Patience Is A Virtue

Ever since the undeclared war in Kargil began, senior officers in the army have lived with one consuming fear-that the government will on the one hand tie their hands behind their backs by telling them not to cross the LoC and on the other press them to evict the Pakistanis from the heights above Kargil and Dras as soon as possible. They have repeatedly pointed out in private conversations that the two objectives can be reconciled only at a prohibitive cost in lives. The terrain overwhelmingly favours those on high ground. Since India does not still have laser-guided bombs for hitting the enemy bunkers on the ridges only infantry, fighting uphill on narrow ridges against entrenched machine-gun positions, can recapture it. The army has often said that the best way to respond to the Pakistani invasion is to hit it where the terrain favours India. Even in Kargil, the injunction against crossing the LoC severely limits its capacity to cut off the supply lines and destroy the jumping off points of the invaders. It is therefore asking for a free hand in deciding how to fight the war.

Militarily, what the army says makes sense. The government must thus choose-it can either let the Pakistanis sit for some more time on the ridges, while the army consolidates its gains. Or it can let the armed forces open new fronts and invade Pakistan-occupied Kashmir or Pakistan. The army is itching to do the latter, but prime minister Vajpayee would do well to opt for the former, even if it gives the impression that the army has got bogged down in Kargil.

One reason is the risk that if the fighting escalates into a full-scale war, Pakistan-whose generals, and not civilians, control the nuclear trigger-may decide to launch a nuclear first strike against India. This could result from a belief that India does not yet have a second-strike capability. This belief could turn out to be disastrously wrong. But the fact remains that at the end of the exchange both countries will have lost whatever they thought they were fighting for.

If there were no other option, India would have to take this risk. But as it happens, the longer India waits, the wider will its options become. This is because the Pakistani army seems to have forgotten von Clausewitz's maxim that war is ultimately an extension of diplomacy.

Diplomatically, the Kargil invasion has been a disaster for Pakistan. It has confirmed the truth of all that Indians have been telling the world about the nature of this dangerously irresponsible and volatile country-that it is a rogue nation that does not believe in the sanctity of its treaty obligations and assurances and so can't be trusted; that it is an aggressively revisionist country that does not mind unleashing war, perhaps even nuclear war, to change the status quo in South Asia; and above all that it is a near-terrorist state that is not very different from Sudan in its sponsorship of Islamic terrorism across the world. So far, the western countries had preferred to regard these as tendencies within the Pakistani establishment that could be contained and eventually tamed by staunchly supporting the modern, religiously moderate and democratic elements in it. Kargil has turned out to be the final straw. Except as a prelude to opening up the whole of Kashmir to infiltration by Taliban-type terrorists, it made no sense whatever. It thus demonstrated to the West the impotence of the civilian establishment in Pakistan and the futility of pinning its hopes for peace in South Asia upon it.

The change in the global perception of Pakistan is reflected in the position these governments have taken. Not one country has swallowed Pakistan's claim that these are Kashmiri freedom fighters with whom it has nothing to do. Not one country has accepted its contention that it has not crossed the LoC because this has not been delineated on the ground. Not one country has agreed to bring up the Kashmir issue at the Security Council. On the contrary, all have asserted that the LoC is clearly delineated, that this is an intrusion designed to hold Indian territory, and that the regular Pakistani army is fully involved. British agencies have told the English media that the militants were supported by the Pakistan army from no fewer than 42 base camps across the LoC, and that Pakistan's isi was involved with a loose network of international terrorist organisations from whom it was recruiting the Afghans and others whom it was sending across the LoC.

The change in international-and especially western-perceptions of South Asia these actions and revelations imply must not on any account be underestimated. For, they signify the end of the determined policy of 'even-handedness' towards India and Pakistan that has set Indian teeth on edge for the last 50 years. That evenhandedness was a product of the compulsions of the Cold War. Its practical fallout was a refusal by the West to pass judgement on Pakistan's actions and the consequent growth of a belief in Pakistan that it could get away with anything. This refusal to judge is now a thing of the past. For India, then, the Cold War ended on May 6 this year.

These changes need time to jell. As a scathing article in Dawn of Karachi on June 16 shows, Pakistan is beginning to awaken to its isolation and to all it has lost. As this awareness grows, tensions between the army and the civilian establishment will rise. The army will find itself on the defensive and will have to choose between getting out of Kargil and cutting the diplomatic losses, or staying put and facing growing alienation from the public. The latter could well force it into a military coup. In either case, by doing nothing to escalate the conflict, India will emerge the winner on every front. The right course for Vajpayee, therefore, is to stop the army from escalating the conflict, but also not pressurise it to evict the intruders regardless of cost. Such restraint and responsibility now will heap dividends later.