CHECKS AND BALANCES TO ENSURE SOLDIERS’ SAFETY

Wednesday, 01 March 2017 | Ashok K Mehta

Counter-terrorism is a fine art which involves defeating the capacity of the terrorists. The Army must, therefore, re-think on the use of force, ensuring that lives of soldiers are treated as preciously as those of civilians

Last week, two counter-terrorism operations had to be called off in south Kashmir due to obstructions by civilians. This resulted in terrorists escaping. At the height of the post-Burhan Wani protest campaign in the valley, Army Commander Lt Gen DS Hooda called for a dialogue among stakeholders. That call went unheeded. Last month Gen Bipin Rawat made an unambiguous military statement warning civilians not to interfere in military operations. His comments were de-contextualised and needlessly politicised. He was speaking on behalf of his soldiers who have suffered more casualties in Jammu & Kashmir than they have in all the wars fought by them.

Henry Kissinger once famously said that when guerrillas do not lose, they win; when security forces do not win, they lose. What he did not say was that a political process must accompany the counter-insurgency campaign as the underlying reasons for the conflict are political. In the longest cross border insurgency/terrorism, also called a proxy war, the Army has been made to carry the can for successive Governments failing to resolve even the internal Kashmir problem.

Recently, Gen Pervez Musharraf not only congratulated himself for creating freedom fighters for Kashmir but also for re-starting a political dialogue that nearly clinched a solution. The Army has created an ambience conducive for dialogue, many times over, but the Government has never followed through.

Today, a war-like situation obtains in the valley where levels of alienation are high and the youth fearlessly bait the security forces showing Islamic State and Pakistani flags. It is difficult to quantify how much of the insurgency is Pakistan-motivated and created but it reflects adversely on the ability of the state and security forces in insulating J&K from external influences by sealing the border/Line of Control (LoC).

The Army has done a commendable job in reducing the terrorist population from a high of 3,000 militants in 2003 to less than 300 fighters today. The Army regards 2001 the worst year of the proxy war when the overall casualties exceeded 4,500; in 2012 the figure declined to 130. In 2016, casualty numbers more than doubled those in 2012 representing the worst year in the valley in the last decade. But figures do not reflect the total picture: How it has gone from bad to worse, catalysed by political inertia.

Militarily the environment is getting hostile. Years of winning hearts and minds by the Army  through Sadbhavana projects appear to be losing ground. With consistent poor governance and diffidence of security forces, respect for the authority of the Army essential to regaining  political, military and moral control of the valley is not at peak levels.

After six months of turbulence in the valley and Army operations scaled down, the operational and intelligence grids are dislocated. Military operations have been seriously obstructed in populated areas by civilians, including youth and women, to enable holed up terrorists to escape from the security cordon. 

The Army says that in 2016, 25 terrorists managed to escape due to civilian interference and in their avoiding civilian casualties resulting in Lashker-e-Tayyeeba leader Abu Dujana giving the slip seven times.

Not only are civilians aiding and abetting terrorists but they are also deifying them during their funerals. Henry Kissinger also did not say that counter-insurgency cannot be waged successfully without the support of the local population. Leave alone their support, the situation now is one of active obstruction and interference enabling terrorists to escape with casualties of soldiers multiplying. While receiving the coffins of slain soldiers at Palam airport it is these reasons that forced Gen Rawat to warn civilians to stop confronting the Army or else it would be forced to take recourse to weapons.

For too long our soldiers have conducted CIS operations with one hand tied at the back, employing minimum or proportionate force when majority of the terrorists are not ‘our own people’. Last year at Pampore, during operations at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute to flush out three terrorists, the Army took 48 hours losing five commandoes, including two officers.

Besides receiving extended oxygen of television, terrorists secured glorification. Lessons are not being imbibed. The security forces have to be prepared for the next round using modern skills and technology for crowd control instead of employing catapults and pellet guns when the market is not short of effective deterrents.

Counter-terrorism is a fine art, which involves defeating the capacity and motivation of the terrorists within the rule of law. The Army, therefore, requires to re-think the use of force ensuring that lives of soldiers are treated as preciously as those of civilians but certainly more valuable than the cost of physical collateral.

Helicopter/drone-borne precision guided munitions must be used to take out terrorists expeditiously from residential areas, a capability Israel has perfected. We need no longer seek certification or a Nobel prize for being the country using minimum of minimum force to combat terrorism, especially in Kashmir. It has got us nowhere.

The security forces have evolved a new four-step SOP to blunt the obstructionist methods of civilians in breaking the cordon at encounter sites. Let us see if it works. Since the Army’s deterrent surgical strike capacities are modest and finite, terrorists have to be denied success. This year’s frugal defence Budget has not helped making no allocation for sealing the border or fortifying defence installations as recommended by former Home secretary Madhukar Gupta and former Vice Chief  of Army Staff, Lt Gen Philip Campose following Pathankot and Gurdaspur attacks.

The 2003 vintage fencing on LoC has been compromised and a smarter version has to be put in place to limit infiltration. Prime Minister Narendra Modi loves acronyms. He should give the Army DRN — D for dominate the LoC, R for reconstruct the CT grid and N for neutralise the 300 terrorists left inside the valley. DRN will be facilitated if a political process is reignited between New Delhi and Srinagar and also in time between New Delhi and Islamabad.

But the Prime Minister, who is ever ready for Mann ki Baat, has not said a word on Kashmir after  last year’s avoidable violence and protest campaigns. Instead, he has waxed eloquent on surgical strikes, praised the Army for them and used the military action to win votes. It is unwise to leave the Army high and dry in a political vacuum in Kashmir  any further.

In 1962, the Himalayan debacle was triggered off politically; the war won in 1971 was lost politically; the Army was made the scapegoat for failure of coercive diplomacy in Sri Lanka. In Kashmir...

(The writer is a retired Major General of the Indian Army and  strategic affairs expert)