Defence minister AK Antony has provided the nation with the latest unedifying spectacle of a government in existential distress. Five Indian soldiers were ambushed and killed by Pakistani soldiers on Tuesday morning in the infiltration-prone Poonch sector. The Army said in a statement they were Pakistani regulars, but within hours Antony was in parliament saying they were terrorists in Pakistani army uniforms, appearing to absolve the Pakistani army of culpability.
A political and public opinion storm raged for 24 hours before Antony went back to parliament to deliver a dramatically different explanation for the same incident, this time blaming Pakistan army's special forces.
Antony lost face publicly on an incendiary issue, like peace on the Line of Control (LoC). In fact, given that he made two contradictory statements on the floor of the House, should we assume the unthinkable — that at least on one instance, the defence minister was economical with the truth, in parliament? Since Congress sources say Antony is a strong PM candidate if UPA returns to power next year, this was not good news. A peace process, already battered and bruised, has slipped back into a coma. The UPA government's credibility is in shreds, yet again.
Time for Reassessment
The government's first statement, made a couple of hours after the army's, showed clear daylight between the civilian and military explanations. That was politically untenable. The PM's top foreign policy men and women — national security adviser Shivshankar Menon, foreign minister Salman Khurshid and new foreign secretary Sujatha Singh — showed near total incomprehension of politics when they edited Antony's statement.
Pakistan army regulars have a long history of donning civilian dress to cross over into India for terrorist activities. Terrorists do not come dressed in Pakistan army uniforms. For the PMO to suggest it presupposes a suspension of disbelief currently in short supply.
Finally, the Army should be questioned on the incident itself. This was the same sector where the January beheadings had happened. How did they drop their guard, because they were clearly caught unawares? Did they change their operating procedures in the light of the recent spurt in infiltration attempts — according to the government's own figures, infiltration has been at its highest in about five years? Besides, this is peak infiltration season. What was the Army thinking, being ambushed like that inside Indian territory?
Clearly, there needs to be a reassessment of India's Pakistan policy. In this present government, it is believed to be reduced to a single goal — a Manmohan Singh visit to his birthplace in Pakistan. That's the dumbest approach, ever. It speaks volumes for his government's street cred that no one believes it is any deeper than that.
India's vulnerability to terror attacks by Pakistantrained and sponsored groups triumphs the entire premise of engaging Pakistan because the latter will always be hostage to the former. We need a more realistic assessment of the future threat of terrorism to India particularly after the US withdrawal from Af-Pak in 2014. India should be prepared for an increase in such activities and take pre-emptive action both within and beyond its borders. A certain amount of steel will have to be injected into Indian spine.
Second, while engaging Pakistan is indeed important, we need to assess how far India can go, where Pakistan can reciprocate and most important, the internal dynamics of Pakistan. Vivek Katju, former ambassador to Afghanistan and a Pakistan expert wrote this week, "Dr Singh would do well to go by the direct signals being given by the Army instead of only taking heed of Mr Sharif's warm sentiments. And the Army is sending India signal after signal. The aborted attack on the Jalalabad consulate and the LoC ambush in which five jawans were killed are clear warnings from the Pakistan Army to India." The onagain-off-again routine on talking to Pakistan has two effects — nobody takes the breaks or starts seriously anymore. Whatever the cost to Pakistan, it has severely dented India's credibility.
Heed Public Sentiment
We need to take a second look at Indian public opinion, which has become more strident, demanding and angry in recent years. The LoC beheadings in January set off a storm of protests, the pattern repeated during the Chinese incursion in Depsang and now on the LoC killings. There is little understanding of the complexities of our neighbourhood but there is a greater demand for Indian supremacy.
This needs to be understood by the Indian establishment, whatever its political colour. Indians and Chinese are at a similar place in this respect — the two rising powers are seeing a corresponding growth in overt nationalism. In India this plays out in traditional media, in China by an increasingly vocal netizen community. While both governments keep a worried lookout for these fellows, the Chinese government is more adept at 'managing' this nationalism by the simple expedient of controlling online behaviour.
The Indian system is more complicated, given the nature of our democracy, politics and subterranean communal history, as well as a natural arrogance of the foreign policy establishment which considers public explanations to be infra dig. Repeated terror attacks from Pakistan without any "closure" or "justice" mean that Indian public opinion is perennially suspicious of the government's "engage Pakistan at all costs" policy.
Until there is a government in India that can make and articulate a coherent policy on Pakistan and the border, let's give Pakistan a breather. Nobody is going anywhere. Pakistan will continue to do what it has done for ages. It is time India straightened out the mess inside its own head.
