Is tough talk enough to manage Pakistan?

On 9 October, the Hindustan Times reported that “as firing from across the border declined following strong retaliatory response by India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Pakistan has been taught a ‘befitting lesson’”.

“Pakistan has got a befitting lesson. They will not dare to repeat it again. Our jawans have shut their mouth,” Modi said, addressing an election rally at Dhamangaon in Maharashtra. The report further said that Modi also slammed the Congress for targeting him over his government’s response to Pakistan’s aggression.

“Congress is busy issuing statements over what is happening on the Pakistan border. This is not the time for empty ‘boli’ (talk) by them, but for ‘goli’ (bullet) by our jawans,” he said.

On 1 January, defence minister Manohar Parrikar said, “Pakistan had not learnt lessons from its truce violations (that India will retaliate strongly) and had opened fire on the border even on New Year’s Day.”

So is Modi right (that Pakistan had been taught a lesson)? Or is Parrikar right (that Pakistan had not learnt the lesson)?

On 6 January, PTI reported the Border Security Force (BSF) saying that there was ‘no communication’ between the two sides.

“We want to restore normalcy along the border but we are forced to retaliate because Pakistan Rangers resort to firing on us,” BSF director general, D.K. Pathak, said. “Pakistan Rangers are not accepting protest notes over ceasefire violations. There is no communication between the two sides,” Pathak said.

So is Modi right (that it was the time for goli and not boli)? Or is the BSF right (that it was time for boli and not goli)?

On 3 January, PTI reported Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah saying in Bengaluru that “after BJP formed the government, Indian forces have been giving fitting reply whenever there have been ceasefire violations and will continue to do so in future.” It reported that Shah, who was there to attend the BJP’s core committee meeting, was responding to a question on increased ceasefire violations by Pakistan, which fired on several BSF posts in the Samba and Kathua districts of Jammu and Kashmir, prompting strong retaliation by India.

It is difficult to escape the feeling, given the sequence of events, that this government has not thought through its strategy on how to manage Pakistan. This has brought hardship and punishment to Indians.

On 6 January, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that “thousands of Indians have fled their homes as fighting between India and Pakistan spread along a 124-mile stretch of the border in the disputed region of Kashmir.

“Tension between the nuclear-armed rivals has risen since the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, called off peace talks in August and clashes along stretches of their border have been erupting intermittently since October.

“At least 10 Indian and Pakistani soldiers and civilians have been killed in fighting over the past week.”

The same day, Pakistan’s Express Tribune reported that “four Pakistani civilians were killed in fresh ‘unprovoked firing and heavy shelling’ by India’s BSF in the Zafarwal and Shakargarh sectors along the Sialkot Working Boundary on Monday (5 January)”.

The Indian media is almost unanimous in its view that shelling is a Pakistani problem which is being inflicted on us. However, some analysts see it differently.

Writing for the news site Rediff.com in August, former ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar said:

“The Indian political establishment is crying itself hoarse over incidents of violence and bloodshed on the LOC and the IB with Pakistan. The Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray demands that Modi should order the Indian Army to attack Pakistan. The BJP chief Amit Shah held out the suo motu assurance that the Indian army will give ‘a befitting reply’ to Pakistan.”

He continued: “But we have a problem here. It takes two to tango in international diplomacy and the political class in Islamabad is utterly preoccupied with the challenge posed by Imran Khan and whatever extra time is left in a day is also spent excitedly on Khan—his next big push, his nikah with a bride whose identity his family keeps under wraps.

“With a bored look, Islamabad has decided to relegate the border situation to the DGMO (director general, military operations)-level and not to unduly trouble Modi. Their attitude seems to be, ‘If you don’t want to talk to us till the state assembly election in J&K in October, no problem.”

This is a minority view in India and most of us are convinced that Pakistan is always up to mischief and must be taught a lesson. The fact that we are unable to teach it is not seen as a problem.

On 8 January, Pakistani daily Dawn quoted a Radio Pakistan report: “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said...that his government made sincere efforts to improve relations with the new government in India, but the efforts were not reciprocated.”

In August, when India decided to break off talks with Pakistan over the issue of their high commissioner meeting Kashmiri separatists, I had written in another Mint Lounge column: “My question is: What will happen when India needs to say something to its neighbour? Will we break our katti, and if so what reason will we offer for doing this? Let us say that, by some miracle, Pakistan asks for clarification on a specific piece of evidence against Hafiz Saeed. Will we still refuse to talk? This is an unlikely scenario, and I accept that, but it is not the only one. Since we have acted strongly and on principle, we should walk through the consequences. Perhaps the thinking in government is that we can engage on those things that interest us, continuing to have a diplomatic presence and the charade of normal relations, but we will not participate in talks at the foreign secretary level. This strikes me as being absurd.”

I had referred to a report by Praveen Swami in The Indian Express, which captured this absurdity perfectly: “Frankly, I can’t see much sense in making a meeting with the Hurriyat a touchstone for India-Pakistan relations,” analyst Ajai Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi was quoted as saying. “It’s almost as if the government is saying we can live with Pakistan shooting our troops on the Line of Control, but having tea with secessionists—that’s unforgivable.”

But remarkably, this sort of silly policy, which doesn’t work at all as events show, survives because the media and the population support the tough talk of the BJP, even though it has comprehensively and demonstrably failed.

To read Aakar’s previous Lounge columns, click here.