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Why Naya Bharat needs a Jameel Mehmood

Even as the Indian armed forces engaged in Operation (Op) Sindoor, some concerning headlines this side of the border collectively call out for tempering of the elation in its wake.

Here, the incidents in question are first listed, followed by a caution.

It's not all that glitter is gold

One, with the hot-pursuit of terrorists who perpetrated the atrocity at Baisaran meadow failing, Kashmir witnessed the demolishing of houses of militants with controlled explosions, including of those uninvolved. The operation was by night and in at least one instance, neighbouring houses were also damaged. The security forces involved refrained from releasing official information on the action.

Two, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has opened an inquiry into “unconscionable, unacceptable acts” off the Rakhine coast in Myanmar. Allegedly, under the cover of darkness, the Navy dumped Rohingya refugees – who had been corralled from Delhi and transported by air to the Andamans by air - into the sea. (It would be a pity of the aircraft for move to Andamans were furnished by the air force.) Worse, allegations include sexual misconduct by unspecified escorts aboard the vessel.

Three, the Eastern Command informed of killings of 10 armed cadre of an unnamed armed group near the border in Manipur by the Assam Rifles. A Myanmarese group involved in the civil war against the military-led central authorities has since questioned the encounter. Apparently, the group was against the ongoing fencing of the border in the area; also objected to by local communities.

Four, the Sikh clergy denied deployment of air defence assets within the Golden Temple complex, forcing the army to distance itself from the statement of its air defence chief and local army commander. It appears that army was countering an earlier propaganda plank of the Pakistani military that improbably held that the Indian side had targeted Golden Temple during Op Sindoor.

For Indians to also refer to Golden Temple in a mirroring information war is to unnecessarily involve an Indian community in intelligence games. Whether the Temple witnessed a ‘surfeit of drone and missile attacks’, in keeping with the intelligence on threat to the Temple, is questionable.

Further, the commanding general in Amritsar in his media statement held that consequent to the Pahalgam attack, ‘the nation’s anger under able leadership took the form of Operation Sindoor.’ In Hindi, he describes it as ‘prabal netritva ke adheen (under bold leadership)’. Since the reference to the ‘able and bold leadership’ can only be to the political masters of the military. This is of a piece with the air force’s shabash: “…has been possible only because of budgetary and policy support from the government of India in the last decade." Both are egregious.

Five, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan’s new book just hit the stands. In it, the general has opined against any need for a written national security doctrine (NSS). Evidently, the leading military authority, in face of expert opinion to the contrary, provides covering fire to the government that has not been able to come up with one for over a decade.

Further, the timing along with its aim – “a cogent viewpoint…as to how the Indian Armed Forces are transforming…and their steadfast contributions towards realization of the national vison of becoming ‘Sashakt, Surakhshit, Samridh and Viksit Bharat’ by 2047” – lends ballast to the ruling party’s surge, capitalising on the military’s operational showing as is its wont.

Get up, stand up

It was not always this way. The military has been known to retain its lights even in face of political pressures. Its reputation for professionalism rests on this feature, of truth telling.

In the Nehruvian period, General Thimayya’s confrontation with Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon is well known. General Manekshaw, in keeping with Indira Gandhi’s view, reassured Indira’s cabinet that it would be premature to take down Pakistan in April 1971. General SK Sinha as Western Army Commander held a different perspective from Indira Gandhi on how the then nascent Sikh extremism should be handled. He was superseded, and the rest as they say is history. The military consistently pushed for nuclearization, even when the political class dithered. A naval chief was sacked, inter-alia, for intercepting gun-running through the Andaman Sea for Myanmar rebels favoured by the then defence minister.

General JJ Singh, though initially in favour of a peace deal over Siachen, changed his mind. General VK Singh was not above keeping the bureaucracy on tenterhooks during his stand-off over the date-of-birth issue. From the turn of the 2010s, the military stood for a two-front threat perspective, in face of foot-dragging by successive governments. In Kashmir, the army withstood pressures for rollback of its special powers, though operational circumstance made it appear feasible. The army shied away from deploying in Central India against Maoists, though termed the graver threat to national security.

Don’t give up the fight

Have things changed over the last decade?

In Kashmir, the army abandoned the ‘velvet glove’ in favour of solely an ‘iron fist’. The air force went along with the shift towards a smaller number of Rafales at a higher cost. The army stood askance as the ruling party capitalised on its surgical strikes for electoral gains, using the army to organise Parakram Parv. Its operations’ head then denied surgical strikes were previously conducted. The air force hid its blue-on-blue helicopter accident till the elections were over, while maintaining a façade over the Balakot strikes. The army maintained a stiff upper lip on the extent of Chinese intrusions onto Indian territory. Lately, the air force was reticent on its losses.

Withholding information amounts to turning the information war inwards, to keep citizenry in the dark and the parliament uninformed. Willy-nilly the dividend is yet again to their political master, embarked on yet another campaign on the military’s shoulders.

It appears the military has abandoned taking a position on a professional matter professionally arrived at. This is colourfully put by a middle order politician as: ‘forces are bowing down to Modi.’ Veterans ruing such a state of affairs is testimony.

State capture by the right wing appears near complete.

So now you see the light, ay

Brigadier RR Palsokar, the commander of Mullaitivu brigade, brought out a heart-felt account of his command tenure at one-star rank. Anyone of the generation that witnessed or participated in the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) would know Mullaitivu as a hotspot then, and later as the site at which the Tamil Tigers took their last stand.

The Brigadier recounts a dilemma he faced towards the end of his command when the IPKF was recalled to the mainland by VP Singh on the change of government.

The Perumal government propped up by India was wary of ending up a foundling. The intelligence agency, perhaps with the concurrence of Indian diplomats in Colombo as Jaishankar and Hardeep Puri (‘Viceroy’ Dixit had likely left by then), wanted to steady their protégé in Jaffna. The Citizen’s Volunteer Force (CVF) was thought up.

While Perumal’s coalition herded Tamil youth together for the ‘boots on ground’, the agency ferried in weapons. What the project had not reckoned with was the commander on the ground in Trinco, Major General Jameel Mehmood.

Not lost on anyone in IPKF at the time - including this author - was that another fiasco was in the offing. A CVF company of underage youth rounded up from villages was deployed in his company area.

As Palsokar mulled over what he should do, he received a call from Jameel, whose area abutted Mullaitivu. Jameel told him what he had done in Trincomalee; going to the camp where the CVF was being assembled and asking after who were volunteers. Those who were not volunteers were marched out to rejoin their families. Palsokar’s recall in his own words:

Now came General Jameel’s crunch question. What was I going to do? I tried to tell him what our divisional headquarters had told us. He then asked me a direct question, what did I think personally? I said that I would like to do what he did, but I was not sure if I had either the authority or the guts to do so. General Jameel’s response was, ‘are you a commander?’ That settled it (pp. 169-70).

Folklore has it that Jameel, knowing that the weapons when in CVF hands would eventually get to the Tigers, took a stand. He was transferred out before the weapons were handed over to the CVF.

When I went round the CVF company in my area checking alert levels by night, I could see the luminous foresights of the Kalashnikovs from yards away. This, when I carried a World War II Sten. By when we reached Madras port on de-induction, the CVF had dissolved.

No wonder it took the Sri Lankans another two decades to clear out the Tigers; at the cost of being arraigned internationally for genocide.

Jameel was overlooked for three-star rank. On representation, he went on to command the eastern army.

You stand up for your right

Victories with stand-off weapons are laudable, but by the prime minister’s promise, the next round will be different. The Pakistanis have made that equally clear. If it turns out so, the Chinese might not sit it out either.

Instances recorded at the outset here could get to be a habit and habits we know are character-forming. If careers of officers of the Jameel ilk are not preserved, the CDS-envisioned Transformation and, in turn, Modi’s dream of Viksit Bharat will come to naught.

 

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Op Sindoor: Interrogating its professed aims

ali

May 20, 2025

In his very first briefing on Operation (Op) Sindoor, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri gave out the aim of the operation thus: “India exercised its right to respond and pre-empt as well as deter more such cross-border attacks.”

The statement covers three aspects: the right to respond, the right to pre-empt and deterrence. All three are likely to be elaborated on by the visiting Indian all-party delegations to various capitals.

How does each measure up to closer scrutiny?

‘Right’ to respond?

The ‘right’ to respond invoked by India appears to be from an expansive reading of United Nations’ Charter Article 51, that is phrased as: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council…”

India maintains that it has been subject to Pakistani proxy war with an irridentist aim in Jammu and Kashmir. The terror attack of 22 April at Baisaran meadow in the vicinity of Pahalgam that took 26 lives is only the latest instance of such a war. Misri pointed out that there was no “demonstrable step from Pakistan to take action against the terrorist infrastructure on its territory or on territory under its control.” Given Pakistani inaction, India was forced to ‘exercise its right to respond’.

The right to respond is evocative of the inherent right to self-defence. Since terrorists had targeted India, the response was targeting of known terror locations in Pakistan. The Indian foreign minister informed that a distinction was made of not targeting the Pakistan military. It was communicated to Pakistan, so that its military would take the ‘good advice’ and stay out of the ensuing fight.

In his briefing the following day, Misri held that Pakistan was dilatory in pursuing terror suspects, even when furnished with evidence by India at past occasions, 26/11 and Pathankot. Therefore, to rely on Pakistan to turn in the terrorists and their handlers to justice would only give Pakistan a handle for another ‘cover up’ and obscuring of its tracks.

Pakistan, as Misri pointed out, is a haven for terrorists. Given its interest in keeping the Kashmir problem alive using terrorists as proxies, it is certainly ‘unwilling’ to go after them. It is also perhaps ‘unable’ to do since it cannot dismount the tiger it has long been riding.

The argument goes that Pakistan being ‘unable and unwilling’ to tackle terror emanating from its soil, confers on India a ‘right to respond’.

Pakistan’s unwillingness to rein in terrorists targeting India has context. An intelligence-led proxy war is on between the two sides making Pakistan unwilling to dismantle its handle against India. While it is true that it seeks to negotiate with a gun held to its own head, its inability due to its vulnerability cannot be elided in analyses.

Does this confer on India a ‘right to respond’?

For now, Charter-based international law accords no such right, though there is advocacy on an ‘emerging right’. The logic has been used by the United States (US) and its protégé, Israel, to rationalise their multiple wars.

If India were to expand the permissive range of self-defence, then it would be participating in dismantling international law as it currently stands. It is afoul of Charter obligations, which can only call into question its bid for a Security Council seat. A self-regarding leader of the global South aping states that have lost both credibility and moral authority, would further buffet the international system.

Self-defence seems to be interpreted perversely in Kashmir. Over 2000 youth taken into custody, of whom at least three have died in questionable circumstances. Worse, over 10 houses have been demolished by controlled explosions, within months of Supreme Court guidelines to the contrary. Encounter sites have been routinely demolished earlier under a wilful misreading of para 4(b) of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act which allows demolishing of a ‘hide-out’. The clause framed with jungle hideouts in mind, is abused for collective punishment without accountability.

Going the dozer route away from rule of law, the army in Kashmir is of a piece with the navy, that under cover of Op Sindoor, allegedly disgorged Rohingya refugees corralled in Delhi into the Andaman Sea off the coast of Myanmar; even as the central armed police shoved Bengali migrants herded from Gujarat into the Bangladesh side of the Sundarbans.

Clearly, there is more to Op Sindoor than only self-defence.

Finally, the requirement of taking the Security Council into confidence at the outset has been missing. Self-defence of the first night mutated into escalation dominance by the last night. In his briefing, Misri suggested that India’s military action was in conformity with the call in the Council’s press statement on “the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice.” By no means did the Security Council encourage the ‘force of Indian arms’.

The Security Council was convened by its elected member, Pakistan, for an emergency closed door session. The last time it met on the issue after several decades was in August 2019. Since it was a closed session India was not invited. Its permanent mission’s website has no activity on Pahalgam and Op Sindoor, other than its existing link to its parent ministry’s website.

Activity anywhere with portents of a nuclear fallout is a legitimate international concern and not quite a bilateral matter as is India’s wont on Kashmir. Other measures available, such as a UN-conducted investigation as was the case in the Mohtarma Bhutto and Hariri assassinations, make self-defence less persuasive as an option. At hand is also a UN mission, much neglected by India and the good office services offered by the Secretary General.

‘Right’ to pre-empt?

Since self-defence is permissible, it encompasses pre-emption. While pre-emption is anticipatory self-defence, prevention as casus belli has not acquired the imprimatur of international law. State practice does exist on prevention, but this has not met with state endorsement enough to make the cut for customary international law.

Pre-emption as reason has figured twice earlier: in the surgical strikes that followed Uri and Balakot. In the former case, it was plausible, given the proximity of launch pads raided to the Line of Control (LC). In the latter case, the action was at best preventive since the target was a training camp. The 250 madrassa students who allegedly perished at Balakot could only be under indoctrination, with deployment well down the line. Getting across the LC requires extensive familiarity with the lay of the ground and coordination – all of which take time. As the terror attack (terror attack) requiring pre-emption was not imminent, Op Bandar was not pre-emption. Hesitance to use the right term ‘preventive’ is because even Bush, Jr. was not allowed to get away with his preventive war rationale for the US’ ‘forever wars’.

Likewise, this time round not all 100 who perished can be said to have been terrorists. Only those who had participated in terror attacks in Kashmir and returned for rest and recuperation (R&R) can be counted as such, others being aspirants. If all 100 were on R&R, it does say something about the competence of security forces in Kashmir. Terrorist family members are civilian. The five major terrorist handlers killed does not make for proportionality in light of civilians killed.

Semitic and Indic mythology has stories of exceptionally villainous monarchs killing babies at birth, lest one of them grow up to dislodge them, showing prevention can be stretched unrecognisably. Take Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights and destruction of Syrian military assets even as Islamists took over the country last December.

In Bahawalpur and Muridke, taking seminaries as jihadist training hubs can only serve to create conditions for more such centers. Thus, the ‘pre-emption’ on the first night is better termed as ‘preventive’; while the action – liable to be counter-productive - is less preventive than provocative. Perhaps this explains Prime Minister Modi’s reference to Pakistan thus: “it will destroy Pakistan one day.”

Deterrence well-served?

India’s third rationale – deterrence - found mention in the rationalisation of the Uri and Balakot episodes. Evidently, the two manifestly failed to deter. ‘Deterrence by denial’ clearly failed; while ‘deterrence by punishment’ can only have succeeded momentarily, till Pakistan makes up for its technology deficits in air defence with Chinese support.

By clubbing terrorists and the Pakistani state together in its new doctrine, only the latter might be deterred. The verities of deterrence do not apply for terrorists. There are also other wheels churning such as domestic militants in an insurgency that can upset the applecart.

For its part, Pakistan got even on the first night itself, visible in the Rafales standing down thereafter. If India’s losses – accepted frankly as existing by the air ops chief though not quantified – are factored in, Pakistan may not be as deterred as the post-op triumphalism has it.

That Pakistan has a newly minted field marshal implies they know something Indians don’t yet know. Could it be the number of Rafales Munir felled that got him a marshal’s baton?

Besides, deterrence as any security studies undergrad knows also involves reassurance too. There is no reassurance provided to Pakistan: its waters will be interdicted and peace is but a pause. Sans reassurance, deterrence isn’t enough.

To be sure, India is already embarked on retaining escalation dominance, but reliant as it is on a domestic military-industrial complex (MIC) expect the pathologies of such a complex to dent expectations.

The indigenous MIC is designed to be leader of the ‘Make in India’ and the atmanirbharata initiatives, designed to self-perpetuate crony capitalism. This will serve as yet another push factor for crisis. Deterrence is never all there is to security and the finger on the trigger is not necessarily that of terrorists.

Deterrence is oftener used in connection with the nuclear domain. Given Pakistan’s propensity to reach for the nuclear card, India has declared it will not countenance ‘nuclear blackmail’. Its confidence owes to a belief that it has called out Pakistan’s nuclear bluff thrice over.

However, Pakistan’s nuclear threshold was never so low as to cover the subconventional level or the lower end of the conventional level. By the logic of India’s own Cold Start doctrine, Pakistan’s nuclear threshold is high enough as to be even permissive of Cold Start offensives.

To mistake nuclear signaling for nuclear blackmail might lead to a deterrence breakdown. The risk arises in demonstrating resolve to call what’s (mis)taken as a nuclear bluff. If and since deterrence is meant to secure, how India is secured by running the risk remains unexplained in the new doctrine.

India secured?

A co-briefer, Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, added an aim: “OPERATION SINDOOR was launched by Indian Armed Forces to deliver justice to the victims of Pahalgam terror attack and their families.” (Colonel Qureishi’s remarks in Hindi not found translated on the webpage have therefore not been perused by this Hindi-challenged South Indian author.)

On their part, the armed forces have delivered up retributive justice. Holistically, however, justice requires addressing root causes. An ostrich-like policy – ‘we will discuss only return of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir’ – is a negation.

The problem with the discourse on terrorism is denial of any rationale for terrorism prompted by the fear that any excuse would lend it legitimacy. However, the incidence of terrorism oughtn’t to impact legitimate pursuit of conflict resolution in conflicts that often frame terrorism. Not addressing root causes allows terrorism oxygen in the resulting political and psychological milieu.

The belief that conflict management is better than conflict resolution stands exposed. With wrong lessons learnt hastily from Op Sindoor, a fourth instance is guaranteed. Adopting an Israel-like ‘mow the lawn’ strategy misses that Israel has lately bought itself insecurity for multiple generations.

Op Sindoor is thus just another step closer towards – to paraphrase strategic doyen General DK Palit - a Southasian communal riot with nukes.