URI TOO SHALL PASS, WITHOUT A FITTING RESPONSE

The foreign policy community is convinced that replying to Pakistan in its own coin might be very, very difficult. We do not have the assets on the ground that Pakistan has aplenty. But it is specious to argue that our strategic restraint sets us apart, and on a higher plane, from the rogue State on our western border. The truth is that if we could hit back we would. Neither at the time of the attack on Parliament or following 26/11, a much bigger human atrocity, did we manage to take the fight to the Rawalpindi GHQ which masterminds the periodic jihadi attacks against India. However, if it is any consolation we can draw it from the reported isolation of Pakistan in various multilateral global forums. We are told that the visiting Pakistani delegation led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the annual General Assembly jamboree in New York received a particularly cold reception. It seems Secretary of State John Kerry ticked him off for the Uri attack and warned him against the Pakistani territory being used to launch terrorist attacks against this country. A number of US Congressmen also ticked off Pakistan for its role in the Uri attack. So did spokespersons of the UK, Russia, Organisation of Islamic States, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Myanmar, etc. In fact, two senior members of the US House of Representatives introduced a resolution with the objective of declaring Pakistan a terrorist State. The Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act has bipartisan support, having been moved by a senior member each of the Republican Party and Democratic Party. But it is a long drawn out process before the Bill can pass muster. The response of the executive will be crucial. Given how successive administrations have mollycoddled Pakistan despite cast-iron evidence of its perfidious behaviour it is unlikely that the US Government would give its nod to the well-meaning initiative of Republican Ted Poe and Democrat Dona Rohrabacher. The fact that Pakistan thumbed its nose at the US, sheltering Osama bin Laden for years in a safe house in an army cantonment and yet the US did not deem it right to impose punitive costs underlines the inability and compulsions of the most powerful nation in the world. Also, since then the US influence, both economic and military, is on the decline while China and even Russia are able to impose their arbitrary writ on global affairs. By playing the China card, and promising to take the US’ irons out of the Afghanistan fire, Pakistan has successfully strung along various US administrations. However, increasingly as Pakistan exposes its duplicity, hunting with the terrorist hounds and running with the US hare, the world at large would learn to appreciate the Indian perspective. Since every nation regardless of the lip service paid to highfalutin principles seeks to further its own narrow interests, India will have to devise its own ways to neutralise the terror threat from across the Line of Control with Pakistan.

Because we do not see it stopping its export of terror in the foreseeable future, our inability to respond effectively is all the more glaring. Already, a number of security policy wonks have counseled restraint, arguing that calls for action can prove counter-productive. It is argued that being more powerful both economically and militarily India should not risk disruption by launching an adventurist operation. Also, that after 26/11 and the fortuitous capture of Ajmal Kasab if we had confined ourselves to diplomatic pressure to bring Islamabad to heel, the Uri attack is a minor provocation in comparison. M K Narayanan, security adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the time of the 26/11 atrocity, writing in a contemporary on Wednesday has virtually nixed all options after Uri aside from undertaking a cyber attack against Pakistan. He argues that given India’s superior internet capabilities, “our best option would be to engage in cyber sabotage, hiding behind plausible deniability available in such attacks… This may be worth examining, instead of adopting `tit for tat’ methods with a `rogue’ nation.” Given such counsels of helplessness from someone who was a major cog in the country’s security set-up for a decade, is it any wonder that we seem to have internalised `retreat and surrender’ in the face of a series of provocations from our neighbours. Frankly, we lack the spunk to give a fitting reply to those who raid our house and seek to burn it down before our eyes. In sum, do not expect a `fitting reply’ for Uri, Pathankot, Gurdaspur, and for the continuing Pak-inspired mayhem in Kashmir for the last two months. We are like that only. Our history bears witness that we are quick to come to terms with a series of aggressors. Memory of Uri too will fade when new crises dominate the airwaves.