Cover Story: The Border; New Aggression


	Feb 7, 2000

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THE BORDER
New Aggression

The surprising force with which India clashed with Pakistan in the Chamb sector signal its willingness to adopt a markedly proactive defence policy.

By Ninad Sheth and Jason Burke

It all began supposedly over a cricket match. On January 22, after Pakistani soldiers heard about their team's victory in the first encounter with India in the triangular series being played in Australia they fired mortar shells across the Line of Control (LoC) in the Chamb sector of Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Army says they then even made an attempt to capture a post at the border. The Indians retaliated with surprising force that saw 16 Pakistani soldiers dead and several bunkers busted. Two Indian jawans died in the counter-attack. It was by far the fiercest clash between the two countries since the Kargil war. It also signalled a new phase of hostilities, one in which India is willing to adopt a markedly proactive defence policy.

Essentially it is an "enough is enough" approach, with Delhi indicating that it was willing to inflict a heavy blow on Islamabad if it continues to undermine the Indian state, especially in Kashmir. The central plank of the unfolding strategy was spelt out by Defence Minister George Fernandes at a conference on January 24, two days after the Chamb clash, where he enumerated the doctrine of "limited war". Fernandes believes that India can punish Pakistan, as it did in Kargil, by keeping the war limited to a particular theatre of conflict and without letting it escalate into the nuclear threshold. As defence analyst Major-General (retd) A.K. Mehta says, "It signals Indian willingness to risk the escalation of the situation created by Pakistan and to demonstrate that both sides have little to gain in the Valley."

The encounter at Chamb is seen in Pakistan as a deliberate provocation by hawkish Indian generals. The Pakistan military went to great lengths to send foreign reporters to the scene of conflict to prove that the embattled posts were on the Pakistani side of the LoC and that India was the aggressor. But it was Pakistan's Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf who came out with an unusually tough statement on the rising tension between the two countries. He told the Pakistani daily The Nation: "Indians are not refraining from crossing the LoC out of any love for Pakistan. They would have done it long before if they could. We will teach them a lesson on the LoC or anywhere else." The Pakistani press by and large believes that the straight-talking Musharraf was not creating a crisis with India to distract the country from its economic woes or his mounting domestic travails. But was visibly upset over the Indian action at Chamb.

Yet, even as India's new forward defence policy begins to unfold there is a consensus among analysts that it will succeed only if there are defined objectives and a political will to go through with it. Says defence analyst K. Subrahmanyam: "The recent counter-attack can only be described as a beginning. How the policy shapes up depends on the initial success and the willingness of the Government to continuously put a heavy price on Pakistan. India will also have to combine proactive counter-insurgency with proactive diplomacy."

Lt-General (retd) M.K. Raghavan, chairman, Delhi Policy Group, believes that unless there is a pattern of sustained, aggressive counter-insurgency the new approach cannot achieve results. General (retd) V.N. Sharma, former army chief, adds, "The key point is willpower. Do we have the ability to carry this proactive approach through this time around? It was also discussed two years ago and nothing came of it." The feeling in some circles is that after the Kandahar fiasco, the Government was trying to save face by taking an aggressive posture on the border.

The army though feels it now has a better command structure in place to deal with infiltration on the border. After the Kargil conflict it now has three corps instead of two protecting sensitive border areas in Jammu and Kashmir. The army is introducing several new weapons and force multipliers to beef up its ability to launch better counter-attacks. These include Israeli remote-piloted vehicles, South African recoilless "bunker-bursting" rifles, German all-terrain vehicles for mobility in the winter months, and crack sniper squads in some sectors.

But as Kanti Bajpai of the Jawaharlal Nehru University points out, finding the level of nuclear threshold is the key in either limited war or more vigorous counter-insurgency. Says Bajpai: "Several factors need to be analysed. How deep across the border can you penetrate, for how long, in what area, for what purpose and how often?" The months ahead will test how well India has thought through its new aggressive policy.

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