By Dr Amarjit Singh
27 Jul , 2015
The time window to retaliate against the Pakistani castration and beheading of three Indian soldiers earlier this year or killing of five brave soldiers in Poonch this week does not elapse if a month or year has passed. In fact, the time, place, and method of retaliation are a matter of the victim’s own choosing. Thus, retaliation could take place a year or two years from now: there are no statutes of limitations on this type of situation, and there is no absolute moral constraint from exercising retaliation; and there is no written international law on this matter.
Stupid Indian politicians fall for this diplomacy hook, line, and sinker, while Pakistani diplomacy returns chuckling that it made a fool of stupid Indians once again.
It is unfortunate that since the beheading incident, the Indian prime minister met with his Pakistani counterpart, hailing from the same district of Jhelum. The Pakistani PM paid a pilgrimage to the sacred tomb of Moinuddin Chisti in Ajmer, and further met with India’s foreign minister. These incidents served to diffuse the situation, and both Islamabad and New Delhi agreed to brush the incident under the carpet with the aim of forgetting it altogether.
But India has failed to understand or recognize this ploy by Pakistan. After each major incident, Pakistan starts playing cards of goodwill, brings up old connections of Indians with West Punjab, raises the issue of sharing a common language and culture, opens the connection of religion with Indian Muslims, relates that Iqbal was an Indian poet laureate who wrote sare jahan se acha Hindustan hamara, and purports to act as a brother toward India. Stupid Indian politicians fall for this diplomacy hook, line, and sinker, while Pakistani diplomacy returns chuckling that it made a fool of stupid Indians once again.
After 66 years with Pakistan, India has not learned. To make it worse, we’ve had two prime ministers from Jhelum who have been immensely soft with Pakistan – Inder Gujral and Manmohan Singh. Other prime ministers may have not been soft, but they have exhibited fear and restraint, which amounts to the same effect. Thus, time and again, Pakistan gets away with excesses and atrocities against India. And India in its arrogance thinks that love will conquer Pakistan. Such thinking is far distant from the realpolitik, and tends to portray weakness and cowardice, instead.
And, Pakistan will violate the cease-fire and kill Indian soldiers again.
Military Retaliation Systems
There are various ways of retaliation that don’t have to simply be tit for tat. These various ways are outlined below:
…to increase the level of disproportionate action to teach Pakistan a long lasting lesson. This is to undertake action across the Line of Control with overwhelming firepower and attack a whole Brigade.
First, a tit for tat is legitimate in that India fires and kills three Pakistani soldiers for the beheading incident and five more for this week’s incident. Castration and beheading is gruesome and against the Geneva Convention, so I can’t in good conscience recommend that strategy under any circumstance, even though Pakistan lives by it.[1]This action can be directed against the Baluch regimented that actually carried out gruesome acts against the Indian soldiers, or else against any other regiment along any part of the border.
The next is disproportionate retaliation, where instead of killing eight Pakistani soldiers, India kills eighty in an ambush action or night raid or other action. Again, the place and time is of one’s own choosing and can be in Kashmir or Kutch.
The third is to increase the level of disproportionate action to teach Pakistan a long lasting lesson. This is to undertake action across the Line of Control with overwhelming firepower and attack a whole Brigade. Such a fight can go into two/three days of heavy fighting.
The fourth is to escalate the level of retaliation and use the air force for heavy bombing of a Pakistani division or vital facility, in either the most important or least important location – doesn’t matter. The essence of this action might be to use one to two hundred warplanes in saturation bombing with an aim to destroy an entire Pakistani division. This action can be restricted to a particular sector in limited action. War is war – and holds need not be barred.
The fifth is to use asymmetric response. That is, use the navy to retaliate for what the army has done, or use Special Forces for select action. For instance, the navy could sink a Pakistani naval ship or two. This would obviously take the Indian and Pakistani navy to high levels of alert for a prolonged part of a few years, but the weaker arm will tend to suffer more. If Pakistan reacts with naval bombardment of its own, the Indian navy can simply repeat the exercise. The purpose of retaliation is to simply teach Pakistan that it must not mess with India. And if Pakistan doesn’t learn, the aim of India must be to degrade Pakistani assets to the point that they are ineffective.
The major problem to retaliate is not that India lacks the military muscle against a weaker Pakistan. The problem is its politicians who may be controlled by foreign powers or be indebted to them.
Mind you, these forms of retaliation are still short of a full-scale war along the whole border, which is yet another viable and realistic option, even if it’s a last option.
The Problem to Retaliate: Political Fifth Columnists
The major problem to retaliate is not that India lacks the military muscle against a weaker Pakistan. The problem is its politicians who may be controlled by foreign powers or be indebted to them. For instance, “Juari Lal Neheru” was influenced by the British, and perhaps by Lady Mountbatten, at that, to call off its action in Kashmir even at a time when Indian forces were rolling northwards and westwards. During 1962, the US ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, convinced Neheru that India should not use its air force against China. This was to squarely (a) teach India a lesson for its meddling in Korea, (b) its initiation of the non-aligned movement that was a snub to Washington, and (c) very astutely make India dependant on the USA for international support and military armaments. The long and short of it was that our prime minister wasn’t thinking for himself, but was allowing foreign powers to tell him what to do. When India needed foreign assistance for engineering and technology in the 1950s and 60s, Neheru spurned it, but when India needed to rely on its own military advice, he sought foreign advice.
Whereas diminutive Lal Bahadur Shastri was considered a political giant and mental stalwart, he stumbled gravely at Tashkent and came under some uncertain foreign pressure at Tashkent to give away Haji Pir and other captured Pakistani territories that had strategic interest. Once again, India’s PM was manipulated by a foreign power.
Though the Bangladesh victory has been touted as India’s finest hour, it ended with its darkest night in the return of 90,000 POWs and large swathes of Pakistani territory in West Pakistan, with Pakistan not returning Indian POWs. Again, India’s Prime Minister “Indheera Ghandhi” had herself fooled by foreign minister Swaran Singh who leaned into Pakistani Punjabi niceties and falsehood to give Indheera the wrong advice to trust Zulfiqar Bhutto, a snake by any standard. But not only that, the prime minister was firmly warned by USA and Russia to call it quits in the war. Here was foreign interference at its height – a matter of utter shame for India – reflecting that” India did not have a spine that could hold up
“Morearjee Disaii” has been suspected at various times of being a CIA agent and mole. The action that gave this away the most was his support of China in the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979. Why would he do such a thing like support China when the war wounds of 1962 had not been forgotten? What did he have against Vietnam that he would condemn them? The answer was obviously that he was told by his CIA masters to do what he did. But what did India get in return? Nothing that we can document. So was Morearjee Dissai in the pay of the CIA? Maybe an investigation would be in order.
Apparently, American interests in Pakistan were more important than Indian interests with Pakistan. The toughest, biggest nation on Earth could turn the screws on the possibly corrupt leaders of a poor country at any time.
In 1997, “Indur Gujraal” appeased American interests when he dismantled RAW programs in Pakistan, and set back by a decade what RAW had striven hard to build. He also blocked all military action across the LOC, thereby allowing Pakistan to freely wage a proxy war in Kashmir. It has been spoken that Gujraal was also a CIA man, but again, an investigation may be required.
The next war, Kargil, again presented itself with control of India’s leaders by foreign powers. The USA and Britain impressed upon India not to cross the LOC, leaving India with a formidable task to eject Pakistani soldiers from Kargil and other heights. India earned some international goodwill by coming across as a peaceful nation that could restrain itself; some good can be seen in this action that India took. But, Bill Clinton was exceptionally strong in his arm twisting of India after the sanctions of 1998. India was unable to act with pride and honor to protect its strategic interests. Once again, military decision making at time of war was dictated not in New Delhi by New Delhi, but by a foreign power from a foreign city.
India’s plan to retaliate with operation Parakram was thwarted by USA. With Indian tanks having started to roll at night across the Thar Desert in the direction of Pakistan, “Bhajpayi” and “”George Furnandiz” received a midnight call on the hotline to call off the invasion, or else. Apparently, American interests in Pakistan were more important than Indian interests with Pakistan. The toughest, biggest nation on Earth could turn the screws on the possibly corrupt leaders of a poor country at any time. Once again, Indian military action was determined by a foreign nation in a foreign city. There was nothing of Indian independence in this thinking, revealing that India is not its own country.
Once again, when talk of retaliation arose earlier this year after the beheading incident, “Munmohan Singh” and “Sulmaan Khursheed” downplayed the incident. And now, “Ant-one-e” gave a clean chit to Pakistan by stating that terrorists in Pak uniform attacked Indian soldiers. Even so, the action came from Pakistani territory, and so Pakistan is culpable. But with Pakistan engaged in funding the Atlantic Council and ill-conceived, non-formal Track II discussions, it begs the question as to how many traitors we have within our country and leadership. Is it possible that some of our political leaders are given campaigning funds by Pakistan? If yes, India is truly already in the hands of its enemies, and India is India by name only.
And, to state unequivocally, there is no time limit for retaliation. Let Pakistan know this and boil in its own sweat.
Closure
Unless India can demonstrate independent military action that the vast Indian public lauds as morally correct, which further is seen as evidence of Indian honor and pride, the suspicion that India is in the hands of foreigners – that India has really not earned independence from foreign rule – will persist in the minds of millions of Indians. One way to disprove the skeptics is to overtly and openly retaliate against Pakistan for its recent atrocity in one of the five ways outlined, not ruling out a full scale war, which is indicated and necessary in its own right.
And, to state unequivocally, there is no time limit for retaliation. Let Pakistan know this and boil in its own sweat.
First Published on 08-August-2013
[1] Other uncivilized nations in former years, including Afghanistan, Persia, Bokhara, Khiva, and Khotan, not to forget Turkestan have simply lived by brutal treatment of soldiers and prisoners.
© Copyright 2015 Indian Defence Review
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