Arun Bajpai
In the recent cross border raid, first of its type carried out by the Indian Army against the North East insurgents on 09 June as a retaliation to their attack on a army convoy in Chandel district of Manipur on 04 June by crossing into Myanmar, Pakistan is in tizzy, their media, political establishment and even Army are all fire and brimstone as if the raid has taken place not in Myanmar but on them. One can understand their reaction as they are realising that India is changing from being known as soft on terror to be hard on it now, but what is surprising is that some of Indian political parties including the so called journalists are advocating that India should not thump the chest. The big question is why?
Congress and Left parties of India are claiming that during their rule in centre in 1995 Indian Army in concert with the Myanmar Army carried out operations against NE insurgents in Myanmar which was again repeated in 2006 and in Bhutan also Indian Army carried out operations against these insurgents with the help of Bhutanese army, so what is so special about this operation? Yes this operation is special and Pakistani is no fool that their political establishment is telling India that Pakistan is no Myanmar , they are passing resolutions in their Parliament against Indian political utterances that Indian neighbours should take a lesson from this cross border raid and their ex President General Parvez Musharraf is rattling their nuclear weapons. This operation by the Indian Army commandos is different because it was target specific based on real time intelligence carried out within the boundary of a neighbouring country and without the help of Myanmar Army .This was a cross border raid executed with precision and professionalism within four days of NE insurgents ambushing Indian army convoy. While officially Indian army is only claiming 38 dead and 12 wounded insurgents with no loss of life and limb to commandos the unofficial figure is more than 50 insurgents killed in their two camps attacked and destroyed.
All these people who are advising Modi Government of not tom toming this raid as special operations, lack the basic knowledge of the principals of war. The famous German Strategists Clausewitz had stated way back that it is not the war but the threat of going to war that is the best way to destabilise the enemy and is the first dictum of the of the art of war. Even though Indian army had this capability of a carrying out cross border raids this was not done till date because we lacked the political will after the demise of the Iron Lady of India Mrs Indira Gandhi. Till now the insurgents on India’s Eastern Border and Pakistani sponsored jehadis on India’s western borders felt quite safe across the border well knowing that Indian army will not cross the border. This particular surgical operation by Indian Army commandos breaks this myth. Now, the insurgents on eastern border and jehadis on the western borders will have to shift their camps well beyond one days march from border on both sides. This makes them that much more vulnerable and gives us, specially our satellite imagery and drones more lead time to detect their movement and thwart their infiltration effort.
This is exactly why Pakistan is ranting and making all this ho halla on this particular raid. There are lot of apologists in India who apart from Pakistan are telling us that Pakistan is a nuclear power and hence untouchable. If that is so then how come Pakistan in May 1999 surreptitiously entered and occupied a large swath of our area in Kargil Sector in J&K which took us two months of conventional war and loss of more than 500 soldiers to retake it ? Was India not a nuclear power then? In early last year when Pakistani Army’s BAT team entered five km deep in Indian sector of J&K and beheaded two Indian Army soldiers was India not a nuclear power? Or was our borders not properly guarded? The truth is that Indian Army had this capability long time back but our political masters lacked the will to take the counter action. This current Government has displayed this will and that is why Pakistan is so upset and is shouting from the roof tops.
In India in absence of the Chief of Defence Staff system which would have provided a single window military advise to our political masters and three Army chiefs not being included in the Cabinet Committee on Security(CCS), the highest decision making body on the country’s defence, It is the clueless Babus of the Ministry of Defence, Foreign Affairs and Home which advise our politicians. An ideal case of one blind man leading the other. So what wonder that with India having third largest Army, Fourth largest Air Force and Fifth largest Navy in the world is still considered as a soft state? However the things are now changing. First the pounding that Pakistan got on its cross border firing mischief early this year which has resulted its 80 posts suffering heavy damage and 13 soldiers killed and now this cross border raid has convinced it that India’s new found policy of offensive defence has come to stay. As for Pakistan being nuclear we must understand that no country goes to nuclear war on border skirmishes.
It is time now that till the fate of implementation of CDS system which stands sanctioned is decided the three Army Chiefs must be made permanent members of the CCS. Similarly India now must implement this policy of tit for tat in other words offensive defence for any cross border terror irrespective of whether it is our Eastern Border or Western. India has the capability and the Special Forces necessary all that we need is political will. We also must do the necessary chest thumping to convince our neighbours that come what may we mean business.
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