EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
FROM THE
Our cover story, ‘Hard Choices’, last week examined the military options before the Narendra Modi government. One of the five options we reckoned the government might choose to employ to respond to the February 14 suicide bomb attack in Pulwama, in which 40 CRPF troopers were killed, was to target terrorist installations within Pakistan through air strikes. The government’s February 26 air strike against a known Jaish-e-Mohammed base in Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province took everyone by surprise. It certainly stunned Pakistan because the last time the IAF struck there was almost half a century ago, during the 1971 war. Prime Minister Modi's decision was audacious. Every time there is tension with India, Pakistan does not lose the opportunity to remind us of their nuclear capability. This time, the prime minister has called their bluff. India was careful to couch the attack as a “nonmilitary pre-emptive strike” and reach out to the international community to create a diplomatic firewall around its right to respond to grave provocation. The MEA spokesperson said it inflicted heavy damage on JeM, killing “a very large number of JeM terrorists, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action”.
Islamabad responded the following day by getting its jets to bomb Indian targets, dogfight with the IAF, shoot down one of our MiG-21s and capture its pilot. India has also claimed it shot down one Pakistani fighter jet, which crashed into PoK. Claims and counter-claims abound. Both sides can be accused of propaganda and misguided rhetoric. In the bargain, truth is a casualty too.
The tit-for-tat now threatens to spiral out of control and both countries seem poised to climb the dangerous ladder of escalation.
There are two choices before Prime Minister Modi. He can either de-escalate or up the ante. His retaliatory option will now depend upon the quantum of success each alternative offers.
The path of de-escalation Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan proposed in a televised address hours after his air force struck seems the safest at the moment. Khan’s offer of a dialogue on terror is a nuanced climbdown from his government’s earlier insistence on linking all talks with Kashmir. This is a window of opportunity the Indian government could well seize upon to deescalate the dangerous stand-off.
The other option, moving up the escalation ladder, could lead both nuclear powers into a short, sharp war. This is a dangerously unpredictable path given that both countries are nuclear-armed and can ill afford a conflict at this juncture.
Our cover story, ‘Dangerous Face-off’, by Group Editorial Director Raj Chengappa and Executive Editor Sandeep Unnithan looks at the current stand-off and the military options before India, should it choose to escalate.
There is, of course, an urgent need for the government to address the issue of Pakistan’s brazen harbouring of terrorist groups like the JeM on its soil. There is an even greater need to address the root cause of terrorism on our side of the border and the unrest in Kashmir. We have to find ways to dissuade Kashmiri youth from following the path of terrorism. At the moment, the more militants we kill, the more they seem to multiply. These are complex issues that cannot be solved by quick-fix solutions like military strikes. They call for thoughtful strategies and huge investments by the Indian state in viable, time-bound solutions. Otherwise, this is one spectre that will continue to haunt successive governments.
War is never an end in itself but a means to achieve a goal. I can only hope that we can find a more peaceful way to reach our goal of a terrorism-free Kashmir.