Pakistan Should Hope For the Best and Prepare For the Worst With India

[Riaz Haq]

Deadly skirmishes started between Indian and Pakistani forces along LoC in the disputed territory of Kashmir in early January 2013, barely weeks after Pakistan Army doctrine acknowledged domestic militancy as the biggest threat to national security.

Here's how Najam Sethi, a well-known Pakistani peacenik and a strong advocate of India-Pakistan friendship, described the events in his Friday Times editorial titled "Don't derail Indo-Pak relations":

"It is established that when the Indian army recently started to build
some bunkers in Charanda in Haji Pir Sector of the LoC, it violated an
agreement in 2005 not to change the status quo. This provoked the
Pakistanis to shell Indian positions in a bid to stop the construction
of the bunkers. The Indian commander of 161 Brigade in the area
countered on January 6th by ordering a raid across the LoC to silence
the troublesome Pakistani post. One Pakistani soldier was killed,
provoking a protest by Pakistan's DGMO on 7th Jan, followed by a
Pakistani counter attack across the LoC on Jan 8th in which two Indian
soldiers were killed. At that stage, on Jan 9th, the Indian media
erupted with allegations of a "beheading" of one Indian soldier and
"castration" and "mutilation" of the other by the Pakistanis. This was
an unprecedented act of savagery, said the Indian media, that called for
reprisals. The initial reaction of the Indian foreign and defence
ministers was measured and cautious no less than that of the spokesmen
of the Indian army. But this soon gave way under media pressure,
prompting both to become hawkish."

Barkha Dutt, a hawkish TV anchor at NDTV, led the Indian media charge against Pakistan by accusing Pakistani military of "savagery" and "barbarism". Indian prime minister talked of "no business as usual", and Indian Army chief told his "commanders to be aggressive and offensive" and the Indian Air Force chief threatened to  use "other options". Pakistan's offer to have the incidents independently investigated by the United Nations was rejected.

All the talk of "Aman Ki Asha" went out the window when Pakistani hockey players were unceremoniously ejected from India as the right-wing Hindu organizations were aided and abetted by the hawkish anti-Pakistan  Indian media. Hindu Nationalist BJP leader Sushma Swaraj demanded "ten Pakistani heads for one Indian head".

Soon, Barkha Dutt's phony outrage and Sushma Swaraj's bloodthirsty rhetoric about "beheading" were exposed by a quick Google search by Najam Sethi. Sethi found an article in a Nepalese publication Himal in which Barkha described how she was shown a severed head of a Pakistani as war trophy by an Indian Army officer in Kargil in 1999. Here's what she wrote in the article titled "Confessions of a war reporter":

"I had to look three times to make sure I was seeing right. Balanced
on one knee, in a tiny alley behind the army’s administrative offices, I
was peering through a hole in a corrugated tin sheet. At first glance,
all I could see were some leaves. I looked harder and amidst all the
green, there was a hint of black – it looked like a moustache. “Look
again,” said the army colonel, in a tone that betrayed suppressed
excitement. This time, I finally saw.

It was a head, the
disembodied face of a slain soldier nailed onto a tree. “The boys got it
as a gift for the brigade,” said the colonel, softly, but proudly.
Before I could react, the show was over. A faded gunny bag appeared from
nowhere, shrouded the soldier’s face, the brown of the bag now merging
indistinguishably with the green of the leaves. Minutes later, we walked
past the same tree where the three soldiers who had earlier unveiled
the victory trophy were standing. From the corner of his eye, the
colonel exchanged a look of shard achievement, and we moved on. We were
firmly in the war zone."


Further research by Shivam Vu published in India Today found that reports of beheading of soldiers are not "unprecedented". Here's an excerpt from Shivam Vu's piece titled "Cheap Logomachy" :
 
"Buried inside a report by Shishir Gupta in the Hindustan Times
was the claim that two Indian soldiers were beheaded in July 2011 and
“three months later, heads of three Pakistani soldiers went missing,
with Islamabad lodging a protest with New Delhi.” Don’t you love it that
while Indian soldiers are beheaded, Pakistani soldiers’ heads go
“missing”—as though they detach themselves from the bodies of the
soldiers and just disappear? The report also claimed that similar
beheadings (of Indian soldiers) and heads going missing (of Pakistanis)
had taken place in 2000, 2003 and 2007. When Admiral Lakshminarayan
Ramdas (retd), former chief of the Indian navy, tried to say on Barkha Dutt’s show on NDTV
that the Indian army has also beheaded Pakistani soldiers, he was cut
short by Dutt. But in 2001, Dutt had herself written that she had seen a head displayed as a war trophy
by the Indian army during the Kargil war in 1999. Two other journalists
were not shy of recalling similar experiences: Sankarshan Thakur of The Telegraph (on his website) and Harinder Baweja of the Hindustan Times on Twitter.


If these incidents happen so often, why did anonymous sources in the
Indian army decide to use the defence correspondents to make it seem
like an unprecedented provocation from Pakistan? There is little doubt
that the beheading of a soldier, and the taking away of his head as a
war trophy is sickening and outrageous and every such incident should
come to light. But it should also remind us of the brutalities of war,
and that the LoC is a ceasefire line where hostilities have merely been
halted until the next battle; that the two armies stand eye-to-eye there
because of the Kashmir dispute; that Jammu and Kashmir is not a settled
question. Such thoughts are apparently anti-national. And bad for TRPs."

Indian media, military and politicians have a history of whipping up anti-Pakistan frenzy on many occasions in the past. Many Indians suffer from what Sashi Tharoor has aptly described as India's "Israel Envy".  The Indian hawks must clearly understand that their miscalculations can lead to devastation in the entire South Asia region.

These recent events and the warmongering response by the Indian govt, politicians and media are a reminder that Pakistan can not afford to become complacent about peace with India. Pakistanis should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Here's a video discussion on the subject:


Related Links:

Haq's Musings

India's Israel Envy

India-Pakistan Cricket Diplomacy

Indians Share "Eye-opener" Stories of Pakistan

India-Pakistan Military Balance

Can India "Do a Lebanon" in Pakistan?

Indian Media Manufacturing Consent

[Riaz Haq]

Rebuffing the moderator who expressed concern about India being unsafe for women, Dutt at the event (Click here) , went on a defensive, saying she had a problem with the narrative that was being built around issues of safety in her country. She quoted Nobel laureate Amartya Sen to say that India was safer for women as compared to the US and the UK where incidences of sexual violence were higher. And she said, even as America dithered over a woman president in White House, India had a woman at the helm four decades ago. Shortly after, she hauled up the Americans on maternity leave, abortion and reproductive rights.
'These are conversations we don't have any longer' Dutt asserted to a rapturous applause in the audience, as well as online.

While fabulous if the intent was to play to the gallery, all of these are exceptionally flawed and one-dimensional arguments that obfuscate the very real and frankly chronic problem of women's safety and position in India.

Let's deal with them one by one.

1) That the US & UK have a higher incidence of sexual violence.

Even if this is indeed true, how does it in any manner absolve us from the moral burden of the fact that 93 women are raped every single day in India? And why must the US and UK perpetually validate or become benchmarks for what is and isn't acceptable for us?

To the very assertion that these countries are more unsafe for women than India however - did Dutt consider the fact that sexual violence is sparsely reported in this country? The British medical journal The Lancet puts the number of victims in India reporting sexual violence to the police at a paltry one percent. In the US, according to Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, 32 out of every 100 rapes get reported. In the UK, the figure according to one charity, is 20%. 

Statistics, even when bandied about by Nobel Laureates, can be deceptive.

2) That India has had a woman Prime Minister 4 decades ago.

How is this anything other than a fact of deceptive symbolism? We are a nation that has been unable to pass the Women's Reservation Bill for 18 long years. We are a nation where women have only 11% representation in Parliament. We are a nation with an abysmal 3% women holding top positions in BSE 500 firms. The comparative figure in Europe and America is 10% and 14% respectively.

Women in both Indian politics and business are often dynasts or proxies. Dutt would know that.

3) That we don't have conversations about abortions

Could it be because we simply kill the foetuses anyway, no questions asked? Estimates are that between eight to twelve million girls have been victims of Indian patriarchy in the last three decades. That's a genocide of mammoth proportions and a continuing one, with probably more girls being killed in Dutt's own backyard than anywhere else. Affluent South Delhi incidentally tops the charts when it comes to female infanticide.

Dutt started off the 20 odd minute debate in New York with a disclaimer that she wasn't a defensive Indian. But progressively through the course of it, she sounded like someone who wanted to depict a less scathing portraiture of her country than was sought to be presented globally. So much so that it had co-panelist Leslee Udwin, the maker of India's Daughter' remark 'you cannot take care of your shame and let that trump saving your women'.

Sadly, it did seem very much like misplaced national pride inhibited the avowed feminist in Dutt from calling a spade a spade. Pitifully it might also precisely be the reason why the horrendous mob online that usually attack her for her unpandering views, found themselves to be in agreement with their daily trolling target.

That if nothing else, is reason enough to reconsider your position Barkha! I wouldn't trust my judgment if it began echoing with the voices of unreason on social media. 

http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/why-barkha-dutt-is...

[Riaz Haq]

India recognised Israel on September 18, 1950. But because of India’s non-aligned stance, and its close ties with the erstwhile USSR, it maintained a cold outlook towards the nation which had clearly declared its loyalty to the US. India also seemed to be suspicious about Israel’s relations with its neighbours China and Sri Lanka. The Congress Party’s overarching presence at the centre and state levels meant a national consensus on supporting the Palestinians and opposition to Israel, with the foreign policy being uniformly pro-Arab
Yet these were not entirely fallow years in terms of contact between India and Israel. 
India reportedly purchased arms and ammunition from Israel both after the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the India-Pakistan Wars of 1965 and 1971. Israel was ready to sell the needed weapons thanks to embargoes in the UK, US and France. Similarly, a relationship between India’s security agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Israel's spy agency Mossad has existed since the 1960s
Even on the non-defence and security front, the situation was not entirely negative. India maintained contacts to understand Israeli techniques of dry land farming and drip irrigation. Along with a few direct and indirect contacts with Israel, mainly in the field of technology, in the late 1980s, the greatest success has been in the diamond industry which today accounts for 50 per cent of India-Israel non-defence trade. 
In terms of diplomatic contact, a few high level, yet largely fruitless, contacts took place between the two nations, including the visit of then Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett (1956) in the middle of the Suez crisis; Ruth Dayan, wife of then Defence Minister Moshe Dayan (1968) and then Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan (1977).


The post-Cold War era

With the end of the Cold war, and shift in India’s foreign and economic policy, diplomatic ties between India and Israel were formally established by the Narasimha Rao government in 1992, when Israel opened an embassy in New Delhi in February, and India reciprocated in May with an embassy in Tel Aviv. 
In 1996, India acquired from Israel, 32 IAI Searcher unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Electronic Support Measure sensors and an air combat manoeuvring instrumentation simulator system. From then on, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has worked on several large contracts with the Indian Air Force, including upgrading MiG-21 ground attack aircraft.
Then Israeli President Ezer Weizman led a 24-member business delegation to India in December 1997, the first Israeli head of state head to the nation. Weizman met with then President Shankar Dayal Sharma, Vice-President K R Narayanan and Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, and also went on to finalise a weapons deal involving the purchase of the Barak-1 vertically-launched surface-to-air missiles 
In 2000, Jaswant Singh became the first Indian foreign minister to visit the West Asian nation, following which a joint anti-terror commission was set up by two countries 
Ariel Sharon became the first Israeli PM to visit India in 2003, during which a series of cooperative agreements in various fields including health, education and drug trafficking were signed 
No major high-level visits have occurred since then, from either side
BBC reported trade between the two countries had risen from $200 million in 1992 to about $4.39 billion in 2013
In 2013, India was Israel's 10th largest trade partner overall and its third largest trade partner in Asia after China and Hong Kong. Israel has also emerged as a major defence supplier to Delhi. Between Modi's election in May 2014 and November 2014, Israel exported $662 million worth of Israeli weapons and defence items to India. This export number is greater than the total Israeli exports to India during the previous three years combined.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/india-isra...

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan Army to increase intake of cadets at PMA. Set to grow in size to tackle security challenges http://www.dawn.com/news/1211579 

ISLAMABAD: The army has decided to increase the intake of cadets at its premier training institute — Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul — by around one third, which potentially sets the ground for increase in its (army’s) size.

During his visit to PMA Kakul on Wednesday, Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif reviewed the progress in this regard.

“The visit focused on reviewing the current training regime for cadets and PMA’s capacity enhancement projects including progress work on the 4th Pakistan Battalion,” a statement by the ISPR said.

Know more: Afghan army cadets arrive in Pakistan for training

The PMA, which currently has three battalions, annually inducts two batches of around 500 cadets each. The addition of a fourth battalion would mean that up to 150 more cadets would be inducted in each batch.

The Kakul academy annually inducts two batches of around 500 cadets each
The cadets after completing their training at the academy are commissioned in the army as officers.

The increase in officer cadre is expected to lead to a proportional increase in the number of troops.

No timeline was given for the setting up of the new battalion at PMA, but insiders say the academy could be ready for the increased intake within 12-18 months.

Gen Sharif was quoted in the statement as having emphasised “the need to remain abreast with the latest regional and global environment and developments”.

A military analyst said that the increase in the size of military was being necessitated by its continuing involvement in tribal areas, where troops are expected to stay at least till 2019; the creation of a security division for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor; and increased requirement of officers for paramilitary forces like Frontier Corps and Rangers. Additionally, troops are getting increasingly engaged with UN peacekeeping operations and disaster relief operations.

India’s aggressive posture towards Pakistan is also a cause of concern.

A military spokesman, meanwhile, said that the army was already facing a shortage of officers and the increased induction would help overcome that requirement.

The current size of the army is believed to be around 500,000 active troops. Army’s publicly known budget for the current fiscal year 2015-16 is Rs371 billion. The military’s budget has been on an average growing by around 11 per cent.

--------
It is a slow process of course. It will take at least 5-10 years to implement this change as it inducts an extra battalion of officers each year, currently PMA trains 3 battalions of officers. That is a significant increase in size.

Why do you guys think Pak Army is increasing it's size?

Here are possible reasons:

1. The incoming troops might be deployed in three Strike Corps with offensive objectives in any future war.
2. These troops might be for a future Expeditionary Force with foreign deployment planned. The situation in middle east is becoming worse day by day, and we might deploy these soldiers to KSA or other battlefields in the Middle East.
3. Pakistan is forming a new branch of Army. With new deadly weapons like Nasr being inducted, Pak Fauj might need a new artillery corps with a very specific purpose in mind.
4. Might need extra troops to permanently secure our Eastern border with Afghanistan, as you may already know, currently Pakistan has deployed 150,000 soldiers in KPK and FATA. With these incoming troops, we can turn our focus back to our herbivorous neighbors.
5. The new troops may be used to secure CPEC. But i feel that is highly unlikely, the number of troops deployed by FC are sufficient.


Source: http://defence.pk/threads/pak-army-to-grow-by-180-000-change-to-off...

[Riaz Haq]

Brian Cloughly, the author of a book on Pakistan Army, says Pakistan is suffering from officer shortages to move to a three command structure with 3 HQs: Northern, Central and Southern. 

Cloughly was quoted by Defense News as saying: "“The big problem with this is nonavailability of high-quality officers for the three separate HQs. The Army is already suffering badly from an officer shortage, and such a massive staff expansion will really strain it.”

http://archive.defensenews.com/article/20131209/DEFREG03/312090015/...

The increase in PMA enrollment is probably an attempt to correct this problem.

[Riaz Haq]

Indian PM Nehru's Defense MInister Krishna Menon: 

"In Pakistan's view the Partition is only the beginning. Her idea is to get a jumping-off ground to take the whole of India.....it was from the Mughals that the British took over (India). Now the British having gone, they (Muslims) must come back (to rule all of India)"

[Riaz Haq]

India's ex National Security Advisor and Foreign Secretary J.N. Dixit (1936-2005) :

"The reason Britain partitioned India was to fragment Hindu areas into political entities and ensure Pakistan's emergence as the largest and most cohesive political power in the subcontinent. Pakistan's ultimate aim is to fragment India. Pakistani invasion of Kashmir in 1948 and subsequent wars are part of this continuous exercise. The Kargil war and the proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir are the latest example of this pressure. India has not been decisive and surgical in resisting Pakistani subversion. India has voluntarily given concessions to Pakistan despite defeating it in all major conflicts. Pakistan's long term objective is to ensure that India does not emerge as the most influential power in the South Asian region. The Pakistani power structure has a powerful antagonism toward Hindu-majority civil society in India. Pakistan has sought the support of a large number of Muslim countries and Asian and Western powers (China ad the US) to keep India on the defensive. Pakistan's continued questioning of Indian secularism, democracy and constitutional institutions is a deliberate attempt to generate friction within India. Pakistani support of the secessionist and insurgent forces in Jammu and Kashmir, in Punjab and in the north-eastern states of India confirms this impression."

[Riaz Haq]

“To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races — the Jews,” RSS leader Golwalkar wrote with approval. “Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by. Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening.”

[Riaz Haq]

In the book, “How India Sees the World: Kautilya to the 21st Century”, Mr. Saran records the crucial meeting of the CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security) on the eve of India-Pakistan Defence Secretary-level talks in May 2006, where the draft agreement, that had been approved by the Army and other stakeholders, was to be discussed. However, he said two crucial players, the-then NSA MK Narayanan and then Army Chief General J.J. Singh made last minute interventions to cancel the proposal.

“When the CCS meeting was held on the eve of the defence secretary–level talks, [Mr.] Narayanan launched into a bitter offensive against the proposal, saying that Pakistan could not be trusted, that there would be political and public opposition to any such initiative and that India’s military position in the northern sector vis- à-vis both Pakistan and China would be compromised. [Gen] J.J. Singh, who had happily gone along with the proposal in its earlier iterations, now decided to join Narayanan in rubbishing it,” Mr. Saran writes.

According to Mr. Saran both Indian and Pakistani armies had agreed to authenticate the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL), and sign an annexure with maps marking exactly where Indian and Pakistani troops held positions. As a result, Mr. Saran says, Indian troops, who occupy the heights of Siachen would be able to mutually withdraw and be spared “extreme cold and unpredictable weather in inhospitable areas, [where] their psychological isolation was just as bad as their physical hardship.”

Mr. Saran’s revelations are significant as it is the first time that an Indian official of the time has accepted that agreements on Siachen and Sir Creek, often called the “low-hanging fruit” of the Comprehensive bilateral dialogue between both countries, was a reality. In 2015, former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri has written about the agreements in his memoirs “Neither a Hawk nor a Dove”, with an account of the Pakistani side of those negotiations.

During the book launch on Wednesday, General (Retd) J.J.Singh, who was also in the audience, asked Mr. Saran whether it would have been possible, in fact, to “trust Pakistan”, and ensure Pakistani troops wouldn’t return to occupy positions in Siachen. “In matters of international diplomacy, it is a convergence of interests rather than trust that counts,” Mr. Saran replied.

The book also records what Mr. Saran calls a “missed opportunity” to solve the Sir Creek dispute in Kutch, with the solution crafted by the Navy to divide the creek between India and Pakistan according to the “equidistance” principle. When asked by Mr. Menon whether the opportunities to resolve the long-standing issues with Pakistan still existed, Mr. Saran said, “Opportunities are perishable. When they aren’t seized, they don’t return.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-pakistan-nearly-agreed-...