Dear Friends,
Subject: Pathankot—A Report On Action (Non—Military) To Be Taken-Proactively.
There are a plethora of reports on Pathankot, mostly pointing out our institutional and operational failures.
Here is an account, looking at it differently, a non-military and generalist approach—what India can and must do now.
The writer is a strong Indian Hindu nationalist, based in US, was on a visit to India after the Pathankot attack. He is Dr. Adityan. It is rather difficult to summarise the main points. Though we have attempted some kind of presentation. Dr. Adityan’s paper is also attached.
Before we go ahead, here are some basic assumptions and observations from the author:
· General Rahil Sharif by sending Jaish-e-Muhammed terrorists to Pathankot airbase reinforced the notion that Army with the country called Pakistan will not allow peace with India at any cost. The raison d’ etre for this Army that controls the country called Pakistan, is anti-India scare-mongering.
· India must reconcile herself that it will remain alone in its fight against the Jihadi terror and will have to continue to fight her own battles single-handedly.
· For any complex geo-political problem, the solution has to be multi-dimensional and well-thought out. Instead of reflexively calling off the Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue or instantaneously mounting a maximal military response, the Government of India is advised to initiate a basket of well-calibrated responses in next few weeks to send a message across to Pakistan and to the international community in general that we mean business while we defend the security and sovereignty of India. Our responses need not be sequential and can be done in parallel as they may have more effectiveness if deployed concurrently.
Then, the need to take a series actions of proactively:
i) The hotline between the two PMs must continue to remain active as both will need to talk. A number of diplomatic responses, albeit symbolic, must be taken to express our displeasure at the terror attacks.
ii) To keep pressure on Pakistani government to take prompt and meaningful punitive action against the state-supported entities and their military backers.
iii) The foreign secretary level talks must be postponed till such action is taken. Meanwhile, we can still talk to Pakistan but on NSA level to discuss the Pakistani efforts to control terror groups and attempts to prevent recurrence of similar attacks in future.
iv) Pakistan must be asked to submit a detailed action taken report during the NSA level talks. NSA level terror talks can assure Pakistan that will jointly support them in taking punitive actions against terror groups hiding in their territory.
v) A dimarche’ must be sent to the Pakistani High Commissioner to visit the MEA and hear our opinion about this terror strike. We must consider declaring the Pakistani Army and Defense Attache’ posted in New Delhi as persona non-grata [PNG] as the evidence suggests clear cut involvement of Pakistani military in orchestrating this terror attack.
vi) India should recall her High Commissioner from Rawalpindi for further consultations while the Pakistani counter-part goes back leaving the diplomatic missions to be managed by the DCMs. Perhaps, one of the Pakistani consulates outside New Delhi must be closed as a retaliatory measure. These symbolic diplomatic responses from the tool-kit will send the message to Pakistani civilian leadership that while India continues to engage with them, they have an onus to take concrete action to satisfy Indian concerns.
vii) On an international front, India must engage the UN and the international community in taking common stance against terrorism. Freezing financial assets of terror backers and identifying Pakistani military handlers for international travel ban are reasonable steps that will help in generating an international coalition against terrorism. Granted that China will sabotage any such efforts and the US will provide only lip-service. Most of the heavy lifting will have to be done by India by reaching out to all the civilized countries of the world in the next few months.
viii) We must also engage regional countries for a united front against state-supported terrorism emanating from Pakistan. A formal forum for sub-regional mechanism for intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism activities should include countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan [A.I.B.B]. A sub-regional summit against terror must be organized within next three months by the Government of India seeking harmonization and commonality of preventive approaches and response. This mechanism should subscribe to the mantra that terror attack on one country would be considered as terror attack on all the four requiring joint response. At this stage, all these 4 countries are facing terror challenges of their own, notably with origin from Pakistan. We can continue to engage West and US diplomatically in an effort to reshape attitudes and opinions but action must start from the region. Later on, if needed China, Myanmar and Sri Lanka can be invited as observers for this anti-terror front.
ix) India must caution China about advisability of going ahead with CPEC construction activities in the POK which is Indian sovereign territory. In other words, without Indian participation and approval, any construction in the CPEC segment in POK and northern territories will be an act of war against India. As part of our economic response, we must fast-track the development of the Chabahaar port in Iran giving us connectivity to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Then, “Covert action has to be re-deployed along with other appropriate measures to effectively send a message to Pakistan. Pakistan has a weak soft under-belly in Baluchistan. Sectarian differences and divide in that country can also serve as a fertile soil for activities against Pakistani security establishment. India, unfortunately, gave up her strategic assets in Pakistan under the infamous Gujral doctrine. Time has come for India to re-establish her strategic assets in Pakistan and elsewhere including the West. India must encourage Afghanistan Government to promptly retaliate militarily against Pakistan for terror strikes against Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Mazar-e-Sharief. Initiating covert actions will act as a warranty against future terror attacks, short of full-fledged military response. India must not hesitate to transfer offensive weapon capabilities to Afghanistan for punitive strikes.”
The author then says, “On a more muscular level, India should consider taking preparatory steps for a full-fledged military response if need be. The fact that Pakistan has tactical nuclear weapons should not deter us from taking an appropriate military response. We should not succumb to Pakistani nuclear blackmail and bluff. We should no longer agree to treated as punching bags. We should acquire killer drones from Israel while the DRDO is assigned money for fast-tracking a domestic predator drone development and deployment program. Having that precision strike capability, we should be able to target Maulana Hafiz Sayeed and Maulana Masood Azhar for surgical operations. We do have hypersonic, land-based Brahmos missiles that can be used for precision strikes against the headquarters of Jaish-e-Muhaamed, LET, Al Rashid Trust and similar terror organizations. Since the terror attacks in Gurdaspur and Pathankot breached the international borders, we should consider surgical strikes against terror training camps in both POK and elsewhere in Pakistan.”
Then, comes Diplomacy “The MEA and the PMO must convey to their counterparts in Pakistan that participation of the PM in the SAARC meeting later this year will be contingent upon satisfactory security environment in the Indian subcontinent in general and in Pakistan in particular.”
We are confident the government will stand to benefit greatly from Dr. Adityan’s paper. We are marking copy to all concerned.
Vandemataram,
Your sevak,
D.C. Nath
