State of play

When India first decided to launch its terror doctrine, pre-Doval, it used freelancing terror assets in Afghanistan to attack some key bases in Pakistan that had absolutely nothing to do with either sub-conventional warfare such as employing insurgency or supporting terror acts anywhere in the region.

As a terror war bloomed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the latter fully consumed by daily attacks, India found it opportune to enter the fray to serve its operational and strategic interests by employing terror as a tool in furthering its own objectives. Pakistan, already hurting from a debilitating war, fought, defended and then recovered from this multi-directional assault. And went on to win quite comprehensively. But, it took a toll and the nation paid its price.

Terror in South Asia as a means to an end has multiple fathers. The LTTE of Sri Lanka, now fully destroyed, and Kulbhushan Jadhav in Pakistani custody are just two such examples of India’s patronage to the art. Doval’s publicly stated doctrine of offensive-defence is another jewel. And what India continues to enact in occupied Kashmir is right out of the Israeli playbook of ethnic cleansing. Their chant is freedom, and all the guns in the Indian armoury have failed to silent that cry. In Kashmir, the Indian state is the terrorist.

Fast forward to Pathankot, Uri and, more recently, Pulwama. Realistically, all these were reprisal attacks. Pathankot may have had some Indian involvement in aiding and abetting but the other two were typically Kashmiri and Kashmir-centred. Now whether these were a consequence of the untold and calamitous reign of terror, torture or torment meted out to the Kashmiris by the Indian military deployed in the region or on the inspiration of someone from the outside – Pakistan and JeM per the India narrative – or the inside, as many tout these as false-flag, India’s retort to any and all events over time has only targeted Pakistan as a sponsor of terror.

That aside, the Indians tested Pakistan after Uri with a claim of a surgical strike, whatever it meant or whatever the purpose. None was eventful in leaving behind any proof of actual incidence nor an effect. Going by what India had done in Myanmar before then by infiltrating some 50 men in a Heli-borne operation at night to apparently target some Rohingya and then going to town about it in a deliberate plan, it is possible that India may have indeed done something similar but without inflicting any meaningful consequence on purpose.

The question then arose: while it satisfied the cry within India of a revenge attack and was thus suitably advertised, was it possible that the insipidity was deliberate to make it more palatable for Pakistan to absorb the violation of its territories and condition itself to a ‘new normal’? Such desensitisation of Pakistan’s perception of its sovereignty was to be couched in the declaration of engaging non-state suspects thought to have committed a heinous crime against India. Incrementally, it would then establish a ‘new normal’ for India in the region with an open propensity for use of force at its own choosing by declaring one or the other foreign group responsible for trouble in its own borders, ala the US and Israel which have enjoyed such impunity in most parts of the world.

Thankfully, and per its sovereign right, Pakistan checkmated this Indian plan of nurturing its expanded sphere of unbridled assertion. This time too India’s attack was rather loose in terms of its aim-points and accuracy but was it another attempt at ‘palatable conditioning? Or mere incompetence in its ranks? Rather than procrastinate, Pakistan looked at the act than its effect or failure and rightly measured it a provocation. Attacking within the sovereign limits of Pakistan will merit a matching response. India got one and of immeasurable consequence. Right at the outset of a small war, India stood in the deficit. It surely isn’t a good place to be when you are shaping as a behemoth. To that end there’s an ocean to cross and a super-confident nation like Pakistan to contend with.

Pakistan has made all the right noises in this little challenge – politically, diplomatically and strategically. It has upended the Indian design which was based around assumptions which failed to materialise. Pakistan has regained its stature and image as a nation of consequence. If there was an effort by India to redefine the space for a limited conventional war and test thresholds, those too have been adequately answered. Pakistan has acted responsibility at all times recalling the tenuous slide on which stands peace in South Asia. Kashmir has come to the fore courtesy the ‘Modian’ misadventure. It is not the time to let Kashmir be lost to the fog of a ‘threatened’ war. Modi’s war-chest lies bare. The choices are his to make.

India and Pakistan lie in a state of half-war, no-peace. The Doval-Modi combine has exhausted its retinue of options from their playbook. All it took was a pair of well-honed Pakistani eagles to catch Modi and his military, and that too unprepared. One pilot down, one other killed in action and a third missing laid bare the combined strength of the IAF, regardless of what they rode in to engage the PAF. They weren’t ten foot tall; the world found out. Modi thinks that if he had the Rafale the results would have been different. There cannot be a worse indictment. The air chief of the western command is sacked midstream. Modi has written in his own hand the demise of India’s aggrandised self and brought it to mother earth.

Clearly it isn’t only the inadequacies of the IAF that have come through in this entirely ill-considered adventure meant to serve Modi’s hideous political agenda, it was also the exceptional skill of the PAF pilots who have always trained to be twice as good as the competition. The difference that showed was of a war-ready force vis-a-vis an ill-prepared and deficient force. It seals it when the Indian vice chief has to admit that 68 percent of his force is antiquated and unable to fight a modern war.

Mr Modi, you have run your courses dry. You have stoked the gunpowder and returned empty. Kashmir continues to cry ‘azadi’ and Pakistan has overcome the challenge you threw at it. If you wish to hit the repeat button, be assured you will only get repeat play. The choice is yours: we could chart a new path which Prime Minister Imran Khan has proposed, or we could regress in time and retrace our chequered past.

Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com