NEWS ANALYSIS
Binoo Joshi
The political war between BJP and the rest over the nature of Indian army’s September 29th surgical strikes at the terrorist camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir has given a handle to the anti-India elements in Kashmir .
Perhaps Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal are unaware that their semantics , in whatever form those are articulated , provide a fodder to separatists and the fifth columnists in the Valley.
Surgical strike is not a war movie . It has its own rules, secrecy being the prime factor and those are not to be shared for the simple reason that such revelations blow the lid off the tactics and strategy employed to conduct these high-risk operations. More than quenching the thirst for information in this know-all-age , there always is a grave risk of running into trouble in future. It takes time and a great deal to devise a particular strategy .
There is no question that India should oblige Pakistan by making the footage of the operation public. Why Arvind Kejriwal is becoming a party to Pakistan’s clamour for the evidence of the surgical strikes,. It is equally incomprehensible when Congress leaders particularly P Chidambaram, who was a disaster as Home Minister in the UPA government , speak in the similar language .
The political parties and leaders are within their right to question the government. After all, these surgical strikes which hit Pakistan badly, otherwise it would not have convened joint session of its Parliament, as BJP chief Amit Shah ponied out , were given green signal by the Narendra Modi government. Their concern that such an act or claim of it, has escalated tensions between India and Pakistan , too cannot be dismissed for the situation on the borders is very tense.. A fear psychosis has gripped the border residents all across the border states.
BJP committed a cardinal political sin by advertising the army’s act across the border as something of its own . The BJP, as a political party, should have kept itself confined to complimenting the soldiers. It is also not within the parameters of the ruling party to define the kind of response Pakistan would get in the eventuality of any misadventure. It was not a BJP operation .
The political dynamics of BJP owning something or chest thumping has its own consequences within the country and outside of it. The party should not lose sight of the fact that it is viewed in the world as right wing Hindu group. The tag of extremism automatically gets stuck to it .
It should have learnt something from Atal Behari Vajpayee’s composure during Kargil conflict. There was no chest beating because despite having recaptured the Kargil heights, the Indian army had lost soldiers . Recapturing Kargil heights was not a victory in the real sense of the word, it was defat of Pakistan’s designs to stay put in the heights and cut off the life line to crucial Siachen glacier and Leh ,where India has borders with Pakistan and China . Vacation of the Indian territory was sacred duty of the nation , and it accomplished that task with finesse , but with more than 500 soldiers had to sacrifice their lives for that.
The September 29th surgical strikes had a backdrop. There was no plan of striking the terror hubs in PoK before the September 18th attack on Uri army base in which 19 soldiers lost their lives. A message had to be sent to Pakistan and that the Indian army did . It was at best a revenge attack, not the victory in war against terror . The terror attacks have taken place post 29/9 , too.
Situation needs to be understood . Kashmir is in turmoil . The anti-India sentiment is oozing out in streets . The political fight over the surgical strikes is only helping enemies within the nation as also giving a propaganda tool to Pakistan. Kashmiri separatists are relishing this.
