Tuesday 20 September 2016

India needs to rethink a whole lot of new things specially after URI!





The attack on soldiers sleeping between shifts of active vigil in temporary shelters at the camp is suggestive of a well-planned fidayeen attack by terrorists who obviously had intelligence guiding their operation.
The powder keg that is the Kashmir Valley has exploded once again with the year's biggest strike by terrorists on an Army camp in Uri, in J&K's Baramulla district. If it is firmly established that this was yet another cross-border attack exported by Pakistan, it is bound to lead to a bigger diplomatic blow-up with a neighbour, whose support of terror as state policy is too well documented to lend merit to its denials.
This strike was bigger than the January siege of the Pathankot airbase in which seven military personnel were killed. With 17 soldiers killed in Uri and at least another 20 injured, this was in fact the biggest casualty the Army has suffered in many years. Amid an alert across the country, India needs a major rethink not only on its preparedness to tackle terror by infiltration across the border or Line of Control - there is reason to believe the breach on the LoC was through the Salamabad Nullah from PoK - but also on its policy priorities regarding Pakistan.
This attack on soldiers sleeping between shifts of active vigil in temporary shelters at the camp is suggestive of a well-planned fidayeen attack by terrorists who obviously had intelligence guiding their operation. The Bihar and Dogra Regiment soldiers' temporary sleeping tents catching fire made the toll worse; but it's also suggestive of what conditions brave Armymen are placed in. By identifying the weapons and clothing of the Uri attackers, it should be possible to clearly establish the Pakistani hand in yet another strike on Kashmir. This will lend weight to what India has been saying at all major global forums recently about Pakistan's role in fuelling the insurgency in Kashmir. It is immaterial whether that will change anything in that country, that grandstands its fate as a victim of terror, losing 9,065 lives in 2015.
It's obvious that the attack on the Army camp on Uri was meant to provoke an Indian reaction, which in turn would give Pakistan a peg to demand international intervention in Kashmir at the UNGA session in New York. Yet doing nothing but mouthing the same tired platitudes about 'not resting till the perpetrators are brought to justice' and how "we will avenge our martyrs" is no longer enough for a population demanding a swift and befitting Indian retribution.
The strike, which caught our soldiers off guard, is to be seen as retaliation through increased terror operations in the wake of India's Balochistan policy thrust, by which moral and political support is to be given to the rebels, including the Balochis living in exile. The coming UN General Assembly session is bound to get quite vocal with the latest instance of what is certainly an attack inspired by Pakistan, rather than the "lone wolf" attacks that crop up in many parts of the world. India's latest billion-dollar move to bring Afghanistan even closer in diplomatic terms is part of an overall strategy to put the heat on Pakistan. What the Indian Army has lost in so many soldiers dead and injured is a human tragedy we should not lose sight of as we reassess our responses to the naked threat of terror.



Home Minister Rajnath Singh's assertion that Pakistan is a terrorist state which needs to be isolated tells us nothing new.
All earlier attempts to "isolate" Pakistan after terror attacks on India were eventually followed by 'cricket diplomacy' or yet another olive branch from India, sometimes under pressure from the US. So what are the options before New Delhi as it grapples with an intrasigent neighbour which uses terror as an instrument of state policy, using ISI lapdogs like the JeM and LeT?
For India’s political leadership to craft a meaningful strategic response to this crisis, though, will require that both self-deception and bluster are excised from their vocabulary. First up, by all accounts, the Uri strike was not, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi described it on September 18, a “cowardly terror attack”. The attack appears to be, instead, part of a well-thought through strategy designed to breathe life into the Kashmir jihad, carried out by an adversary who has come to understand India’s strategic and tactical limitations. BJP leader Ram Madhav’s promise of “for one tooth, the complete jaw” may play well on television — but the generals across the border apparently calculate that his claim that the “days of so-called strategic restraint are over” is easier made than done.
And it is. Ever since 26/11, at least, India’s strategic conundrum has remained the same: How might Pakistan be deterred from sponsoring terrorism, without ending up in a conflict that jeopardises India’s big strategic aim, high economic growth? The easy-reach answers — cross-border shelling, or raids on Pakistani forward pickets — will achieve little; they did not deter Pakistan from 1990 to 2001, when the Line of Control was ablaze. Targetting jihadist leaders inside Pakistan might work better, but could invite reprisals, which India’s police forces and intelligence services haven’t been prepared for. Full-scale conflict, of course, is possible —but the outcomes are always uncertain, more so in a nuclear battlefield. The choices are hard, the stakes are high. Reason rather than rage should mark the road ahead.
A swift military strike against terrorist camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir has often been considered and then rejected on the grounds that it could escalate into a full-scale war. While the Indian Army asserts that it has the capability to carry out such a strike, the politicians worry about provoking a nuclear armed neighbour. Getting mercenary outfits or even special forces to take out people like Masood Azhar and Hafiz Mohammad Saeed is easier said than done. The other viable option is to make it increasingly 'expensive' for Pakistan to conduct such terrorist strikes. PM Modi's recent move to highlight the atrocities in Balochistan is a step in that direction. The other option is to turn the tables on Pakistan by using this attack to divert international attention from Kashmir to the scourge of terrorism and human rights violations in Balochistan. But that does not mean that we give up on plans to use the Cold Start doctrine which we have been honing since the attack on Parliament in 2001.

India will hit back whosoever when obviously it’s beyond the level of tolerance, if the govt. is set aside or be mum.

Jai Hind!!!


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