http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/2/12522/The-Chief-Has-Spoken-But-Is-the-Chief-Listening

Unedited version

The Chief has spoken; but is the Chief listening?

At an unspecified event at the United Services Institution of India (USI) - the haunt in New Delhi of retired generals fading away - the army chief, reportedly intoned, "The military should be somehow kept out of politics. Of late, we have been seeing that politicisation of the military has been taking place.” Though not elaborated in the media report, the observation was likely triggered by a query on the building of three foot over-bridges by the army in Mumbai at the location of the recent stampede at Elphinstone station that left 22 dead and 35 injured. Inspired by its earlier showing in New Delhi in the run up to the Commonwealth Games, when an under construction footbridge near the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium collapsed, the army had taken up the gauntlet to assist Mumbai commuters when put to it by the defence minister in a visit to the site along with the Maharashtra chief minister and the railway minister.

At the time, it was unclear whether the army has been consulted prior for this assistance by the defence minister. In the event, it elicited considerable social media outpourings by veterans miffed at the call by the civil authorities on the army when there are sufficient resources with the civil administration – in this case the railways – to fight their own fires. Analogy was drawn to the period early in the Modi era when the army was tasked by the previous defence minister to put a pontoon bridge across the Yamuna in order that the Sri Sri Ravishankar’s yoga jamboree on the Yamuna riverbed could proceed.

Following Nirmala Sitharaman’s announcement at Elphinstone bridge, in the company of party stalwarts, the army chief dutifully took on the task, justifying it later as a public relations exercise useful for image building of the army. This is the second instance of Sitharaman’s proactivism in tapping the army in her short stay so far at the helm of the defence ministry. Early in her tenure, she had required the army to clean up the mess tourists leave behind in the mountains and high altitudes where they are deployed. In particular, this is in the pilgrimage belt along the upper reaches where the Ganges originates. The army clicked its heels and fell in line, with social media awash with photos of colonels taking to the broom – along with army wives. One such much-forwarded image was from Gulmarg, where presumably the army is deployed in tackling terrorists infiltrating into the Valley besides protecting the Line of the Control (LC).

This background suggests two possibilities behind the army chief’s cryptic remarks at the USI event (he reportedly did not elaborate). The first is that he was telling off his critics to lay off the army in their criticism of the army’s seemingly currying favour with its right wing overseers, the BJP government, by being more available than necessary to step up and fill the breach. The criticism has it that the BJP as part of its subversion either brazenly or by stealth of most national institutions, would unlikely leave the army alone. In light of the advance of cultural nationalism and constriction of liberal-secular space across the land, the army could not possibly escape the attention of the emerging ‘deep state’ in India. Critics have therefore been calling for greater self-regulation by the army in the civil-military domain, lest cultural nationalism contaminate its secularity and compromise it.

That this is the more likely possibility is visible from the chief going on to say, “I think we operate in a very secular environment. We have a very vibrant democracy where the military should stay far away from the polity." To him, there is little cause to be wary of the right wing dispensation. He is sanguine that the society remains unchanged. Nevertheless, as traditionally, the army needs to stay at a distance from the hurly burly world of democratic politics. At the event, he explained the army’s stepping up at Elphinstone as part of its aid-to-civil-authorities mandate, though leaving unclear as to how normal rush hour pedestrian commuting can be equated with natural disasters, for which the army can be tapped to lend a shoulder. Clearly, the army chief takes his words seriously of ‘stay(ing) far away from the polity,’ leaving him blind to the political lurch towards the right that India has taken over the past half-decade. Since more situational awareness is expected of an institutional head, he needs alerting to the reality of India today.

 This ab-initio rules out the second possibility, that of the general tacitly cautioning his civilian political masters to keep a distance from the army. This is unlikely in light of the general being beholden to the dispensation for his surprising elevation to the appointment. The general’s public utterances since his controversial elevation to his position as chief have unfortunately impacted his credibility. His recent dilation on surgical strikes in Myanmar under his tutelage as corps commander in the North East – that  were precursor to the ones in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir – were ill timed from point of view of the Gujarat polls. The ruling party can do without any ballast for its political fortunes.

The government has been at pains to distance itself from its supposedly weak-kneed predecessor. In this it has used every opportunity to demonstrate a muscular, martial, risk-taking and war ready India, be it against the Pakistanis in the surgical strikes of last year or the Chinese with the Doklam standoff. It has thereafter duly milked the opportunities for their political worth, such as using the halo from the surgical strikes to good effect in the consequential Uttar Pradesh polls.

Modi has most recently used the strained relations with Pakistan over the past two years to depict the Congress as in league with Muslims and Pakistanis to meddle in the Gujarat elections. Over the period, the army has kept Pakistan to the till along the LC, having reactivated it early in the BJP’s New Delhi tenure, and has through the year undertaken Operation All Out for cleaning up the Valley floor in a hark back by some two decades. The general was quick off the blocks early in his tenure to pull out the Cold Start file from the operations closet and wave it at Pakistan. The Cold Start doctrine reputedly is the conventional punishment up India’s sleeve in case of Pakistani trespass of India’s threshold of tolerance. Since this is the utilization of the army for its professional worth in line with national policy – albeit one propelled by domestic political purposes – the army cannot be averse to the professional opportunity it espies and the institutional spaces (such as budgets, seat at the policy table etc.) it opens up.

However, institutional leadership needs being wary of use of the national security card for political interests, in this case continuing friction with Pakistan enabling the political polarization within India for political gains by the ruling party. The ruling party has chosen its chief well, one who would plough a narrow professional furrow. The problem is that at the apex level of the military sensitivity to the political context of professional activity, including its internal political dimension, cannot be elided by clichés such as apolitical military. The military apex needs to be sufficiently clued up politically to detect that in the context of the times it needs to be porcupine-like to ward of unwanted political attention. The Chief needs to heed his own words. 

http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/47/strategic-affairs/kashmir-charade-winter.html 

The Kashmir charade this winter, EPW,  Vol. 52, Issue No. 47, 25 Nov, 2017 

The day prior to the arrival of United States (US) Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in India, on his maiden visit, Dineshwar Sharma was appointed “as the Representative of the Government of India to initiate and carry forward a dialogue with the elec­ted representatives, various organisations and concerned individuals in the State of Jammu and Kashmir” (PIB 2017). The coincidence in timing was not lost on the Hurriyat, a key participant, among the “various organisations” with which Sharma might have been expected to engage. In its joint statement, the Joint Resistance Leadership—comprising separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Yasin Malik—claimed that the appointment was “a tactic to buy time adopted under international pressures and regional compulsions” (PTI 2017a). Consequently, the separatists have rebuf­fed the offer of a sustained dialogue.

No Inkling of a Strategy

That the appointment is another, and by now typical, pirouette of the Narendra Modi government on national security issues is apparent from the manner of the appointment. The media informs of a “hurriedly-convened” press conference at which the home minister makes the announcement (India Express 2017). That Sharma has been given no agenda as part of his marching orders does not suggest delegation and flexibility as much as it suggests lack of strategic application on the part of India’s national security minders.

A former Intelligence Bureau (IB) head, Sharma, since June this year, has been tying down a post-retirement position as convener of talks with Assam-based insurgent groups. That job had been lying vacant for over a year since its last incumbent, appointed by the earlier union gov­ern­ment, and was not granted an extension. It is not clear if Sharma has demitted his responsibility in the North East or if it remains his responsibility alongside his Kashmir engagement. Both possibilities highlight the deficit in strategic application. Neither can the North East suffer stepmother-like treatment that changing interlocutors midstream testifies to, nor can Kashmir do with a double-hatted interlocutor. Further, Sharma, at the end of his first visit to the Valley, mused that though he looked to a time horizon of two years, he could be dispensed within six months (Wani 2017). Politically, keeping him on longer can help keep Kashmir be quiescent till the 2019 national elections.

This is unsurprising since the appointment bears the fingerprints of National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval. While over the past two years, India has been maintaining a disdain for talks in Kashmir and with Pakistan, the media report on the sudden announcement informs of a huddle a week prior to the appointment, between the NSA and the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in which they discussed a “new political process” in the state (Singh 2017). Doval had then just returned from a trip to Kabul. On the day of the announcement itself, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was in New Delhi on Narendra Modi’s invitation, conveyed by Doval during his Kabul visit. This makes clear the background to the appointment as not rooted so much in a conflict resolution initiative regarding India’s leading internal security challenge, as much as in the regional security situation, energised by US President Donald Trump’s Afghanistan policy speech of 21 August 2017.

No doubt, among the NSA’s talking points with Tillerson figured India’s intent to take forward the dialogue with Kashmiris in order to pre-empt any messaging from Tillerson, who flew in from Pakistan as part of the South Asia leg of his Asian tour that covered West Asia as well. A perceptive observer of South Asia, Harsh V Pant was quick to point out, “With this move, the Modi government can tell its foreign interlocutors that India has started the process of ­dialogue with the Kashmiris” (Das 2017). Keeping its interests at heart in Afghanistan, the US has expressed its keenness on occasion to intervene in the India–Pakistan stand-off that Pakistan, leveraging its strategic location, regularly urged. While India had in 2009 decisively rebuffed Richard Holbrooke, US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan (Af–Pak), the new US administration in its settling-down stage had revisited the notion. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump, valuing his dealmaking skills, had said he would be “honoured” to mediate. In April, Nikki Haley, the US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, had expressed as much (IANS 2017a).

Trump, laying out the US’s “path forward in Afghanistan and South Asia” in his policy speech, was severe on Pakistan, calling for a rollback of terror sanctuaries there. The US defence secretary, James “Mad Dog” Mattis, at a House Armed Services Committee hearing said, “We need to try one more time to make this strategy work with them (Pakistan), by, with and through the Pakistanis, and if our best efforts fail, the president is prepared to take whatever steps are necessary” (Ali and Stewart 2017). The Pakistanis, being past masters at manipulating the US, will, to their advantage, allow transit of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) logistic lines through Pakistan, demanding that the US lean on India over the Kashmir issue in return. Apprehending this, India appears to have scrambled to put together a dialogue process of sorts in Kashmir.

Given these external wellsprings of the initiative, its sincerity cannot but be doubted. The union government is already conversant with the levels of alienation in Kashmir. Sharma has an IB stint in Kashmir behind him and reportedly also has handled the Kashmir desk within the IB, and more recently, has had familiarity with the issue at the strategic level as director of the IB.

This is not the initial stage of conflict resolution necessitating a fresh analysis. A conflict resolution strategy needs to have already been in place and Sharma charged with rolling it out, empowered as he is with a cabinet secretary–level appointment. He should have set the national agenda in terms of discussions on design of the negotiations, its content, and possible outcomes. At this juncture, he ought to have had a battery of conflict resolution experts, constitutional lawyers, and trained negotiators on his rolls, all armed with an agenda. He should have used the winter to coax the Hurriyat. Instead, no preparatory work is apparent, with Sharma still busy putting his secretarial staff together (Yadav 2017).

What Are the Priorities?

Sharma, daunted by the scope of possibilities, remains in his comfort zone. He ascribes being motivated with the need to prevent Kashmir from turning into another “Yemen, Syria and Libya” (IANS 2017b). He is fearful of radicalisation of the youth and of the militancy underway. He wishes “to convince the youth of Kashmir that they are only ruining their future and the future of all Kashmiris in the name of whether they call it azadi (independence), Islamic caliphate or Islam” (IANS 2017b).

To begin with, Sharma’s concern over azadi is misplaced. A spat over the term between Prime Minister Modi and Congress stalwart P Chidambaram, on the campaign trail in Gujarat, which is going to the polls this December, had Modi interpreting azadi as independence, while Chidambaram plugged for autonomy (PTI 2017b). Chidambaram should know, since he had disclosed in Parliament in 2009 that he had engaged in closet discussions with Kashmiris. That interaction informs his belief that “when Kashmiris ask for azadi, mostly, I am not saying all ... the overwhelming majority ... want autonomy” (PTI 2017b). In 2016, he had said that restoring the “grand bargain” when Kashmir acceded to India in return for autonomy was the need, lest India pay a “heavy price” (PTI 2017b). For his pains in highlighting the nuanced understanding of the term, Chidambaram was typically cast alongside Pakistanis and separatists by Modi.

Second, Sharma’s allusion to Islam—negatively clubbing it with the Islamic caliphate—is to misunderstand Islam. Islam does offer the motivation to adherents to fight injustice and oppression. There is no denying that Kashmiris require considerable moral support to cope with the violence that has beset their society over the past quarter century. Insofar that some Kashmiris see the military presence in their midst and the actions of the Indian state as oppression, they are liable to turn to Islam for psychological sustenance and political and physical response. Recognising the place of Islam in such terms in the milieu in Kashmir, the conclusion can only be that the Indian state steps back from a militarised template in Kashmir.

It missed an opportunity for this when in the 2000s violence indices were considerably muted owing to talks proceeding apace internally and externally. While Narinder Nath Vohra, the current J&K governor, was the interlocutor with Kashmiris, Satinder Lambah, a diplomat, undertook backchannel talks with Pakistan. Alongside were the first (and only) talks between the government and the Hurriyat, with L K Advani engaging with the Hurriyat leaders, and, externally, in the following United Progressive Alliance’s first term, five rounds of the composite dialogue. This time around, the comprehensive bilateral dialogue with Pakistan, heralded by Sushma Swaraj, stands suspended, and the ham-handed overture to Nawaz Sharif, through the visit of steel tycoon Sajjan Jindal, was sabotaged by the Pakistan army.

Further, the Indian army chief spiked any conflict mitigation potential in Sharma’s appointment by saying that the military operations would not be effec­ted (Peri 2017). Insofar that this is part of the strategy, it suggests Sharma would be ineffectual, deprived as he is at the very outset by the one arrow in an interlocutor’s quiver that could have worked: the modulating of military action. This assumes conflict resolution as an Indian aim. If the army chief has spoken out of turn, it bespeaks either of an absent Kashmir strategy or a strategy in disarray. Under the circumstances of ongoing military operations appropriately termed “Operation All Out,” Kashmiris cannot be begrudged a turn to Islam’s wellsprings of moral strength.

Finally, even Sharma’s reference to the Islamic caliphate is not sufficient cause to worry. As shown, the initiative is directed less at the Kashmiris, but more at India’s strategic partner, the US. By painting itself into the same corner as the US, as a victim of international terrorism, India hopes to score brownie points over Pakistan, depicted as the fount of such terror. As for the relevance of the Islamic State (IS) in Kashmir, the Hurriyat has expressed its disdain, alleging that this is a propaganda plank designed to misrepresent the political movement in the Valley. In May this year, they contested the interpretation of the struggle in Kashmir by a Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Zakir Musa, casting it in Islamist terms. Even Musa’s overlords across the Line of Control, the United Jihad Council, chose to disown Musa (Rashid 2017). Pakistan is unlikely to cede control of the Kashmiri insurgency to “bad terrorists”—pan-Islamists—who they fight in their own backyard.

Late and Insincere

Perhaps, Sharma’s stint at the IB explains his proclivity. His tenure in the mid-2000s reportedly endeared him to the then IB chief, Doval. It bears recollecting that it was in the mid-2000s—when Doval was at the helm in the IB—that the identification of Muslims with terrorism began with gusto. Recall the role of the two infamous cases of “encounter” killings in Gujarat—Ishrat Jahan in 2004 and Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausarbi in 2005—in setting up this canard that by now passes for common sense. Reportedly, the IB hand in Gujarat generated the intelligence that led up to the killings (Marvel 2016). Ever since, the sway of Islamism—and lately the IS bogey—in India has been exaggerated for political purposes. Likewise, its extent in Kashmir is blown out of proportion. This suggests an intelligence operation at work with multiple aims. In Kashmir, besides dividing the militancy, it legitimises the hard line within Kashmir. In the rest of India, it helps with polarisation, with electoral benefits for cultural nationalists. Its external benefit is in enabling India to sidle up to the US, displacing Pakistan. Sharma is thus either a victim of the IB’s own propaganda or is playing his part in it; with his credibility affected in either case.

National security minders need remin­ding that an intelligence-led na­tional security strategy must not fall for its own narrative. By being overly Chanakyan, India cannot fool the intended targets of its guile. The US may evince being persuaded, if only to fob off Pakistan. However, it cannot fool Kashmiris serenaded in turn by a relay of interlocutors, more credible than Sharma, who have headed over the Pir Panjals.

References

Ali, Idriss and Phil Stewart (2017): “Mattis Says Will Try to Work with Pakistan ‘One More Time,’ ” Reuters, 3 October, viewed on 25 October 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pakistan-military/mattis-says-will-try-to-work-with-pakistan-one-more-time-idUSKCN1C825S.

Das, Sashwati (2017): “Who Is Dineshwar Sharma?” Livemint, 24 October, viewed on 7 November 2017, http://www.livemint.com/Politics/jyzoZh0h4npwEB41ktcXGK/Who-is-Dineshwar-Sharma.html.

IANS (2017a): “Trump May Become a Mediator between Indo-Pak Process: Nikki Haley,” India Today, 4 April, viewed on 1 November 2017, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/donald-trump-nikki-haley-donald-trump-india-pak-peace-process-us/1/919985.html.

— (2017b): “Priority Is to Prevent Kashmir from Turning into Syria: Govt Interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma,” Hindustan Times, 27 October, viewed on 7 November 2017, http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/priority-is-to-prevent-kashmir-from-turning-into-syria-says-govt-interlocutor-dineshwar-sharma/story-fWiYoxQlhEsbA392Pi6L8I.html.

Indian Express (2017): “Who Is Dineshwar Sharma?” Indian Express, 24 October, viewed on 1 November 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/who-is/dineshwar-sharma-rajnath-singh-kashmir-dialogue-intelligence-bureau-4903018/.

Marvel, Ishan (2016): “The Death Of Ishrat Jahan and The Cover-up That Followed,” Caravan, 18 February, viewed on 10 October 2017, http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/ishrat-jahan-coverup.

Peri, Dinakar (2017): “Govt Talking from Point of Strength in Kashmir, Says Gen Rawat,” Hindu, 25 October, viewed on 9 November 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-talking-from-point-of-strength-in-kashmir-says-gen-rawat/article19917089.ece.

PIB (2017): “Centre Appoints Shri Dineshwar Sharma as Its Representative in J&K,” Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, 23 October, viewed on 1 November 2017, http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=171866.

PTI (2017a): “Appointment of Representative on J&K Is Time-buying Tactic: Separatists,” Press Trust of India, 31 October, viewed on 2 November 2017, http://www.ptinews.com/news/9195374_Appointment-of-representative-on-J-amp-K-is-time-buying-tactic--Separatists.

— (2017b): “Chidambaram Seeks Greater Autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir, Slammed by BJP,” NDTV, 29 October, viewed on 4 November 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/chidambaram-says-pm-modi-imagining-a-ghost-on-j-k-autonomy-issue-4912439/.

Rashid, Toufiq (2017): “Zakir Musa as al-Qaeda’s Local Chief Is Bad News for Kashmir,” Hindustan Times, 28 July, viewed on 2 November 2017, http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/zakir-musa-as-al-qaeda-s-local-chief-is-bad-news-for-kashmir/story-HehHADwf5OzyCwhi4qZY3H.html.

Singh, Vijaita (2017): “New Jammu & Kashmir Interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma Is Known as a Dove,” Hindu, 23 October, viewed on 11 November 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dineshwar-sharma-is-known-as-a-dove/article19907762.ece.

Wani, Fayaz (2017): “Interlocution Process in Jammu and Kashmir to Continue for at Least Two Years, Says Dineshwar Sharma,” Indian Express, 11 November, viewed on 12 November 2017, http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2017/nov/11/interlocution-process-in-jammu-and-kashmir-to-continue-for-at-least-two-years-says-dineshwar-sharma-1698665.html.

Yadav, Yatish (2017): “I Want to Target Terror Recruitment: Interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma,” Indian Express, 29 October, viewed on 8 November 2017, http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2017/oct/29/i-want-to-target-terror-recruitment-interlocutor-dineshwar-sharma-1685938.html.

Can Pakistan Turn the US Twist of Its Tail Into an Opportunity?

http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/NewsDetail/index/1/11919/Can-Pakistan-Turn-the-US-Twist-of-Its-Tail-Into-an-Opportunity

While US President Donald Trump’s Afghanistan speech in August laying out his Afghanistan policy was rather vague on details, his defence secretary, ‘Mad dog’ Mattis has busied himself lately with fleshing it out.

The major part of it is in threats described by James Mattis to the House Armed Services Committee as ‘enormously powerful number of options’ to Pakistan. Helpfully, he pointed to a couple of these being ‘diplomatic isolation’ and loss of major non-NATO ally status. As incentive, he offered a opening up of the regional economic links, to include those with India.

But his report that Trump is ‘prepared to take whatever steps necessary’ calls for being wary, especially since he ominously indicates the Americans were holding out to give Pakistan ‘one more time’.

President Trump’s Afghanistan policy speech, delivered at a military base near the Arlington National Cemetery, had it that ‘attack we will’ in a ‘fight to win’ over the ‘losers’. If the American foot-work over North Korea has any pointers, Trump’s speech can be taken as much noise, while his ministers go about setting up a diplomatic bypass.

(In the North Korea case, while Trump in his General Assembly address threatened to ‘totally destroy’ the country, his foreign secretary let on that the Americans were talking directly with representatives of Trump’s ‘rocket man’.) Apparently, both Mattis and Tillerson are to visit Pakistan in quick succession soon, perhaps conveying the possibilities ahead, with Tillerson holding out the carrot and Mattis the stick.

The last time the Americans went the whole hog with the stick was at the outset of Operation Enduring Freedom, threatening to bomb Pakistan back into the stone-age. Wisely Musharraf, demonstrated a bit of military decision making panache in his smart about-turn, promptly pulling the carpet from under the Taliban. Even as the Taliban regime collapsed, Musharraf was quick to play the double game, offering the Taliban sanctuary as they escaped – along with Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora - into Pakistan.

This time round, the Pakistanis have been blowing hot and cold. Its national assembly called Trump’s speech ‘hostile and threatening’. It was a useful reminder to the US that its supply lines are through Pakistan. But even as Mattis spoke, the Pakistani foreign minister Khawaja Asif was in Washington DC, staving off any hard options in the Pentagon’s cupboard.

It is easy to reckon that – Trump notwithstanding - the US does not have very many hard options.

While Trump was clear that he would not repeat Obama’s ‘mistake’ in Iraq by leaving Afghanistan, boots on ground in Pakistan are not an option for the US. Its numbers in Afghanistan are set to increase by only about 4000. Its NATO allies are unlikely to cough up any more than they already have, including the American ‘poodle’, the UK, currently seized with Brexit. With these numbers, the US cannot take the war across the Durand Line. They already have the capability for another Operation Neptune Spear, a target-specific raid across the border. The Warrior Monk - Mattis’ other moniker - was then the commander of the US Central Command, overseeing its Afghan war. He therefore should know that this cannot help them much with clearing up the sanctuary Americans believe terrorists enjoy in Pakistan.

While expansion of the program of targeting the Taliban and the Haqqani network with drone attacks has been bandied as an option, the Pakistani Prime Minister at an event at the Council of Foreign Relations during his recent trip to New York for the UN General Assembly session, implied that the use of drones was disrespectful of Pakistani sovereignty. It increases extremist tendencies in Pakistan, adding to numbers of those radicalized. Collateral damage from drones being one of the main grievances impelling people from the frontier areas to head off for the conflict, an increase in drone strikes could only contribute to increasing Taliban popularity and gains in Afghanistan.

There are also other – worse – players, such as ISIS affiliates. It is not unlikely that the ISIS, with nowhere to go from its drubbing - now being wrapped up - in Iraq and Syria, could head for Afghanistan as the next site to ambush the US. The US, in degrading the Taliban, would be whittling a force that can best take on the ISIS. ISIS presence in Afghanistan is not at the expense of the Taliban. Just as the Iraqi military, the Afghan security forces – though also trained in Indian military institutions - are unlikely to do any better against the ISIS, especially if reinforced by fighters from conflicts in the Middle East.

Nevertheless, the ISIS bogey needs exposing. Though Pakistan can be credibly accused of many slippages in the war against terror, it would hardly be coy in case the ISIS comes visiting. The potential threat is being used as alibi to extend the American stay in the region, for strategic reasons other than to do with Afghanistan or, indeed, terrorism. Even a cursory look at the map shows up three American-skeptic countries – Iran, Russia and China – in the neighbourhood.

The US strategy appears to rely for its success on strengthening the Afghan national security forces. However, this has been the principal line of US military effort at least since Obama took office. The idea of the ‘surge’ in Afghanistan, that took US numbers into six figures, was to strengthen the Afghan forces, even as the additional US forces broke the back of the Taliban insurgency. As is well known, the Taliban waited out the surge and today control 40 per cent of Afghan territory.

Thus, it is unclear as to what is different this time round in the US strategy. Is Mattis wanting to play as defence secretary a hand he was unable to play as the military commander in theater then? Perhaps it is posturing on part of the US, hoping to pressure Pakistan to deliver the Taliban to the table. Obama had faltered in this by killing Mullah Mansour, the Taliban chief, in a targeted drone attack. The Americans by now know that the ticket out of their longest war can only be issued by the Taliban.

The Americans hope that by twisting Pakistan’s tail, it would force the Pakistanis to ‘go after’ the Taliban, pushing the Taliban to the table. For that, all Mattis appears to have is a set of sanctions up his sleeve. In his words, "There are a number of lines of effort being put together now in Secretary of Treasury's office, Secretary of State's office, my own office, the intel agencies. We are also working with Secretary General Stoltenberg to ensure that NATO's equities are brought to bear." Since China will bail out Pakistan, a Pakistani revision of their list of ‘bad Taliban’ is hardly likely.

Mattis’ betrayed his weak hand in saying that being considerate with Pakistan had led to his declining to consider Indian boots on the ground in Afghanistan. In his trip to India last month, India’s new defence minister categorically ruled out the possibility. However, that Mattis has included a possible opening up of economic ties in his strategy suggests an Indian input during his visit. He has apparently been led to believe that India would do so, but India’s expectation is that Pakistan will perhaps be goaded into taking on the Taliban on its soil. This is disingenuous on India’s part.

The upshot is that the US does not have the options it claims. Pakistan does not then have to reflexively push back. The best way to prevent radicalism is to deprive it of a context filled with violence and contestation. Pakistan can use the opportunity of the ‘one more time’ on offer by the US for shepherding the Taliban to respectability, duly incentivized for good behavior. It can thereby gain a say in the indefinitely into the future of Afghanistan; set at rest the fears of all its neighbours; and inveigle its way back into US good books by enabling the Americans to depart in keeping with Trump’s original instinct.

The Usual September Indo-Pak Slugfest

http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/NewsDetail/index/5/11831/The-Usual-September-Indo-Pak-Slugfest

Not one to pass up an opportunity for grandstanding, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to skip the annual UN General Assembly session for two years in a row makes some sense in that it deprives Pakistan of an opportunity, when it is its turn at the podium, to take potshots at India’s take in the Assembly. Since India sent its foreign minister instead, its slot has come after the heads of government have had their say. This gives India an opportunity to take potshots at Pakistan.

The India-Pakistan slug fest that develops in the august chambers of the General Assembly, indubitably hyphenates India with Pakistan, even if India gets the better of Pakistan with its choice of phrases.

This time round the speech of foreign minister Sushma Swaraj was overshadowed by India’s rebuttal made by its very able first secretary, Eenam Gambhir, to the speech by Pakistan’s stop-gap prime minister, charactering Pakistan as ‘terroristan’. Gambhir had shot to fame last year with her phrase characterizing Pakistan as the ‘ivy leagues of terrorism’ in her exercising the right of reply to Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the Assembly chamber.

That speech was useful cover for India to launch its ‘surgical strikes’, multiple raids across a wide front on terror camps across the Line of Control (LC). Pakistan for its part had struck a military installation in Uri just prior to the General Assembly meeting, so as to draw attention of the gathering to the instability in Kashmir, setting the stage for Pakistan’s India bashing.

Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif was doubly required to indulge in this then, since only earlier in the month last year, a media report had exposed a rift in Pakistan ruling elite, between its civilian government and the army, on its India policy. That the media report was close to the truth was soon made clear by the hounding of a leading columnist for Dawn, Cyril Almeida, who did the expose. In the event, Sharif hued closely to the script, authored by the army, making most of the unrest in Kashmir last year that has followed the killing of Burhan Wani.

This time round, while mostly-ailing, Swaraj’s performance bears her usual work (wo)manlike stamp, the saving grace has been in Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi tripping up in her invective, flashing the wrong picture to embellish her case against use of pellet guns in the Valley. The cacophony in the usual circles in India over this gaffe does nothing to obscure the tragedy brought about by the use of such weaponry in the Valley. So, Lodhi’s is not quite the hitwicket it is made out to be amongst the converts.

However, the Pakistani side had something notable to show for its US visit, liable to be lost in the orchestrated chorus over Maleeha Lodhi’s going ballistic in the Assembly chambers.

Of significance was Pakistan’s prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, statement at an engagement at the think tank, Council on Foreign Relations. He said, “As far as tactical nuclear weapons (are concerned), we do not have any fielded tactical nuclear weapons. We have developed short-range nuclear weapons as a counter to the 'Cold Start' doctrine that India has developed. Again, those are in the same command-and-control authority that controls the other strategic weapons."

The importance of noting this is that it sets at rest the debate surrounding what Pakistan intends to do with its short range ballistic missile system, the Nasr, unveiled in 2011. Nasr’s warhead was taken to be a tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) and its utility for Pakistan, as admitted to by Abbasi, was to stymie India’s cold start offensives. The debate in India – carried further into the august pages of the leading international relations journal International Security – was that since the TNW numbers required to stop Indian mechanized offensives would be numerous, Pakistan would be self-deterred from using it in a low-threshold early-use mode. It also did not have the Nasr system in sufficient numbers to be able to stop such offensives.

As it turns out from Abbasi’s statement, this is a misreading of Pakistani intent. Even when Nasr made its debut, the Inter-Service Public Relations press note had it that it was part of the strategic deterrence capability of Pakistan, with the short range missile complementing the longer range missiles in its inventory. This was glossed over in Indian strategists rush to prove the offensive and aggressive intent of Pakistani nuclear first use. Also, self-servingly they had it that since Pakistan could not dare use it in the numbers required as it would lay waste to Pakistan itself over which Indian offensive columns would be advancing, India could afford to go down the cold start option of proactive operations.

Indian strategists needs revising this expectation. Reading the Indian debate and hoping no doubt to bolster its ‘full spectrum’ deterrence, that includes pulling the deterrence cover down over the conventional level also, the Pakistanis appear now to have clarified that the Nasr is a strategic weapon, even if of small yield. This is in keeping with theory in that the aim behind a weapon’s use would determine the type of weapon it is. For instance, in case a small yield nuclear bomb is dropped on an urban area, it is a strategic use of the weapon. Thus, all small yield weapons are not TNW.

Pakistan thus has clarified a strategic utility to the Nasr. It is not so much intended to stop India’s integrated battle groups or strike corps in their tracks, as much as to raise the ante to a level as to ensure culmination of international pressure in favour of escalation control and conflict termination. Its use would be akin to a ‘shot across the bow’.

This has two implications. One is that the recently advertised readiness of India for cold start offensives needs to be tamped down. The army chief acknowledged cold start doctrine in his first meeting with the press on the eve of the Army Day early this year. He has recently twice voiced the army’s readiness for a two front war, with this doctrine informing the strategy on the western front to quickly knock off Pakistan. In this context, Abbasi’s statement should be taken as a timely warning that the expectation of a high enough nuclear threshold to permit cold start offensives might be unwarranted.

Second, are implications for India’s nuclear doctrine. Abbasi’s statement suggests a lower order nuclear first use. India’s professed nuclear doctrine has it that it would take out Pakistan in case of any manner of nuclear first use on its part. This doctrine would be ‘unimplementable’, to borrow the phrase made famous by Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat in a different context.

India needs revising its nuclear doctrine accordingly to enable multiple options of retaliation, including quid pro quo, in such a case. Thoughts of first strike – entertained by former national security adviser Shivshankar Menon – need to be abandoned forthwith, since there is no call to invite a second strike – of which Pakistan is quite capable – just to get a Nasr or two readying for discharge. India must admit to the state of Mutual Assured Destruction prevailing in the subcontinent.

The India-Pakistan September exchange has acquired the status of a yearly fixture on the strategic calendar. The last year it was ‘surgical strikes’. This year it is about the nuclear prospects that such strikes can well set off, as would surely, their elder brother, cold start offensives. However, it is best that exchanges – howsoever charged up - are in fora such as the General Assembly rather than on the battlefield.

Pakistan: Not down for the count, yet
http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=71556 

There is some exultation in India that Pakistan has thrown in the towel. Its army chief has finally reckoned that the political track is the route to go down in tackling the bone of contention between the two, Pakistan's jugular vein, Kashmir. The inference is that the Modi-Dovel doctrine of a tough line on Pakistan is working. With Trump having turned the screw, right in wake of Modi's visit to Washington, D.C., the understanding in such circles is that Pakistan will finally have its comeuppance. All India needs doing is to hold on to its hardline and watch Pakistan wallow, under the twin pressures from the US and India. 

Pakistan for its part has turned up its chin on the Trump demands, indicating that it has seen it all before and can stare down the US. It believes it still has a few cards up its sleeve, putting its geography to play once again. Since it would not want to have two powers breathing down on it, it is seeking to defuse both with placatory language. It is reminding the US that it is an indispensable ally in the war against terror and to India it is messaging peace. This would allay pressures for now, allowing it to fight another day. 

Pakistan's trump card is that it can get Taliban to the table or, indeed, keep it away. It had locked up one leader, Mullah Baradar, who was getting close to the Americans. Taliban has sanctuary in Pakistan and this keeps it dependent to a degree on Pakistan. Pakistan knows that the US exit from Afghanistan is dependent on Taliban playing along. The Taliban for its part will only talk if US exit is also on the agenda. 

For a superpower, talking to the Taliban would be humiliating, especially two decades into a war against it. The last time it was readying for talks, its leader, Mullah Mansour, was knocked out in a drone attack. The US instead would like a negotiated solution between the Taliban and its protégé regime in Kabul. This would keep the US alone at the high table as the two Afghan sides jaw it out on the side table. The Taliban has denied US the satisfaction so far. US desperation is beginning to show. 

US generals who got to be generals by their showing in Afghanistan believe they need to now fight the war they could not fight when they were earning their spurs. So perhaps for the third time they hope to up the ante. The last two times were in the operations to take out the Taliban by supporting the Northern Alliance and the second was Obama's surge strategy, replicating under Petraeus what he had tried out in Iraq earlier. It is not certain what additional ingredient their current strategy has from the earlier iterations that can induce the Taliban to roll over. 

The last time the surge lacked a peace surge. It is also uncertain if a military surge works at all. The example from Iraq is no lesson since there were multiple reasons for the ending of the Sunni insurgency in the Sunni triangle in Iraq, including Sunni tribes aghast at the tactics of the Al Qaeda in Iraq. Pushing into Pakistan after the Taliban has been tried through drones. This time the Trump rhetoric - 'Attack we will' - suggests that they would carry the war into Pakistan, perhaps restricting their incursion if any to the sanctuaries in the tribal areas. 

At best the drone strikes can be beefed up by air and missile strikes. Putting American boots on ground would be to take a chance. To begin with, the Pakistanis would put up a grand show of taking out the Taliban, going after the 'bad' Taliban in the bargain. The Pakistanis having outlasted two two-term presidents expect to see off Trump, who can at best be a one-term wonder, if not impeached earlier for the links of his election campaign team with Russia. 

This longish prelude via Trump's 'attack we will' strategy to get back to the start point on Indian jubilation over the expectation that Pakistan is cornered, collared or clobbered is to show that for the bhakts in the strategic community to fire off the success signal is trifle premature. The Pakistan army chief's wish for a political solution is not because he is intimidated by the Indian army chief's reference to Indian readiness for a two-front war twice-over in as many months. 

Responding to a question at the American think tank, Council of Foreign Relations, while on his visit to the US for addressing the General Assembly, the Pakistani prime minister showed the Pakistanis have some cards up their sleeve. While disclaiming possession of tactical nuclear weapons he said they had short range nuclear weapons, under the same command and control arrangements as their strategic nuclear weapons. This brings out the strategic purpose of their nuclear weapons: not to stop India's cold start offensive in their tracks but to stop the war itself by going nuclear. This in theory is deescalatory escalation, escalation to deescalate. 

India's army chief, dilating on a two-front war at a seminar organized in wake of the two sides - India and China - standing down at Doklam, had in relation to Pakistan, said "Because of this proxy war, there is always scope of conflict with our western neighbor." Since surgical strikes have been tried out, and, in the event of proxy war continuing and another attack that Rawat apprehends occurring, that leaves India with its as yet untried answer, cold start. 

Cold start is a proactive response at the conventional level to subconventional provocation in the form of limited objective attacks designed to stay below the nuclear threshold. Whereas its army chief has been uncharacteristically placatory, it is with good reason. Pakistan has deployed its prime minister to remind India of the nuclear ace up its sleeve to counter cold start. This papers over the crack that had opened up in its civil-military relations with the departure of Nawaz Sharif, in a military-judicial quasi-coup. 

Pakistan has thus not only replied to India's army chief, but has also tried to show repair to the possible blow India had administered it in Mr. Modi's overly effusive jhuppi of Nawaz Sharif. The cracks had begun to show in the Cyril Almeida case in which he reported of a rift between the army and the civilian government over the ISI-army's support for 'good terrorists'. The army promptly ordered the attack on the Uri garrison in India to put paid to any thought that it would obey the civilians. Finally, it eased off Sharif, perhaps seeing him as the unwary victim of India's rather up-front and in-your-face intelligence operation of creating a schism in Pakistan's national security elite. 

Pakistan remains in the ring, riding out twin punches from General Rawat and President Trump. India would be naïve to take President Trump too seriously. The backdrop of his sudden announcement of the Afghanistan strategy was the Charlottesville episode. The president was in the dog house over his seeming siding with white supremacists in equating them with the liberals they had violently confronted at the University of Virginia campus. This seeming endorsement of the far right by the president had even his military worried. The US military has disproportionate numbers of coloured people in its ranks, who are from America's poor seeking employment and upward mobility. The four joint chiefs of staff had all tweeted their condemnation of racism, distancing from their president's remarks. Trump has apparently tried to win them over by allowing them a loose rope in Afghanistan. That the Afghanistan strategy lacks sufficient elaboration suggests it is a product of American domestic politics. It would be naïve for India to take it too seriously. 

Given Doval's adeptness at pirouetting - evident from the several about-turns in India's Pakistan and Kashmir strategies in the Modi period - perhaps India can do yet another twirl and surprise Qamar Javed Bajwa by accepting his plank of talks as the means to a solution to Kashmir.

Journal » Vol. 52, Issue No. 34, 26 Aug, 2017 » Dilating on a ‘Half-front War’

Dilating on a ‘Half-front War’

The reference to a “two and a half front war” by Army Chief General Bipin Rawat is critically dissected. The “half front” apparently covers large tracts of India and a significant number of its marginalised people. The thought of a war on the half front, as conjured by this term, needs to be controverted outright. The army’s imagining of such a war and preparation for it is questioned.

http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/34/commentary/dilating-%E2%80%98half-front-war%E2%80%99.html

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat has been in the limelight ever since he was picked up for the job superseding two of his seniors. This time around, he figured in the media over an interview to a news agency in which he expressed his satisfaction that the “Indian Army is fully ready for a two and a half front war” (ANI 2017). The backdrop to his statement is an ongoing face-off with Chinese forces at Doklam, a disputed territory between China and Bhutan adjoining the tri-junction of the India–China–Bhutan border. The general, perhaps, felt it necessary to bolster national morale by reassuring Indians that the army could fight off not only the Chinese, but also the perennial foe, Pakistan, in case Pakistan—in the circumstance of an India–China conflict—sensed an opportunity.

Some, such as the acerbic strategist Bharat Karnad, have questioned the general (Karnad 2017). In light of the figures recently put out in a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General on critical shortages in the ammunition for tanks and artillery, their critique is plausible (CAG 2017: viii). Apprehending as much, the defence minister—who, being the finance minister too, is at best a part-time raksha mantri (defence minister)—declaimed in Parliament that the armed forces were “reasonably and sufficiently equipped,” cryptically adding that it is not in public interest to disclose the actuals (Hindu 2017).

As for the “half front,” Bharat Karnad is somewhat glib in believing that, “on the half front, there’s no issue.” He reasons that the army will “quickly rid the landscape of insurgents at will, if the brakes on its actions in J&K or in the northeast are removed by the government,” given that, “[e]ven with the AFSPA [Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act] shackles, the army can do its job of denying the insurgencies the success they crave” (Karnad 2017).

Though Karnad is sanguine, it bears reminding that the Kargil War—the anniversary of which India, under its ultra-nationalist ruling dispensation, has begun observing as Vijay Diwas (Victory Day)—had witnessed an upsurge in insurgency and terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Even the additional deployments in the nearly year-long Operation Parakram (2001–02) were unable to staunch the insurgency. It is arguable that Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s political sagacity in reaching out to the Kashmiris in April 2003 on the basis of insaniyat (humanity) and to Pakistan through the back channel resulted in the unwritten ceasefire agreement of November 2003 and the Islamabad declaration of January 2004. As for the supposed “AFSPA shackles” that the army has on, according to Karnad, the army only adopted the “iron fist in velvet glove” philosophy when relative quietude returned to Kashmir through the “healing touch” policy internally and the composite dialogue with Pakistan externally.

Outlining the ‘Half Front’

In other words, the half front—a euphemism for internal security—is a consequential front. This is not so only in relation to the communication zone (the rear areas of military operations through which troops and logistics intended for the front are located or transit). The two parts—combat zones and communication zones—comprise the theatre of war. While the army, perhaps, restricts itself to this area, the term “half front” potentially goes well beyond this and therein lie the dangers.

In case of a “two-front war,” the areas to the rear of the two theaters of war—northern, against a twin threat from Pakistan and China; eastern, against China, and western, against Pakistan—are taken as sensitive enough to club into a half front. This would understandably include areas in J&K and the North East that abut the combat theatres, and the states along the western front. Further, and more troublingly, in the strategic lexicon, the half front straddles most of the rest of India. Deeper in the hinterland is the Red Corridor that would, in the imagination of strategists, kick in in case of a war with China, and Muslim inhabited areas that are taken as likely areas in which a Pakistan-affiliated fifth column based on “sleeper cells” would activate. At a juncture in the nation’s life when dissent is being equated with sedition, a redefinition of the half front can be taken as ongoing, with even liberal bastions and spaces, such as free-thinking universities, being included.

The formulation “half-front war” conveys the impression of an India at war with itself. It is not clear as to what the army has to do with any such war inside India, restricted as its mandate is to the defence of India externally and only secondarily to assisting civil authorities in internal security duties. Using the term “war” in relation to internal security is questionable as a dangerous mindset that can set off a self-fulfilling prophesy. The army needs cautioning that, even if it imagines the half front in a restricted manner as the area directly impinging on its operations, there is a danger of the expansive interpretation taking over. This would not necessarily demand the army’s attention as providing an arena for its current-day political masters and their assorted supportive pseudo-cultural political formations to expand their takeover of India.

Dissecting the ‘Half Front’

It is a reasonable expectation that J&K could turn restive at the onset of war. Pakistan has not sustained the insurgency in Kashmir out of a sense of affinity with Kashmiris alone. Its military overlords have national security and the military’s institutional interests at heart. Operationally, they wish to undercut India’s conventional military advantage prior to its application on the western front. Keeping rear areas insecure helps in interdicting and disrupting the Indian forces en route to the frontline. An example is Pakistan’s choice in the late 1990s of the Hill Kaka area in Surankote tehsil as a base for terrorism. Not only would the terrorist base prove useful for disrupting India’s defences in Poonch sector from the rear, but would also help sustain the insurgency across the Pir Panjal range in the Kashmir Valley. The base was finally evicted in a division-level operation, Operation Sarp Vinash (2003), on the heels of Operation Parakram (2001–02).

Sensing Pakistan’s game plan in Punjab and Kashmir, the army had raised the Rashtriya Rifles. Additionally, the home ministry has at its disposal massive Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF). However, the interface has seldom been smooth. During the Kargil War, with the army’s Kashmir-based formations concentrating on operations on the Line of Control, the Rashtriya Rifles headquarters based in New Delhi were brought forward to Srinagar to handle the spike in terrorism and insurgency. The move met with backlash from the forces, answering to the home ministry, which refused to come under operational control of the Rashtriya Rifles headquarters. From the handling of the stone-throwers in Kashmir last year with the use of pellet guns, it is evident that under the conditions of war the situation would be considerably more fraught and human rights that much more expendable.

As for the eastern front, India’s sense of vulnerability is heightened by an unstable North East stretching behind it. Though insurgency-related deaths in the North East have been the lowest in 2016 since 1997, the army’s “worst case scenario” most likely has it that insurgent groups in the North East would be armed by the Chinese. This is especially so since the army itself probably has plans up its sleeve of waging an asymmetric war in Tibet using Tibetan irregulars behind Chinese lines. India, however, lives in a glass house of its own making. There are over two dozen suspension of operations agreements across the North East. These are at best interim, since peace is not merely the absence of violence. A few hundred AK-47 rifles can set the accumulation of grievances and greed alight.

The North East’s insurgent groups being under an umbrella organisation—the United Liberation Front of Western South East Asia—with links to China, heightens India’s threat perception. This will inform its suppressive reaction in case of hostilities.

A significant stretch of the half front is the Compact Revolutionary Zone, visualised as the Red Corridor running in an arc through forested central India, from the Terai region astride the Nepal border to the Telangana region. Manmohan Singh, as Prime Minister, had once referred to Naxalism as India’s “biggest internal security challenge” (PTI 2010). Noting a declining trend of left-wing extremism-related incidents since 2011, the home ministry’s annual report in a self-congratulatory mode claims an “unprecedented improvement” in the current government’s tenure (MHA 2017: 4). While Naxalism has no external linkage of any military significance, it can be expected that the opportunity offered by a border conflict, particularly with China, would be used to legitimise forays of the Operation Green Hunt variety. Operation Green Hunt, disclaimed by the government after its launch in 2009, was a search-and-destroy mission that continues till today, though under a different guise and scope.

The least visible aspect of the half-front war is related to “terrorism in the hinterland of the country” (MHA 2017: 4). The devotion of merely one paragraph to it in the home ministry’s annual report indicates the actual level of its significance. Nevertheless, prime-time noise and headlines on terrorism, and the supposed inroads by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence earlier and by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant lately into India’s largest minority, its Muslims, leave the impression of a large-scale problem.

This politically motivated identification of Muslim communities with terrorism has been going on for over a decade. This image has been forged by police reflexively picking up Muslim youth in the wake of incidents of domestic terrorism. Such a perception of Muslims indicates that Muslim mohallas might well find inclusion within the half front; for instance, Batla House in New Delhi, the site of a supposed encounter against a terrorist cell in September 2008 (Sethi 2012). In June 2017, 15 Muslims were arrested at various places for allegedly celebrating a Pakistani cricketing victory in the Champions Trophy (Suri 2017). In case of a war with Pakistan, increased security surveillance of Muslims and security-related impositions can easily be imagined.

Additionally, the spate of lynchings and rowdyism by cow vigilantes suggests how any such war will play out for Muslims as a part of the half-front war. This identification of Muslims with the Pakistani “other” is best illustrated by the unsolicited advice of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Inderesh Kumar in reaction to former Vice President Hamid Ansari voicing the concerns felt by India’s Muslims regarding their security (Thapar 2017). Kumar called for Ansari to leave the country for “some place he feels secure” (Deshpande 2017). Presumably, after the fashion lately, Kumar had Pakistan in mind. This conflation of India’s Muslims with Pakistanis can only reach a crescendo in the case of military setbacks in war. If the war goes nuclear, its intercommunity impact within India could rival partition.

Last but not least is the opportunity that a war will offer cultural nationalists for further throttling liberal voices. At a recent observation of the Kargil Diwas in Jawaharlal Nehru University attended by its vice chancellor, the university was likened by Major General (retd) G D Bakshi, with his cultural nationalist credentials, to a “fort” that had been conquered, and he called for similar conquests of similarly oriented universities in Hyderabad and Jadavpur (Shankar 2017). The overt displays of nationalism are now de rigueur, such as the installing of giant-sized tricolour flags in public places, including university campuses; playing of the national anthem before movie screenings; and mandatory singing of the national song, Vande Mataram (I pray/bow down to thee, Mother), twice a week in schools in Tamil Nadu. This is happening in peace time with mere border stand-offs with both neighbours as the backdrop. War will increase the “holy cow” status of national security, legitimising the invasion of liberal spaces.

Prevention as Answer

It would appear that, irrespective of the military showing on either front, India’s national fabric can only suffer a setback on the half front. This is one more reason—added to several others, such as nuclear escalation—why war should not figure as an option. Working meaningfully towards its prevention assumes importance. This means going far beyond, for instance, diplomatically addressing the Doklam crisis. Instead, India needs to clinch the 19 rounds of special representative–level talks so far with China on the border issue, with a determined display of readiness for mutual compromise and accommodation. On the western front, India must discontinue its current policy against substantial engagement with Pakistan and within Kashmir of ignoring political outreach as the best and only way to tackle violence and public disaffection.

Such a line of reasoning might not impress cultural nationalists, who hold the reins of power. To them, a round of bloodletting might be just the potion the nation needs to unify it and bring in the discipline, uniformity and cohesion attributed to wars. Though Vajpayee denied likening Indira Gandhi to Goddess Durga (Vincent 2016), today’s bhakts (devotees) would welcome a similar profile as a war leader for Narendra Modi. The communalists within their ranks would welcome the prospects for further marginalisation of the minority community. This explains India’s strategic direction in terms of the absence of engaging with political solutions. To them, the possibility of war is an acceptable alternative to negotiated settlement of problems.

References

ANI (2017): “Indian Army Prepared for a Two and a Half Front War: Army Chief General Bipin Rawat,” Associated News International, 8 June, viewed on 20 July 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/indian-army-prepared-for-a-two-and-a-half-front-war-army-chief-general-bipin-rawat-4694292/.

CAG (2017): “Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the Year Ended March 2016: Union Government (Defence Services) Army and Ordnance Factories, Report No 15 of 2017,” Comptroller and Auditor General of India, New Delhi, 21 July, viewed on 27 July 2017, http://www.cag.gov.in/sites/default/files/audit_report_files/Overview_of_Report_No.15_of_2017_-_Compliance_audit_Union_Government_Army_and_Ordnance_Factories_Reports_of_Defence_Services.pdf.

Deshpande, V (2017): “Go Where You Feel Secure, RSS’s Indresh Kumar Tells Hamid Ansari,” Indian Express, 13 August, viewed on 15 August, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/go-where-you-feel-secure-rsss-indresh-kumar-tells-hamid-ansari-4794361/.

Hindu (2017): “Armed Forces Equipped to Face Any Crisis: Jaitley,” 28 July, viewed on 1 August 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/armed-forces-fully-equipped-to-deal-with-contingencies-says-arun-jaitley/article19377197.ece.

Karnad, B (2017): “Is the Indian Army Ready for a ‘Two and Half’ Front War?” Qrius, 20 June, viewed on 25 July 2017, https://qrius.com/is-the-indian-army-ready-two-half-front-war/.

MHA (2017): “Annual Report 2016–17,” Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi, viewed on 25 July 2017, http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/EnglAnnualReport2016-17_17042017.pdf.

PTI (2010): “Naxalism Biggest Threat to Internal Security: Manmohan,” Hindu, 24 May, viewed on 28 July 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Naxalism-biggest-threat-to-internal-security-Manmohan/article16302952.ece.

Sethi, M (2012): “Batla House and the Problem with the Deluded Journalist,” Kafila, 28 February, viewed on 23 July 2017, https://kafila.online/2012/02/28/batla-house-and-the-problem-with-the-deluded-journalist-manisha-sethi/.

Shankar, A (2017): “JNU V-C M Jagadesh Kumar Wants an Army Tank on Campus as Inspiration,” Indian Express, 24 July, viewed on 30 July, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/jnu-v-c-wants-an-army-tank-on-campus-as-inspiration-4764093/.

Suri, M (2017): “India Arrests 15 for Celebrating Pakistan Cricket Victory,” CNN, 21 June, viewed on 27 July 2017, http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/21/asia/india-arrest-pakistan-cricket/index.html.

Thapar, K (2017): “Asserting Your Nationalism Day In, Day Out Is Unnecessary: Hamid Ansari,” Wire, 9 August, viewed on 12 August, https://thewire.in/166419/asserting-nationalism-day-day-unnecessary-hamid-ansari/.

Vincent, P (2016): “Footnote to Fabled Story on Indira,” Telegraph, 27 February, viewed on 5 August 2017, https://www.telegraphindia.com/1160227/jsp/frontpage/story_71657.jsp.