Why is Pakistan violating ceasefire along LoC? Because it needs to prop up India as external enemy, say experts

New Delhi: It would be easy even for a high school student to predict that there would be violation of ceasefire by the Pakistani army across the Line of Control (LoC) whenever any dialogue between India and Pakistan is supposed to take place. The Indian government on 16th August lodged a strong protest with the Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit over the recent ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops along the LoC in which six people were killed. It’s not for the first time that ahead of the NSA-level talks between the two countries, ceasefire violations have taken place. Even in the past, such violations have happened every year on the international border and on the LoC between India and Pakistan, leading to the loss of lives of not only army jawans but also innocent people. [caption id=“attachment_2396436” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  Representative image. Image courtesy: Reuters[/caption] Going by the records, Pakistan violated the ceasefire agreement with India on 44 occasions in 2010, 51 times in 2011, and 93 times in 2012. In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, defence minister Manohar Parrikar said there were 199 ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the border with India till June this year. In 2014, the number of violations was 583, and in 2013, it was 347. Meanwhile, in a meeting with India’s external affairs ministry on Sunday, Basit alleged that there had been close to 70 ceasefire violations by India in the past two months, and that an effective mechanism was required to determine, who engaged in ceasefire violations. The ‘why’ and ‘what’ of the ceasefire violations Strategic analyst and former military secretary, Lt Gen (retd) Syed Ata Hasnain said, “Pakistan’s deep state is not in sync with the political leadership and even if it accepts the need for engagement, it wants to display its ability to calibrate the proxy war. The ceasefire violations are not for aiding infiltration alone. The LoC today is more of an instrument of diplomacy to send veiled messages. This practice is nothing new; it is only being firmed up for what they may consider as psychological gains”. Defence analyst Maj Gen (retd) Dhruv C Katoch pointed out, “Such violations have not happened only now. There have been violations throughout since 2004-05, when the ceasefire came into existence. If ever there would be peace between India and Pakistan, what would be the role of the Pakistan army? Pakistan can’t let it happen, as otherwise its ideology and identity will get defeated. There lies the problem. Considering the present situation in Pakistan, it can be kept united provided it is successful in infusing conflicts in India. Pakistan’s internal peace depends on propping up India as its external enemy.” Earlier too, it was observed that whenever the two heads of state shook hands, firing across the India-Pakistan border made headlines. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Ufa (Russia) on 10 July and reiterated government’s commitment to fight terror over bilateral talks, Pakistan violated ceasefire and resorted to mortar shelling. “It’s a classic study, whenever there had been any initiative for peace process or bilateral talks between India and Pakistan, ceasefire violation occurred. Pakistan’s ISI and army will never let the political leadership override their decision. They want to keep the pot boiling by disrupting any peace process between the two nations. The recent Gurdaspur terror attack, which came ahead of the NSA-level talks, is an example of it.,” added counter-terrorism analyst Anil Kamboj. What should the government do? Strategic analyst Hasnain said, “The government knows what is best because it has a strategy in place to tackle this tricky situation. The decision to either go ahead with the NSA talks or to call them off will be one that it will take in the best of our interests. The response has to be on different fronts - military, political and diplomatic and these cannot be stand alone. The response by the army will meet the immediate psychological need of the hour. The rest has to be calibrated very carefully.” In this context, the analysts cite the success of the recent Naga peace talks and the signing of the accord. Katoch said, “The success of Naga peace talks is one of the best examples of conflict resolution till date. Nobody knew about it till it got fructified. This should have happened with the upcoming NSA-level talks. However, the government should make one thing clear that there can’t be peace with Pakistan, because of the latter’s ideological constraint. A strong message needs to be given to Pakistan, which is foolish enough to target civilians: if you fire at us, we’ll destroy those guns of yours.”