https://thewire.in/security/nuclear-triad-deterrent-narendra-modi

Modi May Say Otherwise, But India Is Still Short of ‘Survivable Nuclear Deterrent’

The anonymous author of a 50-year-old monograph, A Strategy for India for a Credible Posture Against a Nuclear Adversary, published by the Ministry of Defence-affiliated think tank Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), has been done proud. India has finally notched up the goal set out in the monograph: the nuclear triad.

In keeping with the precedent of appropriating credit for military developments on its watch, the Modi government this Deepawali tom-tomed the return from its first deterrence patrol of India’s Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN), INS Arihant.

A former admiral confirms INS Arihant carried nuclear-tipped missiles in its launch tubes on its patrol. While a triad – narrowly defined in terms of the ability of launching nuclear attacks from land, air and sea – can be conceded, it is a work-in-progress and not quite complete yet. However, it was advertised in one prime ministerial tweet as: “completing the establishment of the country’s survivable nuclear triad.”

Commentators have pointed out that a mere first patrol is not quite an operational and effective triad. Subsurface launch tests of the nuclear ballistic missiles from the nuclear submarine were only conducted this August, and only twice at that. The INS Arihant itself was in the news earlier for the wrong reasons – beached by water entering it from a hatch left open inadvertently.

Significantly – like a single sparrow does not a summer make – a single SSBN is insufficient as an invulnerable deterrent, termed in the prime minister’s words as “survivable nuclear deterrent”. For such capability, a minimum of three boomers would be required. This explains India’s under-construction INSArighat that is to be followed by two more boats. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hasty claim of an invulnerable deterrent is thus yet another jumla, with elections on the horizon.

The celebration of a rudimentary triad must not elide the cold war logic of a triad. The monograph mentioned was likely the work of the bureaucrat K. Subrahmanyam, then recently appointed IDSA director on return from a sabbatical in the United Kingdom, at the height of the Cold War nuclear-theological evolution. Subrahmanyam later led the first National Security Advisory Board which, two decades back, topped its nuclear wish list – its DraftNuclear Doctrine – with the triad.

In a telling slip of tongue, the prime minister had it that “the success of INS Arihant enhances India’s security needs”. The triad has indeed exacerbated insecurity, not only by the inevitable response of the nuclear adversary (read Pakistan), but on account of making India more venturesome in its appraisal of nuclear weapons as weapons of coercion, enabling a bit of blackmail of our very own.

In his felicitation of the INS Arihant crew, Modi said, “The success of INS Arihant gives a fitting response to those who indulge in nuclear blackmail.” He was presumably referring to Pakistan’s continuing proxy terrorism in Kashmir, even as it warded off India’s conventional threat by projecting early use in a low-threshold mode of its tactical nuclear weapons (TNW).

To Modi, India’s triad defuses any credibility of the Pakistani nuclear first use threat.

The logic goes somewhat like this: Pakistani terror provocation elicits an Indian conventional attack of the ‘cold start’ kind, at a higher order than ‘surgical strikes’. Should Pakistan resort to nuclear first use, it would be met with ‘massive’ punitive nuclear retaliation from India as promised in India’s official nuclear doctrine dating back to 2003.

Such Indian nuclear retaliation has been called ‘incredible‘, since Pakistan has the wherewithal to strike back hard. Modi seems to suggest that the nuclear triad enables India to ride out Pakistan’s counter. With this logic, the ability to deliver the last salvo deters Pakistani counter retaliation, thereby enhancing the credibility of India’s doctrinal position of ‘massive’ punitive retaliation.

In turn, this emboldens India to use its conventional advantage, so far seemingly checkmated by Pakistani TNW. Since it makes India’s conventional edge more usable, Pakistan can be coerced by nuclear-backed conventional muscle flexing to end proxy adventurism in Kashmir.

Lest this logic carry the day, attendant dangers need highlighting.

In the middle term, till India has an invulnerable nuclear deterrent in place, it needs reminding that it remains short of ‘survivable nuclear deterrent’ as claimed. Pakistan had, while testing its ballistic missile Shaheen III, advisedly advertised its reach as 2,750 km, rationalising that the range was prompted by the necessity to take out India’s second strike capability – long range ballistic missiles and boomers – even if based in the far away Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

On the acquisition of the invulnerable deterrent down the road, and with a militaristic right-wing government continuing into the next decade, India can exercise conventional blackmail to bail itself out of the cul-de-sac in Kashmir brought on by the unnecessary hardline there.

With surgical strikes already under its belt and the ongoing up-gunning of its integrated battle groups to a two-star command, Indian confidence in deflating Pakistani reliance on its TNW may overshadow its hitherto strategic restraint and natural caution that nuclear weapons engender.

An escalatory impulse is extant, evident in writings of former commanders of India’s strategic forces. Writing in the August issue of Synergy, a joint military publication, a recently retired general says, “It must be clearly understood that if forced to launch conventional operations, plans will not be governed by Pakistanis nuclear weapons, be it tactical or strategic.”

A predecessor similarly wrote, “Any adversary who does not believe, or casts aspersions on, India’s resolve on massive retaliation by initiating a nuclear strike against India, does so at its own peril, and seeks self-destruction.”

Yet another three-star commander has it that, “Pakistan has developed adequate nuclear weapons to inflict a reasonable amount of damage on India, but the counter capability with India is sufficient to cause damage on an unprecedented scale… .”

A former boss of the Strategic Forces Command, Shivshankar Menon, agrees, “Pakistani tactical nuclear weapon use would effectively free India to undertake a comprehensive first strike against Pakistan.’

Deterrence reassurance does not necessarily translate into security. When a former army commander warns that India’s war planning almost completely ignoresthe nuclear overhang, overplaying the triad is prelude to a deterrence delusion. The assumption engendered by a triad – that India shall get in the last nuclear blow – generates overconfidence, making India liable to take nuclear risks.

Further, what nuclear theology misses is the effect of cultural nationalism on strategic thinking and of authoritarianism on nuclear decision-making.

While Shivshankar Menon – no hawk himself – once mused on a possible nuclear first use on India’s part, writing that “Pakistani tactical nuclear weapon use would effectively free India to undertake a comprehensive first strike against Pakistan,” Menon’s successor as national security adviser, Ajit Doval, a hardliner on Pakistan, can be expected to take cue.

Doval’s boss, Narendra Modi, who was most criticalof India’s restraint after Mumbai 26/11, may find himself walking into a commitment trap of his own making. Shivshankar Menon rightly warns that “if India is forced to make a similar choice in the future, I am sure it will respond differently.”

On the tenth anniversary of 26/11, India does not appear any safer. This makes for plausibility of wargame scenarios that have South Asia as locale. A triad does little to make such scenario-building less plausible.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/politics/opinion-why-the-events-in-jk-are-not-good-for-democracy-in-the-state-3211561.html

Why the events in J&K are not good for democracy in the state

Four years into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre, it is clear that its actions need to be examined in relation to its election agenda. With general elections coming up in a few months’ time, all its actions are geared to ensuring that the BJP comes back to power at the Centre. The dissolving of the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) assembly on November 21 must be viewed against this backdrop. It would be naïve to continue expecting the ruling party to place national interest above party interest.

The ruling party’s non-performance on development appears to have left it with little but polarisation to fall back on to woo the electorate and keep its voter base together.

Muslim-bashing by itself has had diminishing returns since the last elections — the elections that had succeeded in pushing the Muslims decisively on to the ropes. The Ram mandir issue is close at hand, to be trotted out some time early in the coming year, once the Supreme Court currently engaging with it has ruled on it.

In the interim, J&K serves to keep polarisation ticking. The challenge to the special status of the state, specifically Article 35A is at the Supreme Court. The BJP wishes to capitalise on the special status issue with an eye on its polarising possibilities.

Another indicator of polarisation informing the calculus is the manner Ram Madhav, national general secretary of the BJP overseeing its strategy for J&K, alleged that theincipient alliance between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the National Conference was instigated by Pakistan. He has since withdrawnthe comment.

However, the mention of Pakistan was to legitimise the miscarriage of democracy in the dissolution of the assembly just when the two major parties in the state joined hands to steer it back to democracy.

The governor had earlier indicated that the assembly would continue in a suspended state over the transition from governor’s rule to President’s rule. As it turned out, this was to buy time for the BJP-backed challenger Sajjad Lone’s People’s Conference (PC), with two members in the assembly, to stake claim, with support from the BJP and after poaching dissidents off the PDP.

In the event, the PDP-NC attempt at forming a coalition government supported by the Congress, under PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti, pre-empted Lone. Though Lone was pipped at the post by the PDP-NC, the governor chose to dissolve the assembly.

The dissolution provides the BJP an opportunity to return to power through the coalition route after fresh elections, to progress its wider game plan of diluting Article 35A and Article 370. Preventing this had been the impulse behind the getting together of arch foes, the NC and the PDP.

The events of November 21 have given the impression that the governor has acted on behalf of the ruling party at the Centre. History shows that such interventions have dire consequences. Three decades back, Governor Jagmohan was appointed by Indira Gandhi with a mandate to remove the NC’s Farooq Abdullah, who was then hobnobbing with the national opposition parties.

The fallout of Jagmohan’s interference in state politics is rather well known. It eventually led to the rigged elections of 1987 and, as they say, the rest is history with the official count of conflict dead nearing 50,000.

This precedence suggests the national security relevance of the governor’s decision. It required consultation with the national security apparatus headed by Ajit Doval. There is also a minister of state-ranking special representative, Dineshwar Sharma, for engaging with interlocutors of all shades and opinion in J&K. That both did not sound the alarm on the national security implications suggests either they were not consulted or were likeminded. This gives the impression that the national security apparatus, which played along with this decision, has been partisan.

The dissolution of the J&K assembly can only firm up a negative view held by many in Kashmir on India’s democratic bona fides when it comes to the Kashmir question and its militarised handling of the troubles in Kashmir. The perception can be expected to feed the ongoing alienation and exacerbate violence.

This puts paid to one of the governor's four reasons for the dissolution, of enabling anti-militancy operations in a stable and supportive environment, presumably better under President's rule than a democratic one.

The advantage here for the ruling party is that it allows an unmitigated militarised template to persist. The turmoil can be projected as Pakistan-fuelled Muslim angst, posing a threat to national security.

This gives the BJP an opportunity to project itself to the electorate as the only party that can deal with the situation, with a strong man prime minister at its helm.

https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/15551/On-the-Strongman-Myth
On the Strongman myth

The UNEDITED version

On the strong man myth

By Ali Ahmed

At the recent Sardar Patel memorial lecture, the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, moving outside his mandate as an official, made a case for a strong government for another ten years. Given the manner the institutions have been hollowed out over time by cultural nationalists’ infiltration and brazen undermining by the right-wing government over the last four years, the strong government that Ajit Doval had in mind was certainly not one based on strong institutions. As a leading Modi believer, Ajit Doval, was no doubt indulging in a bit of electioneering on behalf of his boss, with an eye perhaps with assuring his own longevity at helm of national security.

Ajit Doval’s questionable proposition has been taken apart elsewhere with an argument having it that so-called weak governments, including weak coalitions, have taken tough decisions. However, what needs interrogating the Doval thesis that his boss Narendra Modi is the strong man lending strength to a government. 

Narendra Modi’s record over the past four years is not inspiring. Only mid this year he made a dash for Wuhan, buying peace with China lest another Doklam like crisis with its attendant uncertainties upset his shy at another lease at Lok Kalyan Marg. (The renaming of Race Course road is lesser known as it did not displace a name with Muslim provenance.) On the Pakistan front, it is by now exposed that the surgical strikes were politically overhyped, with India having conducted these periodically under ‘weak’ governments, including Manmohan Singh’s, earlier.

As for the demonetization decision, given its vacuity, strength would have been in Modi telling his unknown advisers off. It is not without reason that no one has claimed ownership of the idea yet. On India’s acquisition of a rudimentary triad, it is outcome of a natural progression over the past three decades, encompassing tenures of weak governments. Modi has not been able to restrain his followers from micro terrorism in pursuit of their cow protection duties. As for his home minister’s oft repeated claim for having suppressed riots and terrorism, it is only proof that these were the handiwork of the rightwing, which with the attaining of power can dispense as a strategy.  

There is therefore little to show for Modi as a strong man prime minister. It now remains to reappraise the strong man image from his years in a provincial capital, whence he ascended to power on the back of the image.

Modi has attempted to reinforce the image at a photo opportunity by the side of the tallest statue in the world, one made at his behest with public money. Pushing through the statue project in time for elections has been mistaken for strength. It obscures the pushing out of the vulnerable tribal community with ownership of the land – hardly an example of strength. This exemplifies the contrast in the values to which strength is being deployed between Modi and Sardar Patel, whose Iron Man moniker Modi wishes to appropriate for himself. To drive home the connection, Modi alongside attempted to appropriate the Netaji mantle at the recent observation of  the 75^th anniversary of the Azad Hind government formation in exile under Subhash Chandra Bose. 

As for the image, it is one held by Modi believers. It rests on his early showing in power as newly minted chief minister. He allegedly held a meeting at his official residence on 27 February in wake of the burning of coach S6 of Sabarmati Express in which close to three score kar sevaks died. At this meeting, he reportedly approved the procession from Godhra to Ahmedabad carrying the remains of the victims and the handing over to the extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal at Ahmedabad. This was meant to incite mass violence by majoritarian extremists. The state administration and police were warned to allow the venting of feelings and time to put Muslims in their place.

While the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team found no evidence of alleged meeting and let off Modi from complicity, it is interesting that believers in Modi believe just this – his demonstration of strength in holding off the Indian state. Modi’s aura stands heightened in the manner he fended off the half-hearted admonishing by his party superior and prime minister, Vajpayee. He also overturned the attempt to remove him at the ruling party conclave and returned to power in early state elections. Not only did he escape accountability, but he provided impunity for hatchet-men and foot-soldiers of the rightwing such as DG Vanzara and Babu Bajrangi. He employed the now infamous police officer Asthana, of the CBI vs. CBI fame, to provide post facto justification for the pogrom, by having him furnish a report that the Godhra coach burning incident was a premeditated one.    

His strong man image was embellished with a few notches added by killings of Muslim terrorists with Pakistani links supposedly out to get him in revenge for the Gujarat pogrom. One such terrorist was a girl barely out of her teens. His then home minister – and now party president - has seen the inside of jail in the case. Modi was the Hindu hriday samrat on-the-make, taking a leaf out of the book of the likes of Bal Thackeray, the Mumbai supremo whose notoriety rested on like credentials of association with showing Muslims (and South Indians) their place through like means - largely one-sided mass violence. Since all this happened on the watch of the rival Congress-led coalition at the center, who could not expose the same even though it had the levers of investigation agencies in its hands, it further burnished the strong man image. 

But the chickens are coming home to roost and ironically when Modi is at the zenith, prospecting a second term. Modi’s strength is up for querying on three counts.

The Zakia Jafri case is due for a hearing at the Supreme Court. Zakia Jafri, widow of former parliamentarian done to death in the massacre at Gulberg society in Ahmedabad on the first day of the Gujarat carnage, has stayed the course maintaining that the SIT was wrong in exonerating Modi. The subtext is that Modi’s holding back was not due to powerlessness or incompetence, but complicity as a deliberate provision of cover for perpetrators – the very reason for Modi idolatry by bhakts.

The second case is that of the political murder of Modi’s home minister at the time of the Gujarat carnage, Haren Pandya. A witness in the case of the killings of Sohrabuddin, his wife Kauser-bi and associate, Prajapati, has alleged a connection between the policeman acolyte of the Modi-Shah combine, DG Vanzara, as ordering the killing of Haren Pandya. Pandya was Modi’s party rival. He was reportedly spilling the beans on the conspiracy behind the Gujarat pogrom, necessitating that he be put away.  

The third owes to revelations in the recently released memoirs former general Zameer Uddin Shah. ‘Zoom’ Shah informs of the army, that had flown into Ahmedabad on the night of 28 February-1 March on an aid to civil authority task sitting out a whole day, 1 March, on the tarmac of the airport since the state authorities did not provision magistrates, vehicles, police liaison and logistic support for 34 hours. Only on 2 March was assistance from the state government forthcoming, though the Union defence minister was on hand since 28 February pleading for the same. This timeline lends credence to the dissenting narrative that the mobs were given 72 hours leeway between 27 February and 1 March. 

Strength under the prevailing circumstance in the Republic can be interpreted in two ways. One is in taking Modi as a strong man, albeit in a certain perverse way. The questionable nature of the strength, specifically, the ethics surrounding its acquisition and its deployment, is the Achilles heel. The second is in the strength being in the right-wing forces, that have overtaken society and taken over the state. Modi’s unwillingness and inability to contain and control these forces is thus the opposite of strength. Having got on the tiger he is unable to hop off.   

As with screen villains, the projection of strength is liable to be shown up in a climax. It is best that hollowness of the supposed strength be interrogated timely, lest over the coming five years the electorate is presented with yet more evidence of Modi’s unsuitability for high office. 

    

https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/15440/Selectivity-in-Military-JusticeMilitary-Justice

Selectivity in military justice

UNEDITED VERSION

A former army commander ruing the possibility of extraneous considerations informing the army’s decisions, writes: ‘it would be very unfortunate if the Army’s approach to human rights violations is influenced by extraneous – regional, political or demographic – factors.’

His observation was in wake of the army’s summary general court martial sentencing human rights violators in a custodial killings case in Assam, the Dangari court martial, going back some two decades. The general brought out a little-known facet of the case, in that it was one of two cases that the army volunteered to take on when offered a choice by the Supreme Court in May 2012.

The other case was the infamous Pathribal case in Jammu and Kashmir in which five innocent men were killed by the army and presented as the terrorists who had carried out the Chattisinghpora massacre of Sikhs in Kashmir on the eve of the visit of United States’ President Bill Clinton to India in March 2000. In the event, the army did not keep its commitment to the Supreme Court of conducting a trial by a court martial, instead letting off the accused for want of evidence.  

The Supreme Court in August 2017 admitted a petition by the aggrieved families against the army’s stonewalling. The petitioners had earlier faced a rebuff at high court level. Though respondents were given six weeks to furnish their positions, the Supreme Court has – over a year later - yet to hear the case.

The contrasting trajectories of the two cases does beg the poser framed by the former army commander, an additional possibility no less troubling is discussed here.

Apologists for the Pathribal killings suggest that immense pressure on the army in wake of the Chattisinghpora massacre led to the staged encounter killings. Since it was an unidentified armed group that carried out the massacre of the Sikhs, suspicions were of a possible ‘black operation’ intended to malign Pakistan and its proxy war agents in Kashmir. In order to influence perceptions, the army may have staged the encounter, presenting those killed as the perpetrators of the massacre.

Given the strategic level context of the killings, the Rashtriya Rifles unit that carried out the fake encounter could hardly have thought up the cover-up idea itself. It was clearly put to the task. That its commander went on to the next rank – despite botching a high-profile operation - implies he was acting on orders.

If so, it is fair to also look higher up in the food chain. Such orders can be expected through the chain of command, with some links bypassed for confidentiality or over fears of incumbents having a mind of their own. The informal ‘blue-eyed boy’ links also serve as the conduit.

In this case the origin of the orders was likely outside the army’s provenance. The outpourings now - at a time of ascendance of former spooks in the strategic community - indicate that the Kashmir file in New Delhi then had an intelligence minder. The strategic game at the time was to get Pakistan on to the US’ list of ‘terrorist states’.

The Kandahar hijack incident and the supposed Pakistani fingerprints all over it had not quite succeeded in this. Kandahar appeared to have been a fortuitous last halt of the hijacked plane, having been allowed inexplicably to take off from Amritsar in first place and denied a landing in Lahore.

In the conspiracy narrative, more was therefore needed. A black operation thus acquired the legitimizing rationale of raison d'etat, with covert ministerial imprimatur concerning itself at best with the scope for plausible deniability.

That the perpetrators were implementing orders explains their being let-off by the army, even without the court martial being convened even though mandated by the Supreme Court. Prosecution of the perpetrators would lead to spilling of the beans on Pathribal and, in turn, opening up the official narrative on Chattisinghpora to scrutiny.

The reasons-of state implicit in the Pathribal case did not attend the Dangari court martial case in Assam. That is a case of a unit acting largely autonomously, even if it kept its hierarchy in-the-loop on its actions. It is not a unit gone rogue, but one unfortunately attuned to the culture of the formation it was operating in.

The eventual elevation of the commanding officer to the rank major general suggests he earned a good command report, which means the brass were happy that he kept the bean count register ticking. It is not entirely a separate issue that his luck ran out in a case of moral turpitude, a case of cutting of one corner too many.

He fell prey to a command climate of careerism attenuated by the need in those serving in the north east to rival the showing of their comrades in Kashmir, who were in comparison bagging militant scalps by the dozen in the mid-nineties. Thus, his was an easy case for the army to duly follow through on in its commitment to the Supreme Court.

This is of a piece with the mantra ‘aberration’ the army trots out when confronted with its record on human rights. To it, the violators in the Assam case being held to account, the aberration stands addressed, notwithstanding that this was eased by the former major general’s sacking a decade back.

The verdict in the Dangari case compensates for and attempts to mellow the view of the Supreme Court on the Pathribal case when it comes around to vetting the petitioners’ case made over a year back. The delay at the court’s end – hopefully inadvertent - helped.

Unfortunately, it cannot be said with any conviction that shorn of the ‘national security’ connotation, a Pathribal like case would have gone the way of the Dangari case. The Machil case, in which three innocent men were killed in a fake encounter depicting an infiltration attempt on the Line of Control, was one pursued at the behest of enlightened leadership at the army command level. That its outcome was derailed in a questionable judgment of the armed forces tribunal suggests that a Pathribal could have met a like fate.

Even where there is no ‘national security’ cover, such as the in the killing of Manorama Devi in Manipur, the army has been known to close ranks and protect perpetrators, under the mistaken belief that it shores up morale and as a defence against opening-up the of its human rights record. Its leadership forgets that it is paid for just that, leadership.

By this yardstick, petitioning of the Supreme Court by hundreds of army men against any dilution in the reading of the impunity clause in the Armed Forces Special Powers Act must be called out as a failure in leadership. It has not ingrained a command climate in which the higher obedience is in disregarding illegal orders even at the peril of a career.  

While the competing explanation here to the Pathribal case being at variance with the Dangari one apparently holds water, the unfortunate part is that the Dangari case went the distance because a Bharatiya Janata Party government, in power both in the province and at the center, was perhaps the elephant in the court martial room.

http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=84300

Divide and kill


In the last quarter, 78 militants have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir, with 90 per cent of these being local recruits. This is the culmination of the summer campaign, a befitting cap to Operation All Out. The army is presumably battening down for keeping out the 300 odd militants awaiting induction into the Valley from across the Line of Control. The other 300 odd militants in the Valley, largely operating in south Kashmir, are in the army's sights over the winter. Hopefully, by the time the nation goes to polls, the victory bugle will sound in Kashmir, enhancing the poll prospects of the Modi-Shah combine. 
The script can be directly attributed to Mr. Doval, the national security advisor, since it is of a piece with the strategy unleashed in the mid-nineties. Back then, the turn-coat militants were deployed to turn the tables on the insurgency. Once their utility was exhausted in the fraternal bloodbath in Kashmir, they were dignified by a police job - some in its sword arm, the Special Operations Group (SOG). 
The move to rely on the Ikhwan to divide Kashmiris and best those with a Pakistani affiliation is variously attributed, with at least one bio-sketch crediting Ajit Doval. The strategy continues, with intelligence-led operations relying on information from the community. Credit for the intelligence inflow is generously given to the Kashmir police by the military and former military men, the latter on social media. 
This explains the unfortunate targeting of Special Police Officers (SPO), and the police, by militants, who no doubt wish to stanch such inflow. The fratricide for a period mid this year included tit-for-tat atrocities, including kidnaps and killings of off-duty uniformed members of the community and some innocent relatives of members of both sides. 
The strategy is a variant of the well-known one employed by outside powers: 'divide and rule'. It has intelligence provenance going back to the several groups India's intelligence agency spawned to counter the Tamil Tigers in north and east Sri Lanka. There, Prabhakaran gave these groups short shrift and they departed Sri Lankan shores along with the Indian army. In Kashmir, the army can only remain. The host community can only suffer the strategy. 
In its earlier avatar of the mid to late nineties, it was used to effect by a fledgling Rashtriya Rifles to compensate for its lack of cohesion as a fighting force. The hatchet job on the insurgency was Kashmiri led, with not a few military careers benefiting in the process. The relative peace of the early 2000s - brought on by factors other than military pressure - resulted in covering up of the tracks, with the Ikhwan jettisoned, but the strategy kept alive through the territorial army's 'home and hearth' battalions, SPOs and the SOG. The village defence committees (VDC) south of the Pirpanjal was the essential precursor to the communalization of the area today. It is as futile as the 'chicken or egg' conundrum to argue whether terrorism preceded the VDC or otherwise. 
The strategy of proxy groups was exported to Assam, where the surrendered Assamese militants were put to pressure the Assamese insurgents. The fratricide there included killings by these proxy groups of relatives of their former comrades. Some 30 deaths were at their hands. The governor in Assam in the period was a former general with a known predilection for the right-wing party then in power in the center. He was duly rewarded with yet another gubernatorial assignment, this time in Kashmir by the pretender Loh Purush, LK Advani. 
The general in charge of the operational group of Assam's unified command in the period at end last century had earned his spurs in the Valley, who in one bio at the end of one of his pieces of writing takes credit for the policy of surrenders in Kashmir. The period he commanded a tactical formation in Kashmir was when the Ikhwan was forged. That's perhaps where he arrived at his Islam-terrorism linkage: 'Unfortunately, terrorism has been linked to religion and this is very dangerous. Unfortunately, Islam has come under shadow of doubt and it is creating all the problems.' (His latest foray into the headlines has been in his Pune based think tank first making the link between 'urban naxals' and Bhima Koregaon, one lapped up by the police of the saffron party run state.) 
The SPO template was then transferred to central India in the form of the Salwa Judum, where it - yet again - successfully divided the tribal community. Operation Green Hunt ongoing in the jungles out of sight of the media is on the backs of tribal fighters, with the central armed police forces and paramilitary deployed on hand to reap up any credit for outcome of operations. Notably, the strategy's transfer was in the mid 2000s when our very own James Bond, Ajit Doval, was heading the lead internal intelligence agency and the national security adviser was his former boss.
In central India, the strategy was frowned upon by the Supreme Court in a case brought to it and pursued by scholar activists. The militia was responsible for ethnic cleansing, which is what the corralling of tribal communities into detention camps essentially was. The spirit of the court judgment against use of the militia appears lost on the police, with the fighters morphing into irregulars, for instance, those depicted accompanying the armed police guarding the character, Newton, determined to bring electoral democracy to the interiors of Bastar in the eponymous hit film.
The tragic SPOs are as much the victim of the strategy as the targets. SPOs salary was doubled this year, after six years of bureaucratic deliberations, to Rs. 6000 per month, and after the counter insurgency of the last two years virtually riding on their backs. The recent abduction and killings of SPOs led to another hike by a third of the amount, to keep them to the till. This is a case of the state taking advantage less of commitment than of desperation. With no employment opportunities, the apologists for the hardline are plausible when they claim that stone pelters - who brave pellet guns - are on the payroll of the Hurriyet. To strategists who double as devotees, the ingenious scheme thought up by Messiah Modi - demonetization - ended stone throwing since it dried up these funds. Wonder what to them accounts for the stone that felled the unfortunate 22 year old trooper, Rajendra Singh, this week. 
The fissures from desperation - rendered crevasses by conflict - are easy to manipulate by an imperial successor state, India. It is natural for the intelligence community denizens to think up such strategies, for they are predisposed to chicanery and deception as part of their trade. They are also not the ones implementing it intimately. That is the domain of the army in Kashmir (and the paramilitary in central India). The security forces should know better. Whereas this cannot be said of the khakis - not ever after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) saga dubbed CBI vs. CBI - this should be the case with the army. 
It has an intellectual counter insurgency trove and a doctrine. It has a reputation to protect. It is aware of the political preceding the operational; of the national superseding its parochial interest. And yet, for it to profit from a strategy that is messing up society in the long run - an Indian community at that - is abdication of its agency. It is no longer a strategic actor, one that includes long term ends to offset short term ways and means. This lessens the distance between it and doormen sporting camouflage these days. Doormats are not strategic beings.

http://kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=83871
Ajit Doval's platter: Centralisation with a purpose

Four years into the Modi regime, it is disingenuous for strategic analysts to continue analysing its moves through the prism of strategic analysis. The commentary attending the appointment of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval as head of the strategic policy group, one of the pillars of the national security system, examines the move against the parameters of effectiveness and efficiency. This is a misleading start point, even if the commentary mostly arrives at the conclusion that there is little that has changed in a largely elephantine, if not dysfunctional, national security system. 
The problem with such analyses is that it credits the Modi government with intent to inject a sense of urgency and purpose in the system. The superimposition of Doval - the supposed supercop and intelligence wizard - on the strategic policy group, comprising the heads of all national security related silos, is taken as just the potion required by the system. It follows the move some months back of the creation of the defence planning committee, headed - you've guessed it - by our very own Agent Rana and Agent Vinod, Ajit Doval. 
This both misrepresents and misleads. If it is institutional vigour that Doval is supposed to bring about, setting him to it four years into the tenure is too little too late. Besides, centralization is no answer to multiplying institutional strength. In any case, if Amit Shah informs that Mr. Modi's leadership mantra is institutionalization, it is surely a bit of information that must be treated to the 'barrel of salt' test. In his recent op-ed, 'The Modi I know: The PM thinks big and is an institution builder par excellence', Amit Shah credits Narendra Modi with being an 'institution builder'. Neither does credibility of Mr. Shah, nor that of his subject, allow the attentive reader to place disbelief in suspension in the manner of their believers, the bhakts. If institutions were being sought, then centralization of the order as witnessed under Modi and his Gujarat cadre devotees would not have occurred. At the fag-end of his tenure, he would not have to foist Doval over heads of institutions. 
The moves come rather late in the tenure of the government. These are tacit acknowledgment that Modi's boast of being national security sensitive has proven just that. It does not take a Nitin Gadkari to inform of the nature of Modi's election time boasts, being vacuous, if not lies altogether. Gadkari's candour was picked up in the Marathi vernacular, when he was perhaps explaining why as they survey the coming elections the government must not be held to its election time promises. 
It also is an admission that the Modi sarkar in its lame duck year is fearful of its own shadows. The Modi-Shah duo that orchestrated the 'wave' last election time is best aware of how it engineered the paralysis of the Manmohan government. Even if Manmohan's second stint was mired in corruption, its ineffectual showing was also due to the defection of the bureaucracy - a subset of the middle classes. Enamoured of the anti-corruption juggernaut, with activists and the putative Aam Aadmi Party at its spearhead, the bureaucracy wrote the epitaph on Manmohan, well prior to his sell-by date. 
The Modi-Shah duo is aware of how the anti-corruption movement was hijacked by the Hindutva platform, through its Trojan horses as Baba Ramdev. The trajectory of cop Kiran Bedi and member-of-the-brass VK Singh is illustrative. It is no wonder then that the common man's party continues in the government's cross hairs five years on, lest its counter reel back the Bhartiya Janata Party's developmental constituency. Keeping the bureaucracy to the heel - should it make an anticipatory shift in its political master - requires a watch dog. The bureaucracy may yet discover its spine, but not due to the right reasons. It is surely put off by the manner the Gujarat cadre Modi aficionados have been let out and the police lobby, under Doval's tutelage, taken over the roost. Doval's professor emeritus status in the intelligence community presumably enables the omniscience to keep the governmental wheels humming, otherwise at risk from a logjam. 
But Doval's elevation - in terms of power, authority, reach and image - has more to it. 
Amit Shah has predicted a fifty-year Hindutva Reich. This requires keeping a date with the voter in 2019. Between now and then, Modi's 56 inch claim cannot be shown up as hollow. Already, his dash to Wuhan to buy time from the Chinese is being taken as a measure to preempt another Doklam or a reverse Doklam. He cannot afford a crisis in election year. The periodic diatribes of the army chief are to deter Pakistani adventurism. If the hardline was to be taken to its logical conclusion, there would not have been a return to a ceasefire at the Line of Control since early this year. Its continuation contradicts the 'pain' the army chief wishes to inflict on the Pakistani army. The army instead appears content to bring scholars and academics moonlighting as 'terrorists' to meet their maker within Kashmir. 
Ensuring that the benign security climate does not end up as a crisis, a crisis a confrontation and a confrontation a conflict requires a firm hand at the national security helm. This explains in part Doval's reeling in of all the reins into his person. His task over the coming year is to ensure Modi's longevity in power. The national interest in Hindutva terms is that the proverbial nation needs an extension in Modi's mandate. Another five year term is essential for the following forty-five. Ajay Mohan Bisht is under preparation to take over the mandate thereafter. In some 1500 'encounters' in his tenure in Lucknow, deaths have been in upper double digits. He is following the Modi-Shah script from their Gujarat days, even if one case led to Shah seeing the inside of jail and exile from his province. The national interest as seen through the strategic lens has to be kept in cold storage for the next six to eight months. Mr. Doval, with his lifetime of experience in the system, his ideological commitment, well-advertised belief in a strongman leader and valuing his proximity to the pretender Leviathan, can be trusted to deliver an environment that returns Modi to power. 
Unfortunately, that may not be all. Unfortunately for Modi, dark clouds are accumulating on the horizon. The Rafale scam joins demonetization and the goods and services tax with the magnitude and potential to bring down Hindutva's castles in the air. Worse bhakts and their icon are increasingly at the butt of social media jokes. Given this developing siege of Iron Man II (LK Advani not counted) may require trotting out of the usual election gimmicks up the ruling formation's sleeve, polarization being one. The Mandir card is available to play. While its internal dimension is self-evident, a crisis with Pakistan can be manufacture in case an external Other is required. The manipulation of voter perceptions in the run up to elections may require orchestration of the national security apparatus. 
An able hand on the till is therefore necessary. Mr. Doval may have more on his hands than meets the eye.

https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/15204/Making-Security-A-Voter-Consideration

Making security a voter consideration

Here on, end-September will likely figure as the annual culmination of the India-Pakistan summer campaign over Kashmir. Thus far the arena has been the General Assembly’s chamber in New York with the right of reply being deployed by both sides. In the latest episode, India called-off a meeting - though one not amounting to talks or a resumption of the peace process - between the two foreign ministers that was to be held in New York.

As India heads into its fifty-year Reich predicted by Amit Shah, the context back home to the annual joust in New York will be provided by the observance of the Parv Parakram, celebration of the anniversary of the ‘surgical strikes’.

There being no meetings left to call off in case needed, the stage is set for the next crisis. An expert relying on notes taken on a field trip to the region rules in limited war.

Apprehending as much, the Indian Army Chief is set on a military reforms agenda. He believes the Indian army is configured for fighting ‘previous wars’. Army commanders at this autumn’s conference are to sign off on a restructuring agenda to make the army’s cold start doctrine implementable.

The Army Chief let on that India has options up its sleeve other than surgical strikes. He wishes to reprise surgical strikes and inflict like pain on Pakistan, but without the brutality that attends Pakistani provocations.

This implies a perforation of the subconventional-conventional divide in an up-gunned variant of surgical strikes by conventional means. The aim is to rekindle escalation dominance.

Escalation dominance is a perception in a side that it can prevail at a certain level. This has deterrence value in that the ability to prevail at a certain level of conflict, prevents the other side from escalating to that level fearing ending up the worse off.

The conventional advantage being with India, Pakistan for its part, has sought to undercut this by introducing tactical nuclear weapons at the conventional level. It has obscured the divide between the two levels, conventional and nuclear.

Taking cue from Pakistan - that obscured the nuclear-conventional divide - India appears set to obfuscate the subconventional-conventional one. This will enable leveraging India’s conventional advantage at a lower level, at the subconventional-conventional divide. This will keep well off any nuclear thresholds conferring renewed utility of conventional power into the nuclear age.

Though having deterrence benefits, the underside of such exertion is an impetus to brinkmanship. Assuming escalation dominance, a side may be more willing to go to the brink and court conflict in crisis.

Improved conventional capabilities tend to prompt India’s conventional muscle flexing, while Pakistani belief that its ‘full spectrum deterrence’ covers the conventional level. Unintended outcomes can result.

The two sides not talking to each other, there is currently no buffer. This means there is one step less between trigger events and crisis.

Earlier, the two sides had put their eggs into one basket, that of contacts between the two national security advisers. The Indian side having a security czar in Ajit Doval, the Pakistani side had reciprocated with appointing a military man as his counterpart. The two reportedly met discreetly some six times over the past four years.

The Pakistani national security adviser having resigned on Nawaz Sharif being forced out of office, even this link no longer exists. The Imran Khan administration is disinclined to recreate the appointment, merging the office with is foreign ministry.

It is apparent then that political distancing and military preparedness are dangerously coextensive.

As India heads into elections, there is a political necessity to keep the India-Pakistan pot simmering. This can enable the ruling party to use the ongoing face-off for political dividend when needed. With the Rafale episode joining demonetization, the general services tax and jobless growth kicking in together, political compulsions may require trotting out the Pakistani bogeyman.

The usual autumnal reports of some 300 militants in terror launch pads waiting to infiltrate prior to snows setting in are already being put out. The local elections within the Valley can provide the tinder. The upcoming tenth anniversary of Mumbai 26/11 serves as a difficult juncture. If the death of three special police officers and mutilation of a border guard’s body caused a pause in meetings between the two countries, no recourse is left but retaliatory violence at the next provocation.

Pakistan for its part would not be averse. It would like to get back at India, viewing India’s hard-to-get stance as a spurning of its hand outstretched over the past year. Counter-intuitively, it may like to smoothen the path to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s continuing in power, knowing that a crisis would be useful politically for him. PM Modi in power is only superficially bad news, since his hardline is useful for the Pakistan army’s lease on power in Pakistan.

Political portents indicate a troubled relationship in the run up to Indian elections. Putting in place shock absorbers is the only practical bet for the interim. Sushma Swaraj’s formula that meetings are only to discuss terror can prove a handy band aid.

Equally notable are the levels of insecurity at the fag-end of the government’s tenure. Its posturing on national security ever since Mr. Modi’s trip to Rewari inaugurating his election campaign in 2013, that was backed by cheerleaders on Delhi’s strategic circuit, stands exposed.

The offensive-defensive dialectic is the sine-qua-non of strategy. So far, India’s military developments have only driven Pakistan further down the nuclear route. The last round of conventional change India instituted - its cold start doctrine – resulted in tactical nuclear weapons appearing on the subcontinent. The current day thrust for restructuring cannot but have like innovative response, and therefore is not quite the route to security.

The shift to cold start doctrine and its implementation phase was in the context of improved India-Pakistan atmospherics. This round of restructuring requires similar buffering. Instead, the current trajectory of India’s Pakistan policy worsens Indian security.

Four years into the hardline policy, continuing insecurity must be laid at its door. Consequently, security considerations must figure in voter considerations ahead.