Making Pakistan Pay the Price

In the context of what has come to be known as Mumbai 11/26, in an article “Take the war to the enemy†by Captain Bharat Verma, Editor of Indian Defence Review, in IDR of December 8, 2008, he recommends that we must “take this war to Pakistan and make them pay the price†. It may be understood that he recommends that India take military action against Pakistan, though it is not at all clear what is meant by making “them†pay the price, nor what is the price to be paid to whom. Would the killing of Pakistani civilians in military operations exact that price? The first thing any military does is to identify the enemy. Are the people of Pakistan enemies of the Indian people?

Dealing with Terrorism

NOTWITHSTANDING these initial questions, we need to examine the issue of dealing with terrorism. Perhaps there are only two options, but Captain Verma’s option can be examined as a third. First, we can be proactive by pepping up and coordinating our intelligence services so that attacks are defused or diffused by early warning and/or small-scale pre-emptive action. This would eliminate or at least minimise damage. Second, we can keep more or larger commando forces at metros and large cities to counter-attack terrorists as was done recently at Mumbai. It must be noted that these commandos’ actions will always be reactive as the initiative is with the terrorists, who would have already caused damage before the commandos get going. And third, as Captain Verma suggests, we can send our Defence Services in a mission mode to strike at Pakistan. However, whether it will be possible to limit action to “surgical strikes†on terrorist harbours and training camps is to be considered.

Three Options

BUT before examining these three options in some detail, let us be clear that none of them and no combination of them can stop terrorism, which is quite another kettle of fish. Having stated that, let us discuss the first option, that of pepping up and coordinating our intelligence services. This is absolutely essential because it is far cheaper in terms of lives and economic damage to prevent an attack or force its scaling down than to react to it after it has occurred. The Mumbai attack was possible because of various deficiencies of action, coordination and, very importantly, lack of trust and respect between the various civilian, para-military and military agencies in our intelligence set-up at the Central and State levels. This can be remedied by re-integrating and strengthening the existing intelligence machine without major restructuring, along with introducing an element of public accountability to the extent possible in intelligence work. This can be done by the Prime Minister taking a one-time initiative to order and oversee its effective and non-partisan reorganisation, and carry out a one-time check of its functioning with consultation of all the civilian, para-military and military intelligence agencies involved. This will have negligible financial cost but will offer the richest security dividends.

The second option is to increase the strength of the commando forces under Central Government control and also in the States under their own control. This is an expensive option that would play merry hell with Central and State budgets and inevitably be at the cost of development. But far worse, this is playing into the hands of terrorists, because this is precisely what the terrorists would like us to do. India spending money with “a commando on every street corner†, and daily security checks for the common citizen, will probably make our economy stagger from faltering, as it is doing today. Also, increased numbers of commando forces by their very visibility will keep alive an unhealthy atmosphere of public fear (or terror, if you like), or else the public will begin to accept commandos as part of the scenery, which is almost as bad. Of course, commando units are required for rapid deployment, but merely multiplying the number of such units will not give us additional security against terror attacks.

It is a far more efficient and more cost-effective option to have sharpened State Police vigilance and rapid communication systems to bring crack commando units (which should have their own dedicated air and surface transport) rapidly to the scene of action. Better State Police vigilance is, of course, not possible without elimination of political interference, which in turn is not possible without implementing Police Reforms that have been gathering dust for many years now. Implicit in this is the problem of normal and special security forces being diverted for the protection of “VIPs†and for commercial activities like cricket matches, which is obviously at the security and financial cost of the public at large. Priorities for provision of security on a democratic basis need to be laid down and implemented.

Stricter or more draconian POTA-type laws are not going to work as past experience has shown. Maharashtra has the draconian MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) in force, but it was of no use whatever to prevent the recent attacks at Mumbai’s CST, Taj or Oberoi because it cannot possibly dissuade terrorists, who are highly motivated individuals on do-or-die missions, from striking at will. Such laws may, however, help in rapid prosecution, but have in the past been misused to settle old scores, have yielded a poor conviction rate, and have been rightly objected to because innocents are forced to make confessions in police custody—confessions that are admissible in Special Courts in trials under such laws. As succinctly stated by Lt Gen Harwant Singh in his article in The Tribune on December 10, titled “What went wrong?“,
To cover up shortcomings in investigative skills, there appear to be moves to bring back some of the draconian laws, though in a different garb. Such laws turn the Indian judicial system on its head and going by the past record of their application, it will lead to further alienation of sections of our society.

The third, macho option of military strikes at Pakistan needs very careful consideration for several reasons. If we are to be able to conduct “surgical strikes†at terrorist harbours, safe-houses and training camps within Pakistan, it will call for very precise and actionable intelligence that our agencies may not be able to provide at present. And military action based on intelligence borrowed from “friendly†intelligence agencies is not desirable. Such strikes may not be limited to aerial strikes because there will certainly be unacceptable collateral damage to innocent civilian populations, but may have to include air-dropping of commandos and recovering them after the operation. This will certainly attract reaction from local Pakistani populations and the Pakistani military, besides drawing flak and intervention by the international community. The very real possibility of this snowballing into war and worse, taking on nuclear dimensions, is frightening.

But even supposing that Pakistan does not react with nuclear threat or action (say on “advice†from the USA), the conflict remains at the conventional warfare level, and India succeeds in capturing urban centres in Pakistan, the question arises: “What then?†And further questions also arise that need to be asked now, in thinking-through the action. Questions such as, “Why should we hold the captured territory at huge military, financial and developmental cost?†, “How long should we hold the captured territory?†, “Will this military action stop terrorism?†, “Is the Pakistani public to be held to blame and punished for the Government of Pakistan (controlled by the Pakistan military) encouraging jihadi madmen to ‘make India bleed by a thousand cuts’?†, and so on. This third option is obviously neither politically sensible, economically desirable nor militarily practical, and therefore should be dropped.

Where Do We Go From Here?

THE real questions are: while taking possible sensible measures that are necessarily reactive to terrorist attack but eminently urgent and necessary to protect ourselves against terrorist attacks, can we address the problem of why terrorists are “created†, and can we find ways and means to stop their creation? Terrorism is a sociological problem, and a very serious one at that, with repercussions that include societal collapse. We need to recognise that such problems have no technical, police or military solutions, though the use of technology and police and military force may be necessary to check the growth of terrorism en route to solving the problem of terrorism.

The Pakistan Government, which has always been and still is heavily under the control or influence of the Pakistani military, has undoubtedly sponsored terrorist strikes against soft Indian targets. But the option of India’s military response to Pakistan-sponsored terrorist strikes is quite undesirable because it will not only not stop terrorism, but will cause Pakistan’s fledgling civilian government such as it is, to be yet again swallowed by the Pakistani military. It will also have the effect of keeping India and Pakistan at loggerheads, expending precious resources on increasing Defence demands, something that will always be keenly desired by the military-industrial complex that encourages armed conflict. War with India will also keep Pakistan‘s backward-looking clergy and the Al-Qaeda and other such extreme elements going along well, because the thing that they fear the most is peace, which they are trying to destroy. The present military stand-off between India and Pakistan is deeply worrying. Pakistan, far from being apologetic about the Mumbai attack or handing over Maulana Masood Azhar (who, it may be recalled, was handed over by the Indian Government on a platter at Kandahar), is saying that Mumbai 11/26 was the work of non-state actors, and will respond with military force if India attacks. Nobody wins wars—only the best of the country’s youth, the soldiers, get killed and maimed and civilians suffer, while terrorists continue their depredations.

Major General S.G. Vombatkere retired as the Additional DG in charge of Discipline and Vigilance in the Army HQ AG’s Branch, New Delhi.