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| For a secure India, Pak must not be too stable | | |
RV Prasad
India should firmly reject US special envoy Richard Holbrooke’s proposal to reduce troop levels along the Pakistan border and the Line of Control (LoC). India should, in fact, increase LoC patrolling, particularly after the recent gunbattles with infiltrating militants in Kupwara and Gurez. With regard to Pakistan, India’s and America’s aims are different. The US is naturally concerned with Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan, and not events in Kashmir. The US sees the Taliban and Al Qaeda as its main threats, but these are not India’s most immediate threats, though Mr Holbrooke did claim in New Delhi that "the Taliban was a common threat to the US, India and Pakistan."
While 30-odd Taliban militants are reported to have infiltrated across the LoC in the past few days, India’s immediate threats still come from the Lashkar-e-Tayabba (LeT), Jaish-e-Muhammad, Hizb-ul Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and Harkat-ul Mujahideen (HuM). The LeT does not have good relations with the Taliban. Intercepts by Indian intelligence in the past few days indicate the LeT is very worried about Talibani infiltrators and wanted to expel them from Kashmir. Some LeT operatives even feared the Taliban would kill them. The Hizb-ul Mujahideen cooperates with the Taliban only under duress. It aided the infiltration of 30 Taliban in Gurez and Kupwara only after the latter threatened to kill top HuM leaders in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.
India needs to step up its LoC patrolling, especially since infiltration attempts in March 2009 were three times those in March last year. There have been several alarming developments in the pattern of recent infiltration.
First, unlike previous years when it started in mid-April, this time the infiltration started in March itself when there is still about 12 feet of snow. Second, unlike earlier when the infiltrators would cross in small batches of five to eight, now it is in larger groups of 25 to 30. Third, the militants are far better equipped than they were last year, with high-quality winter gear and ice-axes of the type used by the Pakistani Army, plus satellite phones and GPS devices with detailed maps. Fourth, unlike previous years when militants would penetrate well within Indian territory to carry out attacks, now they have come equipped to battle Indian forces at the LoC itself.
The prediction of Australian anthropologist David Kilcullen, who advises Gen. David H. Petraeus on America’s Iraq war, that Pakistan would collapse within one to six months has received wide publicity. In response, senior Indian ministers Pranab Mukherjee and P. Chidambaram have responded with statements that a "stable, democratic government in Pakistan" is in India’s interest.
But a stable Pakistan is not really in India’s interest, but of course neither is a highly unstable Pakistan. What really is in India’s interest is a Pakistan in a state of "unstable equilibrium", as political scientists put it. What India should strive for is to keep Pakistan perpetually on the verge of a precipice, but take great care that it does not actually topple over the cliff. Experience has shown that whenever Pakistan has been under a civilian government, or has had a stable military regime, the Pakistan Army and the ISI have been busy plotting terrorist attacks in India through proxy groups. It is only when the Pakistan military has been kept busy tackling myriad internal problems that it will not have the resources or the determination to stoke terrorism in India. That said, it is also obvious that an extremely unstable Pakistan in which Islamic fundamentalists hold sway would be fatal for India. If Islamabad is weak, then the LeT, JeM and other terror outfits might feel emboldened enough to seize control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and launch attacks within India.
Look at the history. It was only after General Zia-ul Haq consolidated his rule that he was able to devote time and energy to foment the Khalistan secessionist movement in the 1980s. It was during Benazir Bhutto’s first term that, free of the burden of administering the country, Army Chief Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg and the ISI’s Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul could brilliantly execute the strategy of a "war of a thousand cuts" to bleed India through terrorist acts. It was during Benazir Bhutto’s second term that her interior minister, Maj. Gen. Naseerullah Babar, formed the Taliban and spearheaded its takeover of Afghanistan. And it was when Nawaz Sharif was running the government that Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Lt. Gen. Mohammad Aziz had the time and energy to plan the Kargil invasion. The attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 took place only after Gen. Musharraf had consolidated his power.
It would be in India’s interest that the internal situation in Pakistan be akin to that in the last months of the Musharraf period, when his government was preoccupied with the lawyers’ rebellion and the Lal Masjid siege. If, within Pakistan, the civilian leaders were discredited and the generals felt compelled to take over the government, the Army and the ISI would get so preoccupied with tackling internal problems that they would not have the time to plan terror attacks in India.
There are several "non-violent warfare" or "proxy war" measures that can be adopted: including giving encouragement to the Balochistan and Sindh regional movements, of course with plausible deniability. If Balochistan, for example, were to hold back on gas supply to the other provinces, Islamabad would have something new to worry about. Elements in Afghanistan and Iran could be utilised to sow dissension along Pakistan’s western borders and provoke differences among the Pashtun tribes. America’s drone attacks can be used to orchestrate a psychological warfare campaign among Pashtuns.
A major problem is that the covert action capabilities in western and northwestern Pakistan, which were painstakingly built up in the P.V. Narasimha Rao period, were unilaterally dismantled by Inder Kumar Gujral in the hope that Nawaz Sharif would reciprocate, an expectation sadly belied. India has not been able to rebuild such capabilities in the decade that followed.
New Delhi should not get enticed by Mr Holbrooke into fighting America’s wars. Just as the United States abandoned Pakistan and the jihadi groups after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, so too can the US dump India as soon as this country has served Washington’s purpose. Instead it should heed the advice of Bahukutumbi Raman, former additional secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, who says, "A divided Pakistan, a bleeding Pakistan, a Pakistan ever on the verge of collapse without actually collapsing — that should be our objective".
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