Pakistan provocative, India squeamish

By Swapan Dasgupta

There were two template reactions within India to the killing and mutilation of two jawans by Pakistani troops along the Line of Control last week.

First, apart from an influential minusculity that is disproportionately represented in the media and among the power elite of Lutyens’ Delhi, few Indians were surprised by this latest example of Pakistani butchery. They, in fact, saw the decapitation of a slain Indian army jawan as just another instalment in a saga that began with the monstrous genocide in East Pakistan in 1971 and became the new normal with the Pakistan army’s emergence as the operational hub of insurgency and terrorism throughout South Asia.  

I think it is wrong to refer to Pakistani perfidy. With Islamabad’s sponsorship of the war of a thousand cuts, the Kargil war, attack on Parliament, blasts in numerous Indian cities and the 26/11 massacre in Mumbai, the shedding of Indian blood has become an addiction to the Pakistan Establishment. Its nationhood, it would seem, depends on its ability to cause grief across its borders. Those who believe that Pakistan will somehow change are hallucinating. For them, it is a case of ‘Daman ki asha’.

The second predictable response was from the Indian Government. Since its election in 2004, the Congress-led UPA Government has proceeded on the principle that India is obliged to seek the normalisation of relations through “uninterrupted and uninterruptable” engagement, come what may. True, the ferocity of public indignation forced it to put a halt to the process in the aftermath of 26/11 but that was treated as an unfortunate aberration. Like the Panchshila doctrine that beguiled Jawaharlal Nehru into lowering India’s guard against China, the Manmohan Singh Government has reposed all its faith in the spirit of the Sharm-el-Sheikh.

In practice this has meant that every Pakistani provocation (barring the 26/11 attack) has been met with hand-wringing squeamishness. It has almost appeared that the victim is embarrassed by the brazenness and audacity of the perpetrators of crimes against itself. This seems to be the precise meaning of the “nuanced” and “calibrated” responses that South Block has forever promised. No wonder the Pakistan High Commissioner was caught on TV with both a smile and a smirk when he entered South Block last Wednesday. It was as if he knew that the diplomatic rebuke was a meaningless ritual New Delhi had to undertake to placate an angry public.  

The charade doesn’t end here. There are the odd occasions—as was the case last week when TV channels competed with the social media to wave the flag and express indignation over the killings and mutilations—when it becomes impossible to fob off the sense of outrage. In those times, ministers take turn to assure the nation that the sacrifices of the martyrs will not go in vain and that a “fitting response” awaits the blackguards in Pakistan. The calculation is that the dust will soon settle, the media focus will shift elsewhere and then it will be business as usual.

This is not to suggest that that our ministers aren’t patriotic or that people who have been entrusted with providing a holistic view of national security are disciples of the late but unlamented Neville Chamberlain—the British Prime Minister who believed that the best way to maintain peace was to concede everything to the adversary (and even pretend that the enemy was actually a friend). Yes, India’s decision-makers are fully aware that no belligerent action can be taken casually because we are, after all, dealing with a nuclear power. They are also aware that unilateral action risks internationalising a bilateral problem—something that Pakistan craves for.

Yet, behind these legitimate constraints is a far more acute problem about which India chooses to be in denial: New Delhi’s institutional awareness of the cross-currents in Pakistan is imperfect and its capacity for punitive action (that is, at the same time, deniable) is almost zero. In plain language this means that there is no worthwhile Indian network inside Pakistan, either for intelligence gathering or for covert action. Whatever little we know is courtesy friendly third countries.

This was not always so and there was a time (at least till the end of the 1980s) when India’s decision-makers knew exactly what was going on inside both civilian politics and the cantonments. The descent into ignorance came sometime between 1997 and 1998 when, in an act of monumental folly, the I.K. Gujral administration wound up the networks—some of which dated back to pre-Independence days. This dissolution was more than a casual administrative order. It even resulted in the betrayal and physical elimination of deeply embedded ‘assets’. Predictably, Pakistan did not reciprocate India’s unilateral genuflection at the altar of asymmetry. Its ability to cause pain to India is unimpaired. But the damage this early variant of Aman ki asha diplomacy did to India’s strategic interests is incalculable.

In the past week, India has been witness to an important phenomenon: public opinion is far ahead of the Government and the official strategic community in pressing for a robust defence of national interests. The Government’s passivity is based on a meek acceptance of the country’s strategic constraints; public impatience is centred on the belief that India can’t afford to be a permanent punching bag. One day, hopefully, public opinion will begin to shape government policy. Until then the country can merely grieve and fume in frustration. 

Sunday Pioneer, January 13, 2013

Army chief has done nation a service

By Swapan Dasgupta

It is to the credit of India’s Defence Minister—the man who has earned for himself the lofty title of Saint Antony—that he resisted the clamour of many parliamentarians to either sack Army chief V.K. Singh or order him to take compulsory leave pending retirement in eight weeks. It is said that Antony told indignant Cabinet colleagues that he did not want “blood on his hands.”

Antony’s act of statesmanship plus his very belated decision to order a CBI inquiry into the accusations levelled by the Army chief against a retired officer and the associated murkiness centred on the purchase of heavy vehicles has at least lowered the temperature. At the same time, it has brought into the public domain another potential defence scandal which, if it plays out, may have damaging consequences for the government.

True, the controversy over the Army chief’s allegations have not yet reached the emotive heights of the furore over the Bofors artillery guns. But that is not because the charges are trivial or born out of self-centredness. When it comes to matters concerning the armed forces, the Indian political class still exercises exemplary restraint—even if some MPs broke that understanding and demanded General Singh’s immediate dismissal.

That restraint is complemented by the all-round acknowledgement of Antony’s personal integrity. Antony may well be charged with procrastination and even indecisiveness but few will argue that he is guided by base, pecuniary considerations. Both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi should thank their lucky stars that General Singh was reporting to Antony. Any other person in the Raksha Mantri’s chair and the muck would have well and truly hit the ceiling.

The chances of that happening cannot be entirely discounted, particularly if the CBI departs from its usual ways and actually applies its mind to getting to the bottom of the grave charges relating to the sale of Tatra trucks. Prima facie, there appears to be something odd about a Czech-based, NRI-owned company exercising a complete 20-year monopoly over the supply of trucks to the army. That the imports were routed through a public sector company does not lessen the suspicion: it merely suggests that the tentacles of the arrangement go beyond the army and embrace a section of the civilian bureaucracy.

A proper inquiry into the shadowy world of defence contracts may reveal a great deal that could even startle India’s already cynical citizenry. Certainly, emerging tit-bits of information about front companies claiming to be what they are not, supplies routed through bodies specialising in escort services, and compromised diplomats and babus serve to confirm the impression that General Singh did the nation a great service by making the charges public.

On his part, and despite his initial emulation of Gandhiji’s three monkeys, we should be grateful to Antony for at least acknowledging that there is some possible evil in the world and ordering an inquiry. Only relentless public and political pressure will now ensure that the inquiry is conducted with seriousness and doesn’t become an opportunity to fudge the real issues.

The desperation on the part of those who have something to hide to keep the focus on General Singh prompted the leak of his state-of-defence-preparedness letter to the Prime Minister. If the investigators are serious, it shouldn’t take them too long to narrow the suspects to a handful of individuals. This, in turn, should provide revealing answers as to why they were so driven to engineer a situation whereby General Singh’s continuation in office would become the central issue of the controversy.  

Yet, even a leak of this most privileged of communications has its upside. The country is now aware that India’s defence preparedness to meet external threats is abysmal, and that procrastination over the purchase of military hardware has made the country vulnerable. The fact that the Army chief’s assessment corresponds to what strategic experts have long been saying must not prompt a so-what-is-new response. There is a difference between a TV pundit saying that India is unprepared to meet threats and the Army chief asserting quite independently that this is indeed so.

Neither the Prime Minister nor the Defence Minister can run away from answering this grave charge. Defence is the largest head of expenditure in the Union Budget and, so far, the unwritten political convention is that the budgetary allotment for defence is passed without any discussion. This implies that both the nation and Parliament have reposed blind trust in the Government to do whatever is necessary to protect India. If, despite this large expenditure, the Army chief complains about lack of ammunition and obsolescent equipment, it suggests that the Defence Minister has failed in his responsibilities. If, on top of these problems of hardware, there is evidence that the corruption that has sullied India’s attempts at governance has also started affecting decision-making in the Defence Ministry, there is every cause to question the legitimacy of the sainthood that has been conferred on Antony.

Every democratic country expects its ministers to live up the trust that has been reposed on them by the people. In his long political life, Antony has shown he is a good man and the country must admire his ability to remain good amid an overall climate of murkiness. But being good doesn’t mean that a minister should be content just being good. Antony has failed the test of effectiveness.


Sunday Pioneer, April 1, 2012