Surgical strike: Govt fooling itself     

Stereotypical speeches and chest-thumping marked the second anniversary of the much-hyped surgical strike by the Army. Criticism of the Modi government’s immoderate celebration of the second anniversary has legitimately raised the question why the government and the Army did not think of ‘celebrating’ the first anniversary last year if they thought it was a big deal.

The conclusion that the spectre of looming elections in states to be followed by a general election drove the government to cover up its failures by hiding behind the Army, is, thus, not misplaced. Event managers of the government, forever coming up with one event after another, thus came up with the idea of ‘Parakram Parva’, which loosely translated stand for a festival of valour. A government adrift and clueless about the economy appears to be hard at work to deflect public attention by taking recourse to such gimmicks and politicising the Indian army.

The Indian Army continues to celebrate ‘Vijay Divas’ to mark the liberation of Dhaka in Bangladesh in December, 1971. The landmark event then had marked the surrender of 100,000 Pakistani soldiers, who were taken in as prisoners of war. The short and decisive military action then had led to the creation of an independent nation, Bangladesh and dismemberment of Pakistan, which led to marked changes in the political map of the world. But successive governments have made little song and dance around ‘Vijay Divas’, rightly believing that a mature nation and a professional army need not depend on exhibitionism or ostentatious celebrations. But the Modi government’s insistence to celebrate a three-kilometre incursion in POK has few parallels in the world.

“Surgical strike” in fact doesn’t find mention in any standard global glossary of military terms and one suspects that the Indian Army would be the butt of ridicule of other uniformed forces.

While a section of the jingoistic media is credited for the coinage, former Vice Chief of the Army Staff Lt Gen Milan Naidu recently scoffed at the term and said that it might have served those seeking political mileage from the raids that destroyed the terror launch-pads in Pakistani territory two years ago. If teaching Pakistan a lesson was the objective, several Army officers have pointed out, the strike does not seem to have achieved it, subdued infiltrators or slowed down attacks on Indian defence establishments. What then is the government celebrating?

For all the song and dance that we see now, incursions on the international border have been fairly commonplace. They keep the armed forces pumped up and battle-ready. The 2016 PoK strikes were conducted as a retaliation for the Uri Attack. A similar strike the previous year in 2015 was prompted by the ambush on a convoy of the 6 Dogra Regiment. Indeed, such strikes have been taking place since 1965 when the first ad-hoc commando unit named Meghdoot was formed. It later came to be known as 9 Para SF. The Special Forces had conducted another cross-border raid in 1998 but details were not divulged. Yet another strike was conducted on 29 August 2011, which was named Operation Ginger when three Pakistani soldiers were allegedly beheaded by Indian Special Forces and the heads brought back to India in response to the alleged beheading of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani BAT Operatives.

Against this backdrop, claims of the current government were not backed by any substantive evidence of its cross-border adventures. It had initially tried to pass on a video as proof of the surgical strike conducted in 2016 and reduced itself to a laughing stock. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the Indian Army is paying a price for the government’s lies and bombast and the Prime Minister’s fast eroding credibility. The standing of Army officers, who are frequently appearing on TV to defend the political establishment, has also suffered as a consequence.

The government is paying for its hunger for headline management and the limelight. The first press conference of the Army’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) was marked by the use of vague terms like “along the LOC” and “LOC kay nazdeek” and raised doubts. The DGMO claimed there was no loss of life on the Indian side. No detail of course was provided on the number of terrorists killed, the locations, the methodology, the time and targets etc. Questions were also not entertained. Pakistan, on the other hand, had then claimed that there were two casualties on its side and that one Indian soldier was taken into custody. Unofficial claims from the Pakistani media had claimed that 14 Indian soldiers had died, and their dead bodies were seen in the area the morning after the attack. While Pakistani claims can certainly be dismissed as propaganda, the Indian version was weakened by the decision to hold back details and eventually circulating a video of the strike a year later.

Statistics in the public domain suggest that as against 153 violations of ceasefire in 2015, Pakistan violated the ceasefire on the Indian border 1046 times in the current year. There were 228 attacks from Pakistan based terrorists in 2016 and last year the figure jumped to 860. There has been an increase in the killing of terrorists. The figure was 110 in 2014. It rose to 213 in 2015. The next year it declined to 165 and last year went up to 218. This year security forces claim to have killed 173 terrorists so far.

While the government can pat itself on the back, the truth is that casualties on Indian forces have also been on the rise. The year-wise break-up of Indian jawans killed in the last five years: 2014 (51), 2015 (41), 2016 (88), 2017 (83) and 83 so far in 2018, which tell a grim story.

Nor has the surgical strike made any difference to provocations from the Pakistani side. Not only did the caretaker government of Pakistan, before Imran Khan was sworn in as Prime Minister, release 20 commemmorative postage stamps on militancy in Kashmir, crackdown by Indian security forces, Kashmiris blinded by the use of pellet guns and even one on the slain militant, Burhan Wani, even Imran Khan took a pot shot at Indian leaders. Responding to the refusal by India to his offer for a dialogue, Khan acidly tweeted that he expected the response from ‘small men occupying high offices’.

Rousing speeches at the United Nations and celebrating a two-year old, overnight military operation of questionable outcome, can do little to control the damage. Who is the government fooling, except itself?