India's war against Pakistan is no proxy war
At the last combined conference of the military commanders Prime Minister Narendra Modi showed an excellent grasp of India's security situation when he told them that the main threat to our country came not from a "war" but from the covert offensive of the adversary. While emphasising the importance of peace and security for economic development he went on to specially alert the defence forces against the "proxy war" that India was exposed to at the hands of a hostile neighbour.
The dastardly attack of Taliban on Peshawar Army Public School in which 132 students, among others, were massacred in cold blood has been followed by fresh intelligence alerts from Indian agencies about acts of cross-border terrorism in India. Already, Hafiz Saeed - the founder leader of LeT, has gone public in Pakistan blaming India for the Peshawar incident while Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi - the mastermind behind 26/11 - secured release from a Pakistan prison on bail.The whole issue of Pakistan-sponsored proxy war against India, has thus come alive again.
The hostile mindset of the Pakistan army against India remains unchanged in spite of the Peshawar killings. It wants to respond to the setback it has received in combating Islamic radicals, by stepping up its covert offensive against India. The strategy behind this is to tell the West that a disturbed eastern border would leave it with little time and resource to undertake the combat on the western front - unless it received greater patronage and policy support from the latter.
Pakistan army continues to believe that the US depends on it for protecting its interests in Afghanistan and would not take too much notice of the India-centric militants controlled by Pakistan's ISI like LeT's Hafiz Saeed beyond giving him the label of a terrorist.
In the post-Cold War era, terrorism has become the new weapon for conducting an "asymmetric warfare". India is perhaps the worst victim of proxy war in this era. Pakistan first instigated and sustained "Khalistan" movement in the '80s and then - having failed in its mischievous aim in Punjab - attempted to replicate the success of Afghan jihad in Kashmir in the '90s. Pakistan army and the ISI had become the blue-eyed boys for the US after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and it is no surprise that India came in pressure from the state department to heed Pakistan's demand on Kashmir at that point of time.
The Kargil intrusion itself was a war-like attack carried out in the proxy war mode as soldiers were sent in as Mujahideen. It had been planned by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf - an expert in commando operations. India had to conduct a full scale war to push back the intruders. Musharraf has now confirmed that Kargil was Pakistan's answer to India's action in Bangladesh.
Pakistan went on to take the proxy war against India to a new level of planning and bravado in staging 26/11 which has rightly been described as "India's 9/11". The weak-kneed response of the then government in accepting the unabashed denial by Pakistan of any responsibility for "the doings of non-state actors" only encouraged that country to keep up its cross border terrorism against India.
As the new government in India is being quite upfront on this issue-Union home minister having affirmed at the annual DGPs Conference in Guwahati on November 29 that there was Pakistan ISI's hand behind 26/11 - the Pakistan army has been keeping a tighter grip on the civilian rulers. This became evident at the recent SAARC summit at Kathmandu where the Pakistan prime minister blocked the passage of agreements on mutually beneficial initiatives and tried to sabotage the advance of an emerging regional forum.
What the SAARC summit revealed even more significantly for India was the fact that there is a continuing shadow of Sino-Pak axis on South Asia. This military compact now extends to China aiding the anti-India proxy war of Pakistan in return for the Pakistan advocacy of China's entry into the South Asian association. China wants to be a part of SAARC primarily to counter India's influence there and is likely to use its alliance with Pakistan for containing the rising profile of India in this part of the world under the leadership of Narendra Modi.
The Chinese have taken notice of the successful visits of the new Indian prime minister to Japan, US and Australia - not to forget Myanmar, Malaysia, Fiji and Nepal. The Sino-Pak collaboration against India is likely to become more pronounced in the days ahead.
Pakistan is effectively ruled by its army. The country has neither the willingness nor an external compulsion to abjure militancy and terrorism as an instrument of political power. The common man in Pakistan has no voice and the intelligentsia there does not want to buy trouble with the army - the real power centre in the country.
Only recently at a large rally held by Hafiz Saeed, under the total protection of the government, at Lahore, the LeT founder denounced the elections in J&K and reiterated the call for jihad in Kashmir. This indicates the shape of the monster in the times to come. Pakistan's ISI has been successful in exploiting the communal issues for fomenting militancy as is adequately established by the recent doings of SIMI and Indian Mujahideen. The internal security situation has to be closely monitored in the context of this added vulnerability.
We have to be fully geared to deal with the sponsors of the proxy war. If 26/11 is India's 9/11 Hafiz Saeed is our Osama bin Laden. India's right to get to him can not be questioned by the upholders of democracy in the world.