Modi must make Pakistan pay
Pakistan has proved that terrorism pays. It extracts billions of dollars from the United States even as it funds terrorist groups that kill American soldiers. Washington raps Islamabad on the knuckles every now and then but eventually gives in: it needs Pakistan as a client-state while the West fights the Islamic State (ISIS) in Paris and Brussels.
India is the biggest victim of the toxic US-Pakistan axis of convenience. America will not declare Pakistan an outlaw state. It will also not stop military aid to Pakistan even though Washington knows its F-16 fighter jets will not be used by Islamabad against Taliban terrorists but to attempt military parity with India.
Enemy
Former Pakistani diplomat Husain Haqqani, now living in exile in the US, writes in his recently updated book, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military that the Pakistani army continues to view India as "enemy number one". Rawalpindi regards jihad as an inexpensive means to counter India's conventional military superiority.
It is in this backdrop that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Pakistan policy must be viewed. Modi's bullet-for-bullet, mortar-for-mortar policy on the line of control (LoC) and the international border (IB) has succeeded. Over the past few months, border violations have fallen dramatically.
Pakistan's Rangers suffered heavy casualties on the LoC and IB from Indian retaliatory firing in 2014 and the first half of 2015. Since then both borders have been relatively quiet.
Modi and national security adviser Ajit Doval have learnt one lesson from this: peace with Pakistan can be achieved only by demonstrating strength. And yet the Modi-Doval doctrine has not defanged Pakistan's proxy terrorism. That has instead spread beyond Jammu & Kashmir to Punjab. Out-gunned on the border and unable to quite fathom Modi, the Pakistani army has switched to more intensive proxy terror attacks, along with sugar-coated diplomacy.
Last week's talks in Nepal between external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz laid the groundwork for "investigating" the Pathankot attack. The terror strike was carried out by the Jaish-e-Mohammad. But Pakistan's six-member joint investigation team (JIT), replete with the ISI spooks, which arrived in Delhi on March 27, will use every trick in the book to ensure its "probe" pins the blame for the attack on Indian insiders.
In the accusations and counter-accusations that will inevitably follow, the role of the JeM will be diluted. That is the whole intent behind the Pakistani army proposing a JIT. Only defence minister Manohar Parrikar has argued against the JIT's Pathankot visit. He reflects the Indian Army's view.
But in the face of pressure from the external affairs ministry and the prime minister's office (PMO) he has had to back down. Modi's blow-hot, blow-cold policy on Pakistan has been called inconsistent.
The criticism is justified. The test of any foreign policy - especially when dealing with a country that sponsors terrorism as state policy - lies in its outcome. Modi's policy of "peace through strength" on the LoC and IB has been a success because it sent a clear, tough message to the Pakistan army: desist or die.
That clarity and toughness is absent in Modi's policy on Pakistan's proxy terrorism. Talking about terrorism, which Sushma Swaraj justified last week, won't stop terrorism. Only imposing an unacceptable cost on Pakistan will. India imposed such a cost on cross-border firing.
It reduced significantly. Proxy terrorism is obviously a more complex challenge but the same basic principle of deterrence and cost applies.
Unprecedented
Pakistan's guile was evident when, in "an unprecedented move", its NSA Naseer Janjua informed Ajit Doval that ten terrorists had infiltrated into Gujarat for an attack during Mahashivratri.
The Indian government rushed 160 NSG commandos to Gujarat in what turned out to be a wild goose chase. The subsequent report that three of the ten "terrorists" had been killed also turned out to be false. The men caught (not killed) were petty ATM thieves. Nearly a month after the Pakistan NSA's "unprecedented" terror alert, there is still no sign of the "terrorists".
Pakistan has befooled the US for decades with this kind of double dealing. America though does not have JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists attacking its homeland. It has learnt to live with Pakistan's treachery. India can't afford that luxury.
Diplomacy
Pakistan's JIT will surely "probe" the Pathankot terror attack, one fears, India might follow a policy that will again appear inconsistent. Pakistan has no intention of prosecuting JeM chief Masood Azhar. He is a state asset. Pakistan will use this investigation to wash its hands off the attack. Gurdaspur superintendent of police, Salwinder Singh, already under suspicion, will serve Islamabad's purpose of calling the attack an inside job.
What then should India's Pakistan policy be? Peace through strength has worked on the border. It can work on proxy terrorism if a clear-eyed policy is applied consistently. Modi must recognise that Pakistan's sweet-talking diplomats are a cover for what Husain Haqqani rightly calls the country's jihadi-minded army.
India has many options it can pursue, apart from the "hopeful diplomacy" being currently practised. First, if there is another proxy terror attack on Indian soil, send Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit packing. Downgrade diplomatic relations. That is a policy every nation - from the US and Britain to Russia and Bangladesh - uses to deal with hostile countries. Second, deploy covert operations as Parrikar implied in his thorn for a thorn comment.
In short, make Pakistan pay. India has been a victim long enough. Prime Minister Modi, of all people, knows that.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)