Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 21, 2002
It is difficult to remember when
an Indian Prime Minister last visited even the Jammu region of troubled
Kashmir. Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee's decision to visit the state is therefore
a welcome assertion of personal confidence and national sovereignty.
As the visit will owe its success
to the already overworked and emotionally overstretched police, paramilitary
and security forces, it is hoped that Mr Vajpayee will not let them down
by failing to avenge the grim outrage at Kaluchak.
No nation can be great that humiliates
its own heroes and makes them weep. When women and infants are shot in
cold blood in the presumed safety of their own homes, an entire nation
stands debased. This feeling of disgrace is fuelling intense anger across
the country; a government that fails to lead this quest for national vengeance
will stand forever indicted at the bar of public opinion and also history.
The Indian people want an immediate
end to the policy of inhibiting security forces from appropriate retaliatory
action against militants. The BJP government's early rhetoric of hot pursuit
of terrorist camps, followed by complete non-action, has been galling.
Kaluchak has touched a very raw nerve, and taken the war into every home
and heart. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa articulated these sentiments
perfectly with her demand that India sever diplomatic ties with Islamabad
and launch a full-scale war. She rightly hinted that the reaction to the
assaults on Parliament and the J&K Assembly last year was timid and
uninspiring.
There is now a national consensus
that the time for firm action has come; vacillation will demean us in our
own eyes. Already the morale of the armed forces is sapping, not for lack
of valour, but because of lack of political will to give a fitting rejoinder
to the depraved killing machine of a terrorist state. This is truly sad
because the Indian Army is one of the best, most experienced, and professional
armies in the post-Second World War era. That is why, despite what analysts
say about the risks of open conflict, Indians have blind faith in the ability
of the armed forces to make mincemeat of both uniformed and madrasa-trained
jihadis across the border.
Unfortunately, the Government seems
plagued by ad-hocism. Till date, we do not know what prompted the unilateral
ceasefire against terrorism in the Valley, which enabled the scattered
terrorist outfits to recuperate to the detriment of the security forces
and the people, and ended in the extravagant fiasco at Agra. Right now,
troops have been mobilised along the border for full five months, from
December when temperatures were sub-zero in the Himalayas to May when the
desert is simply scorching, and there is no clue of what will happen next.
Some commentators believe that the
Government cannot take decisive action because it is unclear about the
war goals. It is amazing that a political party branded as hyper-nationalist
by its critics should, when in power, suffer any confusion in this regard.
The goals are self-evident- the decimation of terrorist camps across the
border, and the recovery of Occupied Kashmir. After the unanimous parliamentary
resolution of 1995, there cannot be any compromise on this issue, nor any
excuse for failure.
Reports indicate that intelligence
agencies are aware of at least seventy camps across the border, most of
which are makeshift, and can be quickly dismantled and relocated elsewhere.
This need not be a disadvantage as surgical air strikes against the camps
will have to be followed by mopping up operations on the ground. Once the
army enters the area, it can deal with the jihadis (both in mufti and uniform),
reoccupy legitimate Indian territory, and sit tight. This would be a golden
opportunity for the army to vindicate its honour and wipe out the humiliation
Jawaharlal Nehru inflicted upon the nation over five decades ago. In this
context, the BJP Government would do well to recognise that it cannot have
the luxury of condemning Nehru and the Congress party for 50 years and
then sit and twiddle its thumbs when the occasion arises.
I am aware that some will ridicule
this argument as simplistic. It will be claimed that war would be messy
because the Government has talked for so long without doing anything, hence
ground realities are far worse than they seem from a writer's cabin. It
will also be said that the threat of a nuclear strike is very real.
My defence is multi-layered. Firstly,
there can never be a better time to take back Occupied Kashmir. American
troops are in virtual occupation of Pakistan's principal air and military
bases on account of the action in Afghanistan, and they are unlikely to
leave that country in the foreseeable future. This is particularly true
after the US realisation that Osama bin Laden is alive and perhaps in Pakistan,
or even in PoK! Hence America will ensure that Pakistan's nuclear button
remains firmly sheathed.
Washington will also try to ensure
that the theatre of action is limited to PoK and does not extend across
the entire 1,800-kilometre-long border between the two countries. While
India has the capacity to deploy forces and fight along the entire border,
it is doubtful if Pakistan can do so.
What is more, corruption and politicisation
have eaten deeply into the vitals of the Pakistani army; one has only to
recall the swift capitulation of General Niazi in Dacca to realise that
Islamabad does not have the stomach for open conflict. Even in Kargil,
when it surreptitiously grabbed the heights, it was not prepared for the
Indian Army's stupendous display of valour.
It should be kept in mind that General
Zia-ul Haq's post-1971 Islamisation of the armed forces and his strategy
of sponsoring militancy in India has given Pakistani leaders a false sense
of power because New Delhi's responses have been tardy and because it did
not enjoy international support for retaliatory strikes. But nations with
right and might on their side find that the world falls in line quickly,
and Islamabad is about to discover this harsh truth.
Finally, I am confident that our
army prefers open conflict and the casualties of a heroic war to the daily
deaths of civilians and targeting of security personnel and their families.
The war of a thousand cuts has escalated into the war of a million cuts;
there is an urgent need to guillotine this menace.
At a time when national sentiments
are running high and people's emotions are roused, the Government would
do well to realise that it cannot be seen to be tailoring its policy to
suit faulty American calculations. The stakes are extremely high for India,
and much time has already been lost.
For instance, in the wake of the
attacks on Parliament and the J&K Assembly, it was felt that repudiating
the Indus Treaty and starving Pakistan of water would beat some sense into
the heads of its rulings generals and general populace alike; but South
Block responded by looking at the rules for abrogation!
The choice now is between the dismemberment
of India-first Kashmir, then Assam, West Bengal, and so on-and the maintenance
of its territorial sovereignty. It is for the BJP to decide if it will
live up to the rhetoric of 50 years or fall by the wayside.
