The author is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.
PEACE in South Asia is a direct function of the Indo–Pak relational dynamics. If the region continues to remain unstable, the responsibility for that lies squarely at the doors of the two countries and the nature of their bilateral relations which at best of times has been cool, in spite of the attempt to put a veneer of amity through efforts like “Birthday Diplomacy” from time to time, to outright hostility between the two, such as which we see at this particular moment.
The recent attack in Uri that killed 17 Indian soldiers has brought the state of bilateral relationship of the two countries to dangerous low. What the attack has exposed is a very lax operational preparedness of a garrison situated in a most sensitive and vulnerable location in Kashmir. Indian fingers are being pointed at Pakistan as the following statement from a former Indian foreign secretary suggests. “Pakistan is doing this in order to put India in the dock, unmindful of the reaction from the Indian side. These attacks have the backing of elements from Pakistan. There is a clear collusion between the government and extremist organisations who have been threatening such attacks.”
All kinds of retaliatory measures against Pakistan are being suggested by informed and influential quarters in India. The options vary from creating an Indian Fidayeen, as espoused by a former Indian Army Chief, to a swift and limited foray inside Pakistan, to a Special Forces raid as was carried out in Myanmar against Naga rebels. But there is also the less belligerent and more sagacious view that is averse to any kind of knee jerk reaction – because knee jerk reactions are not likely to bring any long term results.
Evidently, the Indian decision makers are informed by wiser counsel that a military option is a non-starter. And the very reason for which India did not embark on a military venture, in spite of a full-scale buildup along the Indo-Pak border in 2002 following the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament on 13 December 2001, is also the restraining factor in this instance. Not being aware of what the nuclear threshold for Pakistan is, and an articulated non-first strike policy by India, it was the exercise of discretion as the better part of valour on the part of India that averted a major conflagration in the subcontinent at that time. The same compulsion is dictating Indian response this time too.
Alongside public ire in India and call for a precipitate and immediate action, there is also a call in India for a graduated and calibrated response backed by robust diplomacy in order to bring to bear international pressure on Pakistan to make it desist from aiding and abetting the insurgency and terrorist activities in Kashmir. The idea behind this move is to isolate Pakistan and project the country to the world as a ‘terrorist state’. However, it is a matter of conjecture as to how far that would go in fulfilling India’s objective, and whether at all the underlying issue that has shaped Indo-Pak relations over the last seventy years, Kashmir, would be resolved through this.
Attack on Uri is the second attack on an Indian military establishment in eight months. But unlike Pathankot attack in January of this year which Pakistan had acknowledged as having originated from its territory and promised to cooperate in the investigation, Pakistan in this instance has rejected outright all allegations of its complicity in the attack
The timing of the attack is also significant. It comes in the backdrop of renewed violence and unrest in Kashmir that has resulted in the death of more than 70 and just ahead of UN session. Many think that the attack may be linked to Pakistan’s attempt to bring the Kashmir situation in international discourse once again. And that was very made very clear by the Pakistan prime minister when he said in a meeting with the Hurriyat leaders of n Pakistan Kashmir ahead of his departure to New York, that, “He would emphatically highlight the Kashmir issue at UN. Pakistan recently said at the UN Human Rights Council that Indian “repression” in Kashmir “was worse than that by Nazi forces”.
If Pakistan is fomenting unrest in Indian Kashmir it is because there are objective conditions in that area that lends themselves to exploitation by Pakistan. And those conditions must be addressed by India. Countering Pakistan diplomatically is one thing, and it is quite another to resolve what many see as ‘the rising discontent among a new generation of estranged Kashmiris.’
What worries the other countries of the region is the very inflammable situation that obtains between the two nuclear armed countries. And this is a very unique situation too. Nowhere in the globe except for South Asia are there two countries possessing a destructive nuclear arsenal who share a common border and who are constantly on tenterhooks.
http://www.thedailystar.net/op-ed/politics/escalating-regional-tension-1287829
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