National security is not a theoretical construct; it rests on a correct threat assessment, determination of the right response strategy and fail-safe execution of the operations planned within the strategic mission. Following the war-like offensive carried out by Pakistan-mentored terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad on the army base at Uri near LoC, in which 19 jawans were killed and an equal number injured, India swiftly responded with a two-fold strategy of going all out to expose Pakistan as a terror state before the world and granting complete freedom to its army to give a befitting reply to the adversary in a manner and time of its choosing.
Responding to the deep national indignation over the Uri incident, PM Narendra Modi used the public address at Kozhikode to denounce Pakistan and deliver a warning that the Uri attack would not be forgotten or forgiven.
While Pakistan was continuing with its game of infiltrating terrorists across LoC, our army was quietly engaged in operational planning on the basis of intelligence flowing to it from our national agencies. The Indian Army’s para commandos carried out midnight surgical strikes across the LoC, where the launch pads for infiltration were located, killing scores of terrorists besides two Pak Army personnel who were apparently overseeing the camps. DGMO Lt Gen. Ranbir Singh said the next morning that the strikes were efficiently ‘concluded’ without suffering any casualty on the Indian side and that he had informed his Pakistani counterpart of the objective and details of the operation. The success of the military response is the outcome of the decisiveness of the PM Modi as the head of the executive, excellent work of intelligence agencies and an extremely competent role of the National Security Adviser.
India’s new Pak policy is rooted in the contours of a strategy defined by Modi in his Kozhikode address. He stated for the first time that Nawaz Sharif was a mere rubber stamp of the Pak Army who read out the speeches prepared by terrorist masterminds. He lambasted Pakistan as the hub of global terror, describing it as the ‘one nation in Asia’ that was plunging the region into bloodshed. Finally, he praised the Indian Army and security forces for countering terrorism and exhorted them to deal with terrorists with full might. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj forcefully put on the world stage what Modi had spelt out to the nation. At the UN General Assembly, she called upon the international community to declare Pakistan as a ‘terror state’ and repeated what she had earlier said at Islamabad that the world must stop making a distinction between good terrorists and bad terrorists.
India has successfully launched the process of isolating Pakistan beginning from SAARC and has secured a validation of its action against cross-border terrorists from the world, including Russia. A major challenge for Indian diplomacy is to get the US to see India’s case on the issue of cross-border terrorism and acknowledge that the Pak Army was using terrorist outfits under its control for destabilising the Valley to compel India to resume talks on Kashmir. The Pakistan Army was doing this to maintain its hold on power in its country. It derived strength from the US-Pak entente and the Sino-Pak alliance. Pakistan knows that the US needs it in the ongoing fight against radicals, particularly in the Pak-Afghan belt.It is significant that Susan Rice has told her Indian counterpart Ajit Doval that the White House expected Pakistan to take ‘effective action to combat and delegitimise’ UN-designated terrorist entities such as LeT and JeM.
India has to remain prepared for any misadventures of the Pak Army and ISI on and off the battle field. Intelligence coverage has to become deeper. Pakistan Army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif has tried to play the usual deniability card on the existence of terrorist launch pads that were struck by the Indian Army. It may be presumed that the Pak Army will not abandon the use of terror outfits as an instrument of proxy war. India, meanwhile, should not find it difficult to tell the world that its army reserved the right to take out cross-border terrorists even as the country was committed to not initiating a war on its own.
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