INDIA-PAKISTAN: Delhi Steps Up War Rhetoric Amidst Border Clash

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Analysis - Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI, Jan 26 2000 (IPS) - As India Wednesday celebrates the 50th anniversary of its transition to a Republic amidst an unprecedented security alert in a number of states, there is a tangible rise in hostile rhetorical exchange with Pakistan.

The Republic’s internal preparations against “terrorism”, marked by massive cordon-and-search operations, “sanitisation” of New Delhi’s city centre, and “sterilisation” of its air space, stand evenly matched by the military build-up along the border with Pakistan across disputed Jammu & Kashmir.

Even more alarming is the enunciation of a new security doctrine, that of “limited war”, by India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes.

On Monday, Fernandes addressing a defence studies conference, chided Pakistan as an “irresponsible” state, which delivered a serious nuclear threat during last year’s Kargil war, and boasted that India had proved during that that its forces “can fight and win a limited war, at a time and place chosen by the aggressor.”

This is the second time in a month that Fernandes has accused Pakistan of brandishing the nuclear sword during the Kargil conflict, in which over 30,000 troops fought, air strikes were launched, and over 2,000 troops were killed.

Kargil was the most serious conventional war to have been fought so far between the two nuclearly-armed states, much larger in destruction and escalation potential than the Ussuri River skirmishes of the late 1970s, between the Soviet Union and China.

Indian and Pakistan officials exchanged no fewer than 13 nuclear threats, whether directly or indirectly during the two and a half month engagement which began just a year after their nuclear tests of May 1998.

Fernandes in his statement said Pakistan had “failed to absorb the real meaning of nuclearisation”, which is that nuclear weapons can only “deter the use of nuclear weapons, but not all and any war”: conventional war “has not been made obsolete by nuclear weapons”, and remains “feasible”.

He also accused Islamabad of being in the grip of “the Kargil syndrome”, that is of “smarting under the Kargil blow” delivered by India, and resorting to bellicose actions across the Line of Control (LoC), the northern border in disputed Kashmir,.

Over the weekend, India and Pakistani troops clashed repeatedly across the LoC, killing 25 men, according to the Indian government. (Pakistan denies this and allegedly refuses to claim the bodies of six of its soldiers.)

As if to match India’s war-mongering, Pakistan’s Gen Parvez Musharraf has threatened to “teach India a lesson”, and an official spokesperson accused India of “adventure” and military “gimmicks” across the border.

A meeting of important corps commanders of the Pakistan Army resolved to deliver an “appropriate response” to India for crossing the border, which it emphasised, risks “the dangers of war.”

India-Pakistan relations today are at their lowest point in “peacetime”. (This is a relative term, because exchange of gunfire across the LoC are routine.) The proximate or immediate reason for this is the hijacking a month ago of an Indian Airlines plane with 155 hostages by a militant group which New Delhi accuses of being sponsored by, and linked to Islamabad.

India was forced to release three Kashmiri “mujahideen”, which has created a huge domestic embarrassment for the government, led by the Hindu-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which prides itself as a national-chauvinistic political force.

New Delhi refuses to fully recognise and talk seriously to the Musharraf government on the ostensible ground that it is a military regime. In November, it scuttled a summit of the South Asian countries in an attempt to isolate the Pakistan government.

In reality, India’s distaste for Gen Musharraf may have more to do with his involvement in planning the Kargil war than in any principled opposition to military rulers, with many of whom, including Gen Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan, it has broken bread.

The more basic, longer-term, reason for the Indian government’s reluctance to talk to Gen Musharraf, and its insistence on sustaining a relationship of mutual hostility with Islamabad has to do with the US-India-Pakistan relationship.

New Delhi would like to enter into a strategic partnership with Washington at Islamabad’s expense in order to overcome two stigmas from overt nuclearisation and be accepted as a moderate and democratic ally by the West.

India has been pleading that President Bill Clinton visit New Delhi in March, while skipping Islamabad altogether. New Delhi has signalled that it is willing to pay a price — for instance sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which it had fiercely opposed.

However, it seems highly unlikely that the Indian strategy will succeed. Washington would be loath to isolate and antagonise an already injured Pakistan, with all its political fragility and its economy in tatters.

Nevertheless, Indian ministers and diplomats are recklessly upping the ante by demanding that Pakistan be named a “terrorist” state. Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh says India’s “neighbourhood” (read Pakistan) is the world’s biggest “genepool of terrorism”.

In the recent month, both countries have expelled or beaten up each other’s diplomats and got into an escalation spiral of antagonistic rhetoric feeding the exchange of fire on the ground.

Last week, the Indian government announced after a special high-level review that it was refurbishing and sharply stepping up “counter-insurgency” operations in Kashmir, and putting troops on high-alert south of the Pir Panjal mountain range — a new front which has become active.

Indian security forces have been asked to adopt an “offensive” and “proactive” policy in repulsing Pakistan attacks and “incursions” and raids by Islamabad-sponsored militants as “mercenaries”.

Pakistan has also reportedly stepped up support to separatist guerrilla groups in the Indian state, where the political situation deteriorates by the day.

This spiral of militant rhetoric and war mongering and skirmishes, and border clashes is fraught with high-risk of serious escalation of hostilities leading to a war-like situation, if not actual war.

The spiral is driven by intense hatreds and ideological prejudices on both sides, including religion-based fundamentalisms. This gives an especially nasty edge to India- Pakistan rivalry, with its history of four wars, innumerable tensions and aborted talks on disputed issues.

The situation could spin out of control, especially in Kashmir, pitting the two rivals against each other in an eyeball- to-eyeball nuclear confrontation. At the very least, it risks attracting external intervention in India-Pakistan’s affairs — ironically to New Delhi’s own embarrassment, and not necessarily to Pakistan’s long-term advantage.

As of now, there are only a few signs of hope that sobriety will prevail. One of them is a visit to India over the past week by a team of four retired Pakistani military officials on a mission of reconciliation and dialogue for peace.

The group was warmly received by retired generals in Calcutta and New Delhi. Their joint statement, delivered near a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Calcutta, may be symbolic. But the symbol is pregnant with meaning and hope — amidst the current despair.