Post the attacks on Army Camp in Uri on 18th
September 2016, the mood of the nation was not just grim but also exhausted.
Everyone had same question: “Will we ever strike back?” or more importantly
does our current Government, unlike the ones from the past, has guts to go
beyond rhetoric and avenge the death of our martyrs. We needed 10 days for an
answer, but when it came, it made the nation proud. It conveyed the message
that finally we are ready to fight our own battles, and desire of peace doesn’t
necessarily means putting forth another cheek in front when slapped on one.
In the aftermath of 29th September Surgical Strikes in POK, nothing could be truer than the below 2 statements:
“Respect is not asked
but earned"
“You can never be a
global superpower unless you are a regional superpower"
So let’s try to decipher and understand the immediate ramifications
of this Surgical Strike which Indian military conducted across Pak Occupied
Kashmir (POK), dismantling 7 Terror Launch Pads and killing scores of
terrorists and their handlers in a first ever pre-emptive surgical strike ever
carried out by Indian armed forces of this magnitude across the Line of Control
(LOC) and more importantly with strategic objective to convey a loud and strong
message to perpetrators of terrorists
sitting in Rawalpindi HQ.
1) After years of
"strategic restraint", or more bluntly put our “Ineptitude at
political level" finally India has come up with a leader in PM Modi who
exhibited, as expected by many, the political courage to bring a paradigm shift
in our engagements with Pakistan. While diplomacy has its own space in foreign
policy and remains the most potent tool, our inability to exercise military
options in most provocative of scenarios ( Parliament Attack, 26/11 , 2013
Soldier beheading incidents, Pathankot, the list goes on) continuously
contributed to India being perceived as a Soft State. While adversaries like
Hafeez Saeed mocked us that all we can come up with are rhetoric, other hawkish
voices within Pakistan and elsewhere commented that only instance we could eliminate
out the terrorists were limited to movies like "Baby" and
"Phantom".
As a bigger, responsible nation, restraint and responsibility
is a legitimate expectation from us, but the ability to protect our people and
provide them a safer environment to live, is a much greater expectation from
the political leadership of a sovereign state. While a leader must strive for
peace (as Modi did in last 2 years when he invited Sharif for his swearing in
ceremony, or visited Lahore to meet him in person), he must also exhibit the
tenacity and guts to respond to provocations which time and again affected the
morale of the nation and armed forces and reached to saturation post Uri
attacks. It's heartening to see that finally a leader has risen to the
occasion and expectations and in Narendra Modi the nation has finally got its
new “Iron Man”, who is best positioned to take the nation ahead in these
testing times.
2) The surgical strikes has also ensured that we have come
out of years psychological barrier that we imposed upon us, where shallow
rhetoric and diplomatic dossiers were our only response to any terrorist
attack, in “anticipated fear” of military escalations with Pakistan.
Those who care for the foreign policy optics though, the
presence of MEA Spokesperson Vikas Swarup along with DGMO Lt. Col. Ranbir Singh, as he was providing the surgical operations details, would have been interesting. It was a clear message to
Pakistan and global community that henceforth military operations would be an additional option as part of our foreign policy repertoire while engaging with Pakistan. It must also be said that in current context our "official response" to surgical strikes
conducted has been most admirable.
Striking terrorist launch pads and not Pakistan military per
se, we have left onus of any escalations on Pakistan. While Pakistan have
officially denied that India conducted any surgical strikes, as expected, in
reality they are caught between a devil and deep sea. Acceptance of Surgical
strikes would mean that Pakistan would need to escalate the tension and
retaliate in a conventional military manner where they very well know that they
are no match to India. Denial of strikes though would not just make the
Pakistani political establishment further unpopular within its domestic
constituency but more importantly take away the halo that exists around Pakistan’s military
chief Raheel Sharif who is due to retire in this November. Precisely for this reason, to save their skins, doctored stories of Indian soldiers death have been planted and run non-stop by the Pakistani media houses post the surgical strikes. In coming days though, their
reaction would be determined more by Sharif, Raheel and not Nawaz, and
India would do well to keep it guards up along the entire western front towards any eventuality.
3) The positive energy and vibe this military operation has generated
for nation as a whole and our armed forces in particular is unprecedented (barring
say the 1971 victory and Kargil war, which though were more conventional in
nature). This aspect has also been much emphasized by several former military
personnel and strategic analysts since the operations got over. While no one
ever doubted the capability of our armed forces to respond to Pakistan's
misadventures from across the Line of Control (LOC), till now they were almost always
held back from “hot pursuit” due to lack of political courage.
Unlike Pakistan, where military dispensation, are Semi God,
always ready to undermine the legitimacy of civilian leadership, in India we
have had the most disciplined Army to say the least. However, for quite some
time now, a significant delusion were creeping into our armed forces due to
lack of political will at the top to take tough calls in scenarios of highest
provocations from Pakistan supported terrorist groups.
A strong, decisive civilian government is what our Armed
Forces needed, and once they had that, our forces showed their professionalism
through an exemplary surgical strike with no causalities on our side. While
reports from Pakistan kept harping each day post Uri attacks as to how F16's
were doing military drills over Islamabad and how Pakistan armed forces were
battle ready to respond to any Indian retaliation, the fact is like always they
expected no "real" Indian military response imminent beyond rhetoric based on our track record.
However, when we struck this time, against their
expectations, they were embarrassingly caught napping and encountered one of
the most lethal surgical assault on adversary in recent history, a fact they
will take years to acknowledge (They still haven't acknowledged that they lost
65 and 71 War, or their Army were involved in Kargil or even if Osama Bin Laden was
sheltered by Pakistan Army in Abbottabad!!!!).
4) Another aftermath of this strike is that it has also
exposed the Nuclear bluff which Pakistan (and some pseudo liberal apologists
here in India) harps upon day in and day out in response to any military
retaliation we contemplated in the past, to which we eventually used to cave in.
While a nuclear catastrophe should be avoided under all cost, and India with
its “No First Use” policy is committed towards it, Pakistan would do much
better to stop behaving irresponsibly like North Korea and should stop treating
their strategic assets as the only viable negotiating tool Vis a Vis India.
These attacks have shown that a considerable maneuvering
space remains for Indian military without things escalating into a
conventional war. All we were targeting here were terrorist launch pads across
LOC in POK (which, essentially, as per our 1994 resolution in Parliament is part of
India) harboring terrorists whom Pakistan calls “Non State” actors.
With Pakistan now crying across all world forums including
UN that they are the biggest sufferer due to terrorism, they should essentially
thank India for helping them eliminate the menace of terrorism, which is the
biggest threat to mankind, unless they are complicit with those
terrorists, a fact which is virtually known to the entire world. No
wonder Pakistan has got the unique distinction of hosting the “Ivy League of
Terrorism” today..!!
5) All round diplomatic effort of the government should also
not be underestimated here. While in past, post our Nuclear Tests we were
subjected to several sanctions or faced immense pressure from USA to de-escalate
our troops build up under operation Parakram post the Parliament attack, the
scenario this time is “markedly” different so much so that not one single
nation till now has objected to India's pre-emptive strike or issued any
statements favoring Pakistan. If anything, global powerhouse, USA, has taken India’s
side after the strikes and has asked Pakistan to take effective action to
combat and delegitimize UN designated terrorist individuals and entities. Even
China, Pakistan's new BFF, has avoided making any statements which can be
construed anti India. Russia too has whole heartedly come out in India's support.
What is further encouraging though is the support of Arab countries
like UAE and Saudi Arabia, who have been traditional Pakistan supporters. While
this could be attributed to enhanced realization across the world with regards
to menace of terrorism, it’s also pretty much courtesy the way India has tried
to unite the world against terrorism and asked them to stop differentiating
between “Good Terrorism” and “Bad Terrorism”. It's also a reminder to cynics in
India, who never shy away from taking potshots at PM's foreign visits. It's high time they realized and acknowledged that its the the
efforts emancipating out of those foreign visits, which is paying rich
dividends today.
The speech by Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj in the
UN General Assembly on 26th September too was crucial in further
aligning the world opinion in our favor on the issue of terrorism. This was in
stark contrast to Nawaz Sharif's strategic self goal of endorsing of Burhan Wani; belonging to UN
designated terrorist organization Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, from the UN dais. All
this efforts, contributed immensely to keep global opinion on India’s side when
the reports regarding the surgical strikes started pouring in.
Even at the regional level, the boycott of SAARC summit in
Islamabad by 4 other nations beyond India (2 of them being Islamist states, Afghanistan
and Bangladesh) is unprecedented and shows the diplomatic goodwill we have
generated among our neighbors. No surprise that today, Pakistan finds itself almost
isolated globally, a scenario of its own making and catalyzed by our all-round
diplomatic offensive against terrorism and the key perpetrators of the same,
Pakistan.
Lastly, does it solve all our problems on terrorism front?
Definitely Not. It's more of a message to terrorist organizations and their perpetrators
in Pakistan, that the era of strategic restraint on Indian side is over. While
we will continue to take all diplomatic efforts to ensure a relationship of
peace and calm with our neighbor, we would also not hesitate to take coercive
diplomatic and economic decisions and most importantly military action in case
of any further misadventures within our country from across the LOC. If
Pakistan is hell bent to make India bleed with thousand wounds then henceforth
we are equally ready to respond to each of these wounds with military strikes
of greater precision and intensity.
At the same time, as a dysfunctional rogue state, Pakistan,
would also definitely want to instigate some immediate unrest in our country
post the embarrassing snub they have received through our military operations.
While we are pretty confident that the soldiers at borders would be doing their
best to protect us, we in hinterland too have to be doubly cautious with
regards to any suspicious movements or activities and keep a close vigil.
Intelligence apparatus too have to be at their toes to ensure that they
apprehend any opportunities of sleeper cells activation within our country.
On domestic front, we would also soon see apologist lobby
stand up (they are in hiding for now, as they don’t want to bear the wrath of a
jubilant nation) and give sermons as to how we have changed into a war
mongering nation and how talks would be the only solutions to peace, restraint
should be our weapon, moral high ground should be our virtue and so on (almost
the same narrative which Pakistani expects out of us): Just one suggestion for
this group. No sane person wants war in lieu of peace, but then no sane person
can keep tolerating its soldiers and civilians die time and again courtesy our
callous attitude to counter the menace of terrorism and nefarious designs of
our “rogue neighbor” head on. Also, eliminating terrorists through pre-emptive strikes
is not synonymous to getting into a war, unless these apologists don’t see a
distinction between Pakistan Army and terrorists.
While these group’s hyperbolic peace sermons may be good for
talk shows and newspaper editorials, and helps further establish their elitist
credentials, but for a common man, or a family member of martyred soldiers in
Uri or for that matter any soldier, past or present, 29th September 2016 is a
day of pride and satisfaction. It's a day India conveyed to the world that we
will always strive for peace, but if anyone attempts to offend our territorial sovereignty
and tries to inflict terror on our soil henceforth, we would not shy from
responding back with full military might at the time and place of our choosing.
The Beginning to the end has just begun....!!
Salute to the Indian Army..!! Jai Hind..!!
