The options before India

KC Singh

PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi surprised India, the world, and certainly his host Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif when he stopped over in Lahore en route to India from a Central Asian tour on the Christmas of 2015. India-Pakistan relations touched the warmth last seen during Vajpayee’s Lahore visit in 1999. But reality can often delude perception.

On January 2, 2016, a fidayeen attack on the Pathankot air base, causing minimum loss of assets and lives, jolted India back to reality. Pakistan’s reaction was surprisingly empathetic, offering to investigate the role of conspirators in Pakistan. A Pakistan investigation team was welcomed by India in March 2016, including allowing them to visit the air base. This process stalled when an Indian team was denied similar access to Pakistan.

January to July was a period of political drift in both J&K and Pakistan. Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed died in January, five days after the Pathankot attack, and his daughter Mehbooba assumed office only in April. The Valley was drifting towards alienation as the agendas of the BJP and the PDP meshed poorly. Also in April, Nawaz Sharif left for London for a heart surgery. Rumours swirled of a soft coup and his imminent retirement. He did return in July, but enfeebled politically. In March, Pakistan arrested a former Indian Navy captain, Kulbhushan Yadav, in Balochistan, alleging abetment to terror. 

Once unrest exploded in the Valley after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen leader Burhan Wani on July 8, Pakistan went on the rampage to discredit India internationally, alleging human rights breaches. It also fanned trouble by unleashing leaders of terror groups masquerading as heads of religious and educational charities. The Pakistan army also ratcheted up their trans-Line of Control induction of trained militants. Pakistan, for the umpteenth time, was misreading both the situation and the capacity of India to deal with it. 

Between July and August 15, Delhi concluded that Pakistan policy needed major re-calibration as the Pakistan government had succumbed to its army’s thesis that Kashmir had regressed to the 1990s’ level and time was ripe to compel India to make territorial concessions. A multi-layered counter-asymmetrical warfare strategy, which actually should have been on PM Modi’s table within months of assuming office, began to emerge. His Red Fort speech, after tentative articulation earlier in an all-party meeting, asked Pakistan to look within at its atrocities in Gilgit-Baltistan, PoK and Balochistan. 

The PM followed it up at Kozhikode and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in her address to the UN General Assembly on September 26. The ministries of water resources, commerce, etc., also swung into action. The full-spectrum response was to remain within treaty obligations, but interpreting them restrictively. 

The Uri attack complicated the government’s task as the BJP’s jingoistic pre-Lok Sabha election rhetoric resurfaced to haunt it. Their core followers expected instant and disproportionate response for the death of 19 soldiers. Ram Madhav, the bridge between the BJP and the RSS, sought “jaw for a tooth”. The government realised correctly that military options had only bad or worse outcomes. For instance, they would only strengthen Pakistan army’s domestic support, perhaps obtaining for retiring army chief Gen Raheel Sharif an extension. The army was given the freedom to respond locally — euphemism for Special Forces action. 

Modi soothed the aroused national feelings baying for Pakistani blood. Simultaneously, the focus was turned on Pakistan’s own rights record. Hints were dropped that India may give asylum to top Baloch leaders of the Bugti and Marri clans fighting Pakistan army’s depredations. The aim is to hurt Pakistan both materially and morally, as also have instruments that can be calibrated in response to Pakistan’s conduct. In Kozhikode, Modi shrewdly turned Bhutto’s slogan of “a thousand year war” into a call for war on poverty, illiteracy and unemployment in both nations. 

Among the emerging elements of the new doctrine is withdrawal of the MFN status. This may not hurt Pakistan much and may only enrich traders in the UAE who will become the conduit for the trade, but it signals new intent. The review of the Indus Waters Treaty contrariwise goes for Pakistan’s jugular. Many ill-informed comments have assumed it to be unilateral abandoning of the treaty. India has been oversensitive in the past to Pakistan’s objections to developing run-of-the-river hydel projects that the treaty allows. For instance, Baglihar on the Chenab was taken by Pakistan to a Swiss arbitrator, who ruled in 2007 largely in India’s favour. That design should be standard for future projects and India can ignore expected automatic bemoaning by Pakistan. That design allows pondage, which gives India leverage as the time of filling, if it coincides with the sowing season in Pakistan, can be used to cause havoc. This happened inadvertently the last time. 

Another salvo is Modi deciding to skip the SAARC Summit in November in Pakistan. This can be followed-up by a meeting of those SAARC members — Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan to start with — which have articulated concerns about the export of terror from Pakistan and joined India in boycotting the summit. Sub-regionalism, on thematic or territorial basis, will isolate Pakistan regionally. 

The aim thus is to punish Pakistan bilaterally and isolate it regionally and internationally. It would not happen overnight, or be easy, as China and its new ally Russia will buttress Pakistan, as indeed may Iran and some members of the Gulf Coordination Council like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. But smart diplomacy trumps armed response for which the military power differential between India and Pakistan needs to be wider than it is currently. The Economist notes that despite the defence budget of India being six times that of Pakistan at $ 51.3 billion, “India has proved strangely unable to build serious military muscle”. George Washington said: “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” That entails more than acquiring 36 Rafale fighters in an ad hoc purchase. 

Meanwhile, the BJP must remember that ultimately the fight is over the hearts and minds in the Valley. No counter strategy will deter Pakistan if the wound at home is not healed or new ones opened by “rakshaks” of one cause or another. 

The writer is a former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs