Deepak Laad
In 1970 the then PM Indira Gandhi without any ceremony said to General Sam Bahadur Manekshaw, “Sam I want you to enter East Pakistan”. An incredulous General exclaimed, “That means war!” and Indira replied nonchalantly, “I don’t care if it is war.” A war in 1971 changed Pakistan’s geography permanently. ‘East Pakistan’ ceased to exist and in its place a new nation Bangladesh was born solely thanks to the grit of an iron lady.
In the next five decades that kind of resolve and courage was not seen in any Prime Ministers either of her party or of the other major party, that took turns to rule at the Center. The self-serving politicians were too busy chasing their personal ambitions and agendas to usurp power and had no time to nurture Nation’s interests. The Governments of the day showed neither seriousness in modernizing our war machinery and weaponry nor prioritized arms purchases. In fact a country of our size, geographical as well as economic, should have been manufacturing defense machinery and weaponry indigenously instead of buying them from nations like Italy, France and Israel --smaller in size than few of our own states. Indecisiveness plagued when it came to finalizing defense deals. Specifications and terms were changed frequently. Whenever purchase deals were inked , they were marred by scam accusations. We have seen it happen in purchase of Howitzers (Bofors) ,Helicopters (Agusta Westland) and presently in purchase of fighter jets (Rafale) .
In Pakistan the army and ISI hold the center stage and have periodically modernized their stealth fighter jets at Turkish bases. Though their economy is eighth of our size and is in dire straits today, they have been spending increasing amounts on defense purchases in recent years and we on the other hand allowed our enhanced allocations for defense lapse, not fully utilizing them. Today Pakistan has capability to produce 10 to 15 Atom bombs and 15 to 25 Hydrogen Bombs annually says Prof. Gregory Koblentz of George Mason University Virginia, USA. Though warring nations do not rush in to use of nuclear weapons, they sort of embolden the possessor nations and deter their enemies. That is the reason behind Pakistan’s posturing of late.
After ‘Pulwama’ kind of tragedies we have the stereotypical anti Pakistan rhetoric almost bordering on jingoism coming from Ministers, leaders, intellectuals and general public at large. Nationalism afflicted people fill the streets letting out blood curdling war cries of annihilating Pakistan.
Modi announced on national TV that he had given the forces a free hand to deal with the situations. Question is, do the forces have any worthwhile military strategies in place? RAW seems to have shut shop in Pakistan long back since the time of PM IK Gujral. Post Mumbai attacks under mounting pressure of public outcry the then PM Manmohan Singh had called a meeting of all the three forces’ chiefs. Though an out and out war was ruled out, there was unanimity to carry out precision strikes at the terrorist hideouts in POK area. It transpired that we had no intelligence wing functioning in the area and there were no inputs available of co-ordinates of the locations to be struck, so the idea was dropped.
We need to pro-actively commence Intelligence gathering. The set up takes time, so in the meantime we can buy the intel from secret service agencies of other nations- say like Israel who has offered unconditional help through its envoy Dr Ron Malka. The many Defense contractors functioning in the area can readily part with valuable information for a right price and carry out contract killings too. These days even superpowers are engaging private mercenaries to liquidate opponents and avoid diplomatic embarrassment in world fora. China and Russia use soldiers of fortune coming from the grey Zone. In the past top US law makers visiting Afghanistan were protected by mercenaries of private Defense contractor ‘Black Water USA ’.
Problem with us is that even when valuable intelligence inputs are made readily available, our sloth comes in the way of acting on them in time. CIA had intercepted conversation of the would be perpetrator of Mumbai blasts, on their way here talking to their handlers in Pakistan, and had informed us about a probable attack. We ignored it and lost 257 lives. A day before Pathankot attack a cab driver was found murdered under suspicious circumstances and residents had reported movement of suspicious looking persons in town, but the air base paid no heed. In Uri, days before the attack, the local shepherds had informed the unit about some people carrying out regular recce of the area, but the unit failed to be vigilant. The forces knew about arrival in December of Abdul Rasheed ‘Kamran’ Ghazi ,Masood Azhar’s chief operational commander, in the valley to carry out some deadly operation. Few days before ‘Pulwama’ incident, on 5th February, Rauf Azhar ,younger brother of Masood had boasted about impending suicide bomb attack. We killed Ghazi post incident. Had we liquidated him earlier those 42 lives could have been saved. So blood of the martyrs is on our hands too, as we failed to act in time.
The Governor of Meghalaya has openly urged countrymen to boycott Kashmiris “ stop visiting their state and stop doing business with them. Kashmiri students were beaten up in many states across India by rabid nationalists. The nationalist Governor and the attackers of his ilk can ideally be recruited by the ISI. They are capable of doing more damage to India’s unity than all terrorist outfits put together.
