Opinion SURGICAL STRIKES AND INDIA

Air Chief Naik’s statement is actually a myth at par with the boast that results of India-China 1962 border would have been different had Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru deployed the Indian Air Force in the war theatre. This myth was soundly demolished after American declassified the letters (published in The Indian Express on November 17,2010) from Nehru to then J.F.Kennedy administration four years ago. In those top secret letters,Nehru admitted that Indian Air Force had no leg to stand on against the marauding Chinese PLA forces in either NEFA or Ladakh. In fact,Nehru wanted the American to deploy their men and machines to help India in case of a Chinese counter-attack from the air.

There have been at least four incidents where Indian ability to launch surgical strikes against Pakistan were put under the scanner since 1999. They are:

* 1999 Kargil war: At the height of the 45 day conflict,an option of conducting air surgical strikes on the communication and logistics lines feeding the Pakistan troops on top of Drass,Kaksar and Batalik heights across the Line of Control was considered. This move would not only have boxed the Pakistani infiltrators but also shortened the duration of war. However,the proposal was shot down by the NDA leadership as it conveniently bought the “nuclear flashpoint” line and decided to restrict the Indian retaliation only along the 520 kilometres LoC. The IAF,which went into the conflict only after a Cabinet approval,was asked to remain on the Indian side of the LoC. This left Indian troops no option but to recover Indian territory inch by inch with bloody sacrifice.

* 1999 Kandahar hijacking: During the humiliating eight day ordeal after IC-814 flight was hijacked from Kathmandu to Kandahar,an option of a lightning commando raid to rescue the passengers from Taliban ruled Afghanistan was considered and subsequently buried by the NDA government. The reason was that India’s only aircraft carrier INS Viraat was under repairs and there was no way to mount an air raid on Kandahar without crossing the Pakistani airspace.

Next came the proposal for eliminating the three terrorists particularly then Harkat-ul-Ansar general secretary Masood Azhar,who had been swapped by the NDA government in exchange of the hostages. It is said that one of the intelligence chiefs at that time wanted a cabinet sanction for this strike. The sum total was that India was humiliated by ISI sponsored rag-tag Taliban militia and Azhar’s Jaish-e-Mohammed continues to wreak havoc on India.

* December 13,2001 Parliament attack: The Tiger squadron of IAF waited to orders to launch surgical strikes on terrorist training camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir in the last week of December. But the orders never came as the India-Pakistan nuclear dimension again restricted the response of the Indian political leadership with the IAF’s mumbling about not having the right weapons and actionable intelligence weighing on the mind of the Vajpayee government. A second but a more defining window opened after the May 14,2002 massacre at Kaluchak military camp in Jammu. The IAF was sounded out in the first week June but the military brass sounded an alarm on fast depleting precision guided ammunition.

The Israelis led by their then Defence Secretary Amos Yaron personally came with three weapon loads of C 130 aircraft at Palam airport on June 6,2002 but the moment was lost.

* November 26,2008: The world had a clear cut idea about the Indian capability after it took National Security Guards along with intermediate intervention of famed Marine Commandos some 60 hours to kill 10 Pakistan Army trained Lashkar-e-Toiba commandos,who butchered some 163 innocents in Mumbai. Despite the gruesomeness of the incident,the TV channels were allowed to give ball by ball account to their handlers in Karachi with terrorists audacious enough to call up Indian channels and make demands.   In a Cabinet meeting the then Air Chief again talked about targeting a terrorist training camp in PoK or LeT headquarters in Muridke as an Indian riposte.

Even though there are many steps in the interregnum before a conventional conflict turns into nuclear,the security advisors of the Manmohan Singh government voiced the nuclear flashpoint theory to deter any action. But why blame the advisors? It was the political leadership that was found lacking in a decision on military action.

Nobody in his right senses would deny that India does not have the either the capability or capacity to conduct surgical strikes. However,this option is easier said than done as it involves precision planning on the basis of top-of-the line technical inputs and above all faultless execution. But what it also requires is a stroke of political dare-devilry. The probability of either victory or defeat in Operation Geronimo was even and a botched up operation would have sounded the political death knell for Obama.

So in one surgical strike,a benign looking Obama re-established the pre-eminence of US as world’s only sole super military power and grounded the so-called Sino-Pak alliance to ground for the immediate future. The end of bin Laden shows the resoluteness of the American leadership across party lines to avenge 9/11 more than the decades old existent capability of its forces to conduct surgical strikes. Perhaps ACM Naik,Indian intelligence and most of all the political leadership should be well advised to introspect before even talking about the surgical strike capability.