hostage — has belied the claims of our government that we have broken the back of the cross-border militancy with our ‘surgical strike’ across the Line of Control. This is not the statement of an Opposition leader who wants to take potshots at the Narendra Modi government. This was an argument advanced by Yashwant Sinha, a senior BJP leader and former minister for external affairs (in the Chandra Shekhar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee governments). Sinha made this statement on Tuesday night while delivering his presidential address in a lecture organised in the memory of Digvijay Singh, who had served as the junior minister to Sinha in the external affairs ministry in both Chandra Shekhar and Vajpayee governments. Clearly, Sinha is not a run-of-the-mill politician who shoots from the hip. He knows his stuff when he makes a point. [caption id=“attachment_3130362” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Army personnel take position during encounter after militants attacked an Army camp in Nagrota on the outskirts of Jammu on Tuesday morning. PTI[/caption] Sinha made another devastating argument to puncture the claim being made by the relatively uninformed intelligentsia that India has succeeded in isolating Pakistan on the world stage with its astute diplomacy. On the contrary, Pakistani diplomacy has mostly outwitted Indian diplomacy in drawing international support, he said. The former external affairs minister cited the example of the $46 billion support extended to Pakistan by China, in order to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. In fact, it is China’s biggest investment in the economic development of another country, he said. Chinese support will keep Pakistan at the centre-stage of South Asian politics, instead of marginalising it, Sinha said. Pakistan has even succeeded in winning over Russia — a traditional supporter of India — to hold joint military exercises in September this year for the first time in the past seven decades of its existence. It only goes to show that Pakistan, instead of being isolated, is being courted by the major powers of the world, Sinha asserted. This assertion must not be taken at the face value. Those who were gloating that the demonetisation of high-denomination notes has virtually driven the Pakistani infiltrators out of work must have been squirming after the fidayeen attack at Nagrota took place. It is indeed alarming that Pakistani militants are repeatedly and successfully taking on the hardest of the targets — the military establishment — considering they have not taken the soft option of targeting civilian settlements. After the daring attacks in Patnankot and Uri, Nagrota has exposed the vulnerability of the Indian defence forces. That a group of heavily armed militants succeeded in infiltrating the local unit of the 16 Corps headquarters — the largest corps in the Indian Army — and managing to kill two officers and five jawans before being killed, highlights a stark fact: Even after being on the receiving end of militant attacks for years, we have not been able to devise fool-proof measures to check Pakistani infiltration and safeguard our soldiers, let alone the civilians. In Pathankot, Pakistani terrorists infiltrated into an Indian Air Force base and unleashed mayhem at the start of this year. Six Pakistani militants again launched a daring attack on an army brigade headquarters in Uri in September this year and killed 19 of our soldiers. The fact that we have been repeatedly failing in making our core military establishment attack-proof from stray militants speaks poorly of our professionalism. In the face of it, when we make tall and loud claims about our military and strategic accomplishments, we tend to become a laughing stock. When we launched the ‘surgical strike’ in October that supposedly paralysed the military muscle of Pakistan militants and, moreover, when we unleashed the demonetisation drive that purportedly sucked out their financial muscle, Pakistani authorities did not scream from the rooftops that they would take ‘revenge’ against India. They took revenge in action, as evident in Nagrota yesterday. It is an age-old lesson of diplomacy, military or otherwise, that it must be conducted away from the limelight. Strong actions must speak for themselves. They need not, nay, must not, be bandied about or be gloated over. This is because every action invites a reaction. And in today’s world, no country, howsoever powerful it may be, can claim unilateral victory over another. That is more so, when two countries, as is the case with India and Pakistan, hold nuclear deterrents. Will the Indian leadership take the lesson and reflect quietly and take decisive action without whipping up jingoism and hyper-nationalism? That is the only way to protect our borders, our brave soldiers and our distraught citizens.