Go for covert operations

By Brig. (Retd.) S.N. Sachadeva

The Indo-Pak war like situation is getting more complex as the Tehrik-e-Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud has openly declared that his suicide bombers are ready to join hands with Pakistan army to fight war against India. This development exposes Pakistan's duplicity that it is fighting the Taliban to secure a peaceful Afghanistan for the US forces, for which Islamabad has got an outright grant of $12 billion.

Notwithstanding global diplomatic posturing of its victimhood of Pakistani terror menace India is feeling let down by the world and frustrated by the "fragmented system" in Pakistan. The country also knows that "ultimately" it must deal with what is its own problem. Though the United States of America and its intelligence agencies have pinpointed the involvement Pakistan army and its ISI wing, but it is unable to exert enough pressure due to geostrategic compulsions - involvement in Afghanistan. Similarly, India cannot ignore the muted response of its long-term ally and friend, Russia.

In these circumstances, External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, has talked of India "exploring all options" to get Pakistan to rein in its terrorist groups, but a closer examination of some of these "options" suggests that they are either not options at all, or they serve limited political objectives at best. The government has to take some kind of coercive action to show that it means business, but beyond appeasing domestic political opinion, it may not have any major impact on Pakistan's terror shops.

There are four major options: One, limited air strikes on about a dozen prominent terrorist camps located mostly in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK); two, covert action within Pakistan; three, a limited naval blockade of Karachi to pressure the Pakistan economy; and four, a limited border war at a location of India's choice.

Any overt action will be counter-productive, and it will also not succeed in causing any damage to the terror infrastructure. The only realistic option is covert operations, for which we will have to develop capabilities like Israelis. Covert operations need not be violent. There are a whole range of covert instruments that can be deployed to cause long-term damage to the terror infrastructure and the support enjoyed by terror groups from within the Pakistani establishment. These instruments can be economic, social, or political. India can also cause immense economic damage by either abrogating Indus Water Treaty or blocking water supply to Pakistan. Since Pakistan does not honour its international obligations there will be limited support in case Islamabad approaches the UN Security Council with its complaints against India

The first option - limited air strikes on terror camps in PoK - is considered the most feasible. India should immediately look at limited air strikes on prominent terror camps inside PoK to let Pakistan know India can retaliate. Though Pakistan may retaliate with missiles or air violations, it wouldn't escalate into a nuclear scenario.

Retired air marshal Vinod Patney, who headed the western air command during the Kargil conflict and oversaw the air operations then is of the opinion that Terrorism cannot be finished overnight, but it can be controlled to an extent by exhibiting to them [Pakistan] that they will be punished.

Patney said a "punitive air strike is very feasible and I recommend it". Besides such an attack on terrorist infrastructure, India should develop "covert action capabilities".

But a military strike can't just be one-off action. It has to be combined with diplomatic and political action and reforms in internal security and intelligence gathering. We do have military capabilities without a doubt, but such action would lead to collateral damage - like killing civilians in Pakistan, too. It won't be intentional, but what can we do if Pakistan is not willing to put an end to this menace?

Pakistan's estimate that India's tolerance threshold has been raised infinitely because of its nuclear capability is wrong. India is capable of disproving this doctrine.

After the attacks, world leaders offered their sympathies and asked Pakistan to crack down on terror outfits in that country. US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice flew down to India and expressed solidarity with the people of the country. The UN Security Council declared the Jamaat-ud-Dawa a proscribed outfit. But that was about it. No concrete step was taken to permanently root out the problem.

There is no record of so many private individuals who have 'waged war' on a country for as long as Hafeez Saeed, Azhar Masood, Syed Salahuddin and Dawood Ibrahim have done on India. When Dawood flaunted himself in Dubai, all we did was send a letter to Interpol, in the best traditions of babudom. To this gang of four we could add their henchman - the operational boss of the LeT, the financier, the computer specialist , the Pakistani major who burnt the Charar-e-Sharif mosque and the ISI Colonel who put the Mumbai operation together. Individuals in Pakistan say good bye to their families and go to office every morning to wage war on India, must be eliminated. There are a few ways to do this, as the Americans and Israelis have demonstrated.

One of them is for a car bomb to go off when they start their cars in the morning, put there by "god knows who". In many ways this is the neatest. Another is to pick them up while they are on a relaxed foreign trip to Dubai, or Equatorial Guinea or wherever these sickos go to get their highs. Another is for a drone to fire a missile at their armour-plated SUVs when they are listening to Lata Mangeshkar. The Americans specialise in this. Alternately they fire a 250-pound laser guided bomb at their favourite terrorist, who has been illuminated by a laser gun held by "god knows who". This method leaves no trace. The best way is for the terrorist to have disappeared when his bearer goes to give him his morning tea, to be rediscovered in India, later.

These are the only ways of waging this war. After the event, we in India can (strike out where inapplicable) act innocent/blame the Taliban/blame internal conflict in the Lashkar/blame the ISI/blame the Americans/Israelis /blame god and make the same statements that the Pakistan Foreign Minister does: "We don't want war, but if it is forced upon us, we will, by god," etcetera.

Any senior army officer doing his staff college course in India is taught that the dumbest option is to have the choice of escalating to be forced upon us. This choice must be left to the other side. Pakistan as a smaller, weaker state will never escalate, beyond a low threshold. But where are the tools to act the way the Israelis or Americans do?

Today we are acutely deficient in all the technologies required. Let Defence Minister, Mr. A.K.Antony, who is competing with Mr. George Fernandes to be the worst Defence Minister of India has had, get one thing right, and direct the three chiefs to put the required capability together in six months. Another attack will surely come.

In terms of force parity Pakistan lacks far behind with its obsolete tank fleet of 90's purchased from Ukraine five years ago. It has 6,00,000 men in uniform on ground, 32,000 in air and 22,000 in navy. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has warned the nation's civilian leadership that in case of an armed conflict with India, PAF could lose its skies within a week.

In a secret report, the air force has told president Asif Ali Zardari, who is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces, that PAF's entire war strategy rests on a strike at the heart of India's western air command- as was the case in 1965. Which means, disabling a great number of Indian aircraft before they take off to establish supremacy in the air.

The report points out the bitter fact that PAF only has about three dozen truly world-class fighter planes - F-16 Fighting Falcons - and of them, only a handful are the latest block-52 fighters. The remaining are ageing aircraft acquired 20-25 years ago. They are not even a match for Su-30s and are out numbered by Mig-29s.

After F-16s, the PAF report points out, Pakistan has Mirage-IIIs and Mirage-Vs. The fact, however, remains the earliest of these were received over 37-years ago. Pakistan also relies heavily on F-7Ps, the Chinese version of the Soviet MiG-21s, which currently is India's most dispensable plane.

JF-17s, rumoured to have a production cost of $17 million per unit, are still years from becoming PAF's mainstay. There are other planes, including a solitary surviving squadron of MiG-19, or F-6, as it is called, it's A-5 variant ground attack aircraft, FT-5(a variant of MiG-17), the jet trainer K-8 and the Super Mushak, but these would be of little consequence in a full-blown conflict.

Pitting against these planes is a wide range of aircraft, including but not limited to, Su-30s, Mirage-2000s, MiG-29s, MiG-27s, MiG-23s, MiG-21s, which make the Indian Air Force a formidable nemesis. INAV

TALES OF TRAVESTY
By DR. JITENDRA SINGH
Whom to blame for violence against women ?

Living in an age of evidence based observations and conclusions, it may not suffice to simply state that violence against women in India is growing without actually specifying who precisely are responsible for this retrograde social trend. Quite significantly, according to a widely published survey report, while 40% of women across the country admit being victims of domestic violence, 54% of them say it is OK to get beaten.

The Indian society is so full of contradictions that in this case too apparent deterrants of violence against women seem to be actually the facilitators. For example, contrary to the popular belief that education brings in respect and emanicipation for womenfolk, the statistics make an amusing revelation that wife-beating was less commonly prevalent among the less literate sections of society compared to relatively literate sections of Tamil Nadu where 41.9% of women interviewed were beaten. Similarly the survey also exploded the myth about regular drinkers or alcohol consumers necessarily being outrageous towards women. Those fond of bottle and the heady brew may find tremendous vindication in the evidence that one of the lowest incidence of women abuse at mere 17% was found in States like Goa and Sikkim where regular alcohol consumption is a part of normal culture both among men as well as women.

Now, what does this mean? Does this mean that in the 21st century India, increasing level of education, awareness and media exposure is also accompanied by an increasing lust for consumerist needs which invariably leads to violence against women including dowry deaths ? Does this mean that alcohol abuse is found to lead to unruly behaviour towards women mainly in the metros and submetros where social norms are getting disorganised while in apparently emancipated but traditionally rooted societies like that of Goa, men and women have evolved to a level where they can sit together to share a drink without abusing each other.

This is also an occasion to make a guarded reference to the role of women themselves in violence against women. On the one hand, according to the survey under discussion, as many as 54% of Indian women are reconciled to their fate of being beaten and abused. On the other hand, in most of the cases of dowry killing, it is inavariably a woman accomplice in the form of a mother-in-law or sister-in-law who acts as an adjuvant. To add fuel to fire, most of the women oriented soap operas presently serialised by various TV channels not only inadvertantly glamourise the intrigue by woman against woman but are also produced by a number of high profile women like Ekta Kapoor et al.

In a nutshell, the rampant physical or psychological abuse against woman is symptomatic of a culture where the woman is not only expected by her menfolk but is also herself reconciled to remain submissive and compromising. The onus, therefore, is on the common man to assert that woman infact constitutes the strength of man himself. Poet Kaifi Azmi calls on woman to be on her own so that she superimposes the strength of Umapathy ‘‘-----Jannat Ek Aur Hai Jo Mard Ke Pahlu Mein Nahin’’

The Afghans' right to live

By Fazal Mehmood

Paradoxically today, there is no exodus from Kabul. War-weary, long-suffering, frightened, rudderless and impoverished Afghans and other Kabuliwalaas (shades of Tagore here!) haven't been fleeing the metropolis, countering many a scare headline or primetime TV/radio news-clip/bulletin.

The "wretched of the earth" (to employ the haunting evocative and appropriate phase of the sociologist Fannon) in dusty, dirt-poor, wind-swept and populous Kabul have been busy like mad amidst their own dour battle of existence in their shanty-town style slums, pigsty-like hovels caved into hilly hide-outs and earthen tenements, even amidst lack of most elementary necessities of life: drinking water and electricity.

This has been contrary to the carefully-laid out plans and obvious calculation of neighbouring Islamabad as scores of officials and diplomats of many international aid/relief agencies (WHO, UNDEP, UNICEF, ICRC) and many junior and senior diplomats of India, Indonesia and Turkey, are all still sticking around in battered and embattled Kabul.

Though red in tooth and claw, Kabul, which straddles the ancient "silk route" (linking it to Delhi, Amritsar, Lahore, Herat, Ghandhara, Quom, Isphaan, Samarkand etc), amidst all its tribulations, tragedy and tears, still manages to exude shades of its haunting beauty and charm, portrayed in fading coloured picture post-cards of the Afghans' citadel.

An unhappy nation is one with too much history, Carlyle Thomas wrote long ago. By this definition, Afghanistan, which doubtlessly is saddled with too much history (rich and colourful, though) is, indeed, very unhappy now, as in the past centuries too. Thus, an Afghan warrior's farewell message suggests: "… I was ever anxious to die, for when death comes the brave are free…" The colourful stirring and often overwhelmingly tragic history of the Afghans underscores this innate defiant spirit and attitude of a proud, creative, civilised polyglot people proselytized by three great religions of the world, through all from the Orient: Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam.

It's not for nothing therefore; the Afghan aphorism says it all: "We are content with discord… We are content with alarms… But we will never be content with a master…" Ancient and modern history of landlocked mountainous Afghanistan underscore the grit, tenacity and determination of Afghans, amidst all their racial, religious and tribal differences to fight and throw out all invaders and conquerors.

And this long Afghan saga of courage and fortitude bears out the stark reality that combative Afghans have fought and thrown out the Czar, their Russian hordes. Persians (Iranians), the Wahabis (from feudal Arabian lands), the invading rulers of the Levant imperial Britain, erstwhile Soviet Union, Pakistanis (spurred on by the Bhuttos, Zia and Gen. Pervez Musharraf) and now, the over-eager-beaver-style Pak's Trojan horse and military cabal. Taliban, which finds itself checkmated. With hardly any "dramatic triumphant breakthrough" at the outer perimeter of Kabul, thanks to Commander Sikandar Shah's intrepidity, resoluteness and patriotim, to fight the ISI. Significantly, even as early as in 1993, the late Ahmad Shah Masood, Defence Minister talking to Pakistani journalists roundly accused the ISI of trying to establish "a proxy government in Afghanistan through Gulbuddin Hekmetyar." Charging Islamabad with following a foreign policy dictated by an intelligence agency, ISI, Masood declared: "We do not want bloodshed in Afghanistan and we will not allow any intelligence agency to do that…but Hekmetyar wants to make our country hostage to the interests of Pakistani intelligence agencies."

Hekmetyar was "captive" Prime Minister of Afghanistan who had been unable to even step into Kabul for three years! For, Hekmetyar, leading the Hizb-i-Islami (as against Masood's and Rabbanni's Jamait-i-Islami), was an overtly ambitious fundamentalist Islamic cleric, a Pushtum (Pathan) Sunni, handpicked by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and politically molly-coddled, cosseted and built up by Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. This violent, voluble, demonstrative and extreme right-wing stooge of ISI was bottled up and marginalised by Taliban.

Thus, with the Afghan aphorism (we will never be content with a master) as the backdrop, young and old, gritty, determined, independent, tenacious, proud and patriotic, battle-prone and combat-experienced Afghans, whether neophytes or veterans, at all echelons of their multi-tiered society, with their differing tribal and sub-tropical loyalties intact and spurred on by their earnestness and enormous persuasive capacity, assure their interlocutors, of their paramount aim of decimating Pak-sponsored Taliban under the leadership of Hamid Karzai.

In any event, it's very hard to take your eyes off the majestic enchanting Hindukush mountains, on the western wings of the Himalayas, as your aircraft wings down, protected by aerial flares against the possible attack by US-manufactured heat-seeking Stinger missiles rockets and artillery fire, into the nondescript, barely functional sparsely-equipped international airport of Kabul, almost sandwiched by a litany of heavy sandbagged gun emplacements. Any conscientious person is inevitably overcome by a feeling of deja vu (we have been here before)

For, sharp rich memories keep flooding back and forth overwhelm anyone of yet another embattled Asian metropolis, capital of yet another war-torn nation, honeycombed by a prolonged savage immoral war, including the deployment of chemical/bacterial/biological/toxic weapons, viciously launched by yet another, though over-rated, superpower, USA.

Nonetheless, Kabul's pride and personality, besides its ethos and elan, are all reflected in the frenetic pace of life of its swelling multiracial populace, most of whom alas are ensconced amidst layers of the "wrapping" of hovels, hutments, slums, pigsty-style shanties, and also, modern style houses, specious bungalows and palatial-style mansions etc. Dominated by two towering rugged mountains, atop which runs the old city's outer walls is Bala Hisar, a fortress-like sprawling structure, a unique element of attraction in this colourful metropolis.

With its innate commercial panache and propensity for large-scale trade Kabul for centuries was indeed the "gateway" of ancient India, fostering the growth of indissoluble Indo-Afghan bilateral relations. Given its location on the cross-roads of international trade routes Kabul had been a busy, useful global market place for centuries.

The talented Hindu Emperor Kanishka, ruled over vast tracts of land and a large population, from his capital Ghandhara or Kandar in southern Afghanistan. The Greek explorer conqueror, Alexander The Great, with his triumphant though over-worked army, stayed for two years in Balkh in northern Afghanistan, after his successful campaign of conquest and odyssey of the Orient. Not far off from Balkh is Bamiyan, where one of the most imposing and probably the tallest statue of Lord Buddha, is to be found even today amidst war, pillage, plunder, vandalism, chaos and general neglect. It's nonetheless, awe-inspiring. Not far from Bamiyan in Taxila (now in Pakistan, after partition of India), where the Mauryan Prince Ashoka (later, Ashoka The Great) served as a governor in a large rebellious province (before he went over to Ujjain as Governor and eventually going back home in Pataliputra or Patna in Bihar).

Kabul's hallowed Blue Mosque, not far from the shallow serpentine Kabul River, drawing around 50,000 or more devotees on Friday prayers, reminds anyone of venerated Jama Masjid in Old Delhi. There are some of many integral elements of life, in the raw and real in Kabul, which remains even today an endearing metropolis of colour and charm and astounding simplicity, amidst its daily dance of death and destruction.

And leading the dour defence of Kabul and future political normalcy and peace in Afghanistan is President Hamid Karzai. For he has proved the years that he is indeed a visionary, astute leader.

Karzai is a simple austere, no-didactic and no-doctrinaire Muslim faithful. He believes in Quran and shuns bloodshed. Karzai wants the Afghan's right to live free and independent lives and the right to cultivate the Afghans' "handful of dust" (a patch of ancestral land) is a million dollar question. What will happen after the withdrawal of the US forces as the ISI backed Taliban forces once again are on the rampage? INAV

Pakistan's military relay race

By Dilbag Rai

It is an irony of fate for Pakistan that since its birth it has to live under the boots of the military generals even if an elected government came to power for a short duration. From Iskander Mirja to Kyani Pakistani army has run a relay race to claim the real power.Since the 1980s when General Zia-ul-Haq seized power, Pakistan has been gradually turned into a fundamentalist nation. In varying degrees, every institution, including the Pakistan armed forces and the ISI, have been infused with the fundamentalist virus that spread from Saudi-financed Wahabi schools.

Islamic fundamentalists and the US-financed Afghanistan armed resistance drove the Soviets out. With the withdrawal of the US presence from Afghanistan leaving well-armed guerrillas behind, the ISI, in collusion with Al-Qaida and its financial resources, raised the Taliban that overran the country, imposing brutal order on the war-ravaged nation.

No less significant has been the development of nuclear weapons, making Pakistan a nation that could not be ignored in the light of proliferation threats and Islamic militancy obviously with the knowledge and blessings of its mentor, the US.

It is a hard fact that Pakistan has been craftily exploiting India’s war-like stance to its advantage by subtle threats that any upgrading of its defences on the Indian frontier will leave it with no option but to reduce the force levels committed to operations in the tribal areas along the Afghan frontier. Besides, with the acceleration of the war on terror since 9/11, that threat has been registering stronger with the US and its allies. An enfeebled Pakistan can never be the strategic option of the US as there is really no alternative to building upon the virtually global acceptance that Pakistan is now the nursery of terrorism, and anti-terror agencies in the US/EU/Nato etc require to pressure their own governments to turn the heat on Pakistan. Aftermath of Mumbai terror attacks the President Asif Ali Zardari may be sincere about helping India fight terrorism but, unfortunately, his government has no control over the Army-ISI combine, or the jihadis, and there is little hope they ever will. Now Zardari and Gilani have to utter what Kyani has in his mind against India and this reality can not be ignored that.the authority of any civilian Government in Pakistan is compromised owing to the influence exerted by a military traditionally having an anti-India mind-set

On the Mumbai teror attacks by the Pakistani terrorists it was analysed that like much of the world,India was willing to believe that Zardari and his civilian establishment were probably not involved in sanctioning such a heinous act. But with ISI’s hand or at least that of its "alumnus" in the form of retired officers being seen, the analysis is that the army may be deeply involved in the plot. The reason the army and therefore, Kiyani, has emerged as the prime suspect is that it stands to gain most from the outcome of the Mumbai attacks..Meanwhile, to the army’s growing concern, internal security had deteriorated with rebellions breaking out in Balochistan and North West Frontier Province. Extremist groups with So experts believed that the army headed by Kiyani was looking for "a one-shot solution": Target India. Nothing unites Pakistan like a confrontation with India which also brings the army to the forefront.

In the present scenario both the countries are standing at square one, thanks to the impudence and lack of far sightedness shown by the real rulers of Pakistan.It is a far cry to maintain peace in this region of Asia. Only influence from USA and pressure from the international community can prevent Pakistan from going astray. At present to have peace with Pakistan is a distant dream.

The future will tell which way the winds of the Indian Subcontinent are going to blow.