When warmongers take centre stage

Maj Gen Ashok Mehta (Retd)
Defence Commentator

EVERY time there is a terrorist attack with double-digit casualties in Kashmir or elsewhere in India, there is a sense of déjà vu: anger, outrage, emotion, political hard talk, burning of effigies of Pakistani leaders and flags and tempestuous debates in TV studios-turned-war rooms. Truth becomes the first casualty, thanks to ‘unnamed sources’. This has become the ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ with the intensity of angst increasing exponentially with the proliferation of social media. Retired Army Generals and armchair experts help fuel passions, craving for a conquest of Pakistan.

Before the Balakot airstrikes, Prime Minister Modi had invoked Trump’s famous ‘fire and fury’ phrase, saying his heart was burning like the hearts of fellow countrymen. On every TV channel, the cry for revenge had multiplied in decibels, echoing at India Gate’s Amar Jawan Jyoti. TV studios were packed with young Indians carrying the Tricolour emotionally charged and chanting Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata ki jai. What was previously a TRP-driven competitive nationalism/patriotism appeared to have hit the ceiling. Should emotion, outrage and incitement influence a cool and calculated response to avenge Pakistani acts of terrorism or aggression? Certainly not.

Still, this was precisely the ambience during war-gaming of the Pulwama responses. Enter the anchor, echoing words of PM Modi and exhorting his/her youthful audience to applaud each time military veterans — varying from five to six Generals and many armed with volatile material — spoke. In the few programmes one participated in, I appeared to be the dove among the hawks, the latter with immense lung power, long index fingers and a burning ambition to destroy/sever Pakistan. One of them had even poetic advice for PM Imran Khan and Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa. They attracted huge applause from the audience while seeking jaw for tooth, vanquishing the Pakistan army, finishing insurgency in J&K in two months and other romanticised ideas of ending the scourge of proxy war. Such marathon debates would sustain for three hours without any slack, so vociferously convincing were the hawks.

My military colleagues were well-meaning and respectful while disagreeing with me as I was the only one to have fought all wars after 1947 (though at least one had joined the Army when the 1971 war was in its closing stages). My warning that war was not an option, especially for a rising India, was rejected by all though I did advocate retribution for the Pulwama attack. I reminded the youthful audience that despite the fervour and ferocity of intent, the armed forces were unprepared for war, quoting the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence in two reports of glaring deficiencies in ammunition, equipment and combat capabilities, which in Army parlance meant unfit for war. The defence budget, though it has crossed the Rs 3 lakh crore mark but is only 1.5 per cent of the GDP, sets aside virtually zero to negative funds for modernisation after inflation and committed liabilities. My comment drew the riposte from a colleague that armies fight with what they have, recalling what Army chief Gen Ved Malik had said when surprised by the Kargil skirmish that ‘we will fight with what we have’ (which sent us with a begging bowl to South Africa and Israel). Interestingly, Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said the same after the Balakot incident when asked what an antiquated MiG-21 Bison was doing during the dogfight with an F-16. Previous wars, including the victorious one of 1971, did not resolve the political dispute with Pakistan.

Now that we know more facts about the Indian air raid and Pakistan’s response, it is fortuitous that further escalation was contained by the release of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman. Neither side wanted anything more than the retributive Indian airstrikes and the inevitable Pakistani air response between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. This was the first time after World War II that two adversarial/enemy air forces had engaged in limited air actions in a less-than-war situation. India shed its self-deterrence, but that does not mean it will end cross-border terrorism.

Far removed from the front line, anchors in TV studios marched to the tunes of their own glory. After the Balakot bombing, they were ahead of the government and the military, quoting ‘unnamed sources’. The mighty Generals would not be cowed down. In Pakistan, the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Director General, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), and others were having a field day, mostly peddling lies, while Indian leaders (except TV anchors) were on ‘radio silence’. 

The wife of Sqdn Ldr Ninad Mandavgane (who was killed probably by friendly fire in a helicopter crash in J&K during the Balakot strikes) had this to say in a TV programme: “Slogan-shouting and screaming zindabad and murdabad will not make any difference. If you really want to do something, join the armed forces. If that is not possible, keep your surroundings clean, don’t litter, don’t urinate in the open and don’t harass women. Stop spreading communal hatred. Small gestures go a long way.”

It may still be possible for some TV anchors to see the ground reality as Indian-American Ashley Tellis of Carnegie Endowment, who has analysed the Balakot airstrikes, suggests. Tellis says the Pulwama attack presented a golden opportunity to Modi to resuscitate his government’s eclipsed image through punitive air strikes. He was lucky that both sides responded responsibly to avoid escalation. Tellis raises three questions that should bother the government, the IAF leadership and ‘loyal’ TV anchors: one, operational ineffectiveness of the IAF interdiction mission on February 26 and its evasiveness on the bombing damage; two, awful Indian public diplomacy about unsubstantiated claims after air battles; three, the quality of the national debate during crises, especially on TV channels, that doesn’t enhance India’s image. 

The government regulator and TV channels should introspect and alter their policy of aggression to shield the government and armed forces from awkward questions in the guise of hyper-nationalism. Meanwhile, gentle advice to the war-mongering Generals: discretion is the better part of valour.