Pakistan: More Things Change...

medium121036219Among the many puzzling aspects of Pakistani behaviour the central one today is: Why has Pak army chosen the path of escalation at a time when Pakistan’s economy is fragile and it faces serious challenges in two of its four provinces?Interestingly, after the Pahalgam terror attack, several Pakistani commentators used precisely this question to deny Pak role in it: Why would Pakistan carry out an attack resulting in tensions with India at a time when it has so many internal problems to contend with?The short answer to the two overlapping questions is that rationality has not been the hallmark of Pakistani generals. They have often taken decisions that were not in the interest of Pakistan and its people, either out of revenge or to serve the army’s interests or even their personal interests.Zia-ul-Haq joining the jihad against Soviet Union to legitimise his dictatorship and to enjoy western largesse is an apt example.Nor have Pakistan army’s strongarm tactics in Balochistan been in Pakistan’s interests, quite apart from causing widespread unrest and violence there.The pattern in all this self-harm is that they blame India for their own failures. This is very much the case in Balochistan, with regard to which Pakistan strangely keeps threatening retaliation. And this refrain has become shriller after the hijacking of a train by Balochistan Liberation Army in March.The Pahalgam terror attack was a misplaced attempt to build counterpressure on India. The move has badly backfired and, once again, the Pakistani people will suffer the consequences for their army’s misadventures.A fortnight after the heinous attack, India struck nine terror targets in Pakistan. The precedent of kinetic punitive action following the Uri and Pulwama attacks and the outraged Indian public sentiment had made such action inevitable.However, Operation Sindoor was qualitatively different from the shallow surgical strikes in 2016 and the single target Balakot strike in 2019. On Wednesday, it struck deep inside Pakistan. Amongst its targets were two nerve centres of Pakistan’s terror machine — the headquarters of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) at Muridke and of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) at Bahawalpur, in Pakistan’s Punjabi heartland.The targeted structures had continued to exist in full public view, as a symbol of Pakistan’s brazen use of terror as an instrument of state policy. In this sense, Operation Sindoor has been an overdue payback for continued Pak-sponsored attacks. It has signalled that Pakistan will have a heavy price to pay in case of future terror attacks. It has also expanded the space for India’s military options under the nuclear overhang.Having successfully hit the intended targets, India had no interest in escalation. India’s official statement described Operation Sindoor as “focused, measured and non-escalatory”, adding that no Pakistani military facilities had been targeted. But it also made clear that any attack on military targets in India would invite a suitable response. India also conveyed the same message in response to the mediatory efforts by US, EU, Saudi Arabia and Iran.Operation Sindoor being in response to Pakistan’s provocation at Pahalgam, Pakistan was expected not to retaliate. However, this was too much to expect. Besides resorting to heavy cross-LoC firing resulting in civilian casualties, Pakistan unsuccessfully attempted to engage several military targets in northern and western India on the night between May 7 and 8.In response, on May 8 morning, Indian armed forces targeted air defence systems in several Pakistani locations. Further aerial attacks have been reported. India would not like to weaken the deterrent signal of Operation Sindoor by backing down in the face of continued Pakistani attacks.The Pak army continues to choose escalation because it regards the terrorists operating against India as its frontline warriors — who are highly radicalised and carry the advantage of deniability. They operate independently under the direction of the army, but also alongside personnel of Pakistan’s Special Services Group, in border action teams that operate against the Indian forces along LoC.Thus, the Indian strikes against these terrorists under the nose of Pak army are a slap in its face. Pak army leadership needs to retrieve its reputation, besides shoring up the morale of its ‘frontline warriors’.The civil-military imbalance has been the main factor in Pakistan remaining a dysfunctional state. Its army has stranglehold on its polity and an institutional interest in sustaining an adversarial posture towards India. All our peace initiatives have come a cropper in the face of these dynamics of the Pakistani state.And we have mostly managed this relationship by combining diplomacy with deterrence and coercion. However, the role of diplomacy has eroded progressively since the Mumbai terror attacks and is today all but non-existent, leaving us dependent entirely on deterrence and coercion. This is not the time for policy prescriptions, except that we should use all the instrumentalities at our disposal to manage this complex relationship.For now, things are in a melting pot. What sort of Pakistan will emerge from this crisis? Will it be wiser, willing to take a constructive path? This is not likely without a radical shift in Pakistan’s internal dynamics and the worldview of its army.Remember how Pakistan seemed to emerge duly subdued and wiser after its crushing defeat at our hands in 1971. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came as a peace builder to Shimla and promised a new beginning. But behind that beginning was the old animosity. A deep resentment surfaced in subsequent years as hostility in a more virulent form, ready to give us a thousand cuts through terror proxies.We should prepare ourselves for a prolonged period of volatility on our western frontier.The writer served as High Commissioner (2009-13) to Pakistan and is the author of ‘India’s Pakistan Conundrum: Managing a Complex Relationship’TOI+ complete coverage of Operation Sindoor here