Daily Times

If history is anything to go by, no political party in India can afford to dent its popularity by appearing too conciliatory towards Pakistan. This is so because Indian political leaders try to outperform each other in anti-Pakistan rhetoric to win hardline Hindu voters on their side. There is, however, one major difference between Modi’s and other political leaders, say Rahul Gandhi’s, hostility towards Pakistan. Where others are moved by political necessity, Modi seems to hate Pakistan out of a psychological necessity. His alleged role in Gujarat pogrom, “Congress-mukht Bharat” (an India free of the Congress) and “isolating Pakistan in the world” slogans point to his inbuilt desire to see his real or perceived opponents go into extinction.

Having taken his animosity towards Pakistan too far through persistent anti-Pakistan propaganda, and feeling overconfident over growing asymmetry in conventional military prowess between the two countries Modi came to a funny idea of teaching Pakistan a lesson for the alleged use of its soil for anti-India activities.

Hence, in September 2016, a few days after the Uri attack, which was allegedly carried out by Jaish-e-Muhammad on Indian forces in Indian occupied Kashmir, India claimed to have conducted surgical strikes against alleged militant launch pads across the Line of Control. Though Pakistan termed the strikes imaginary and the main Indian political opposition, i.e., the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) repeatedly questioned the veracity of the claim, the wild cheerleading by the BJP leaders and the Indian media put Pakistan in a tight corner.

These strikes, imagined or real, had infused a strategic uncertainty in Pakistan-India military equation. India had launched punitive military strikes within Pakistan’s territory without triggering a response from Pakistani forces. If real, it meant that Pakistan despite having built tactical nuclear weapons and lowering the nuclear threshold had not been able to effectively thwart the Cold Start Doctrine. Blinded by hubris, Indian forces, shortly before 2019 general elections in India, once again ventured across the Line of Control as a vote grabbing stunt. However, this time Pakistan turned the tables on the very next day as it downed two Indian MIGs and took an Indian pilot into its custody. Thus, Modi’s foolhardy attempt to coerce Pakistan into submission backfired.

Pakistan gave a real slap in Modi’s face when it replied to his warmongering rhetoric with a magnanimous return of captain Abhinandan as a “peace gesture” after only sixty hours of his capture. And as New York Times put it, “It was an inauspicious moment for military the United States is banking on to help keep an expanding China in check”, the aerial clash exposed the hollowness of India’s claims of being a mighty power. Hence, Gaurav Gogoi, a member of the Indian Parliamentary Committee on Defence had to admit that “Our troops lack modern equipment, but they have to conduct 21st-century military operations.”

These strikes, imagined or real, had infused a strategic uncertainty in Pakistan-India military equation

Given Indian superiority in conventional warfare, Pakistan’s realistic response to any Indian aggression is to lower the nuclear threshold which also defeats Modi’s purpose. Modi blames Pakistan of allowing its soil for anti-India activities in order to deflect the world’s attention from the human rights violations in Kashmir. However, when Pakistan raises the alarm of a possible nuclear war, as Imran Khan rightly did in the UN General Assembly session in September last year, it makes the outside world a direct stakeholder in Indo-Pak conflicts.

When Israel attacked Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in the name of preemptory self-defence or Reagon administration bombed Lybian territory to deter attacks on Americans from the Lybian soil it made military sense because the power imbalance between the adversaries was so great that escalation of conflict into a full-blown war was unlikely. Modi, however, skates on thin ice when he talks of surgical strikes against Pakistan because a conflict between two states having minimum credible nuclear deterrence if it spirals out of control, may lead to mutual destruction.

While their conflicts remain unresolved, both countries need to strengthen their defences within their own borders instead of conducting dangerous proactive military operations in each others’ territory. International law does not explicitly provide the right to anticipatory self-defence. Article 51 of the UN Charter provides the right to self-defence in case of an armed attack only as an exception to the ban on the use of force created by Article 2(4) of the same charter. However, the principle of exceptiones sunt strictissimae interpretationis dictates that exception to a norm should be interpreted in a narrow manner.

In this backdrop, whosoever, be it Modi or Imran Khan, takes two nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of war acts in violation of the UN Charter which aims at saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” With a year having elapsed, emotions cooled off and no election looming on the political horizon Indian leadership would be better off if it reflects on the possible consequences, in case of escalation of conflict into a nuclear war, of the surgical strikes it carried out in the wee hours of February 26, 2019. As a matter of fact, there are extremist elements such as RSS on the Indian side and Lashkar-e-Taiba on the Pakistani side of the border but If peace is to be given a chance in South Asia both India and Pakistan need to exercise strategic restraint in the face of acts of terrorism.

The writer is a Lahore-based Lawyer