Beyond Sports Boycott, Here Are India’s Real Options Against A Jihadi Pakistan

That India has very few viable options left in dealing with Pakistan’s Islamist and jihadi groups in Jammu and Kashmir is woefully obvious. If this wasn’t the case, we would not stumble from talks one day to boycotts and other punitive measures on another. This has been true no matter which government is in power in Delhi.

In the aftermath of the national outrage generated by the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror attack in Pulwama, which killed 44 of our men in uniform, we have done two things: one is to withdraw Pakistan’s Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status, which will impact a few hundred crores worth of two-way trade, and the other is to withdraw state security cover for separatists in Kashmir Valley.

Both are necessary moves and should have been done long ago. You don’t trade with a nation that hates you, and you don’t need to protect those who do not accept the Indian Constitution. If they want protection, they can easily ask for it by accepting our Constitution as valid and legitimate in Kashmir.

Another idea being propagated, mostly on TV channels, is boycott of cultural and sporting ties with Pakistan. Once again, this is the right thing to do, as you don’t play with those who want to kill you and seek your annihilation. While this may mean India having to either concede a match or refusing to play Pakistan in the World Cup, the country should be willing to pay this price. We should also remember that India is the richest contributor to the sport, and so the world will not take our boycott lightly. In 1974, we boycotted South Africa in the Davis Cup final – and forfeited the title – when the country had only ethical and moral reasons for doing so. South Africa posed no threat to us at all. So, forfeiting the World Cup or a match en route to the final is something we should be prepared to accept as a small price to pay for protecting India.

Another idea that keeps bobbing up is declaring Pakistan as a terrorist state. While this may give us psychic benefits, what will follow is equally predictable: Pakistan will do the same for us, and we will get bracketed with them again. A far better option would be to treat Pakistan as a terrorist state – which it certainly is – and work with global peers to squeeze terror funding. We should get international bodies like the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) to blacklist Pakistan for terror funding. It is already on the FATF grey list, and if India can provide convincing evidence of Pakistani groups’ involvement in Pulwama, the blacklisting will be one step closer.

But none of this is going to deter Pakistan and the jihadi vipers it nurtures within its territory. So, what are our real options?

The main advantage Pakistan has over us is a simple one: it has the ability to radicalise a few Muslims and fight an unconventional war in Kashmir (or elsewhere) at super low costs to itself. In Pulwama, it needed only one suicidal Adil Ahmad Dar to kill 44 of our Central Reserve Police Force personnel. Terrorism is always cheap to inflict, while conventional defence against it is a high-cost option. Over the long term, Pakistan’s goal is to weaken our resolve to retain Kashmir by repeatedly inflicting such costs on us. Pakistan is cussed enough to become a vassal of China or invite global opprobrium in order to maintain its state of permanent low-cost enmity with India.

Our options, therefore, need to address this cost asymmetry by shifting the focus to non-conventional warfare. The logical options are to arm and fuel Baloch and Sindhi separatism, and also encourage tribal groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and elsewhere to seek independence from Pakistan. The mistake we made in 1947, by refusing to recognise the independence of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), needs to be corrected.

The second way of addressing this asymmetry is to grow an unconventional force in Kashmir Valley that both collects information and assassinates jihadis. This cannot be a free-for-all, and we need to do what the US does with jihadi forces: have a judicial cell to vet the evidence and sanction such assassinations of anti-national and violent elements. Ultimately, unconventional warfare can only be defeated by unconventional defence-cum-offence capabilities in India. The CIA does precisely this, and the US President sanctions such legal assassinations based on a controversial 2001 law legislated after 9/11, the Authorisation to Use Military Force. President Barack Obama used this law to plan the assassination of Anwar Awlaki, an American citizen, who was advocating jihad against the US and its citizens, in Yemen.

As for talks, we should never reject the idea. We should always be willing to talk to Pakistan, if only to figure out a genuine change in its attitude towards jihad and terrorism. If, at some future date, the Pakistani army itself gets tired of such warfare, we should aim to take advantage of it. These talks should not be misunderstood to be another woolly-headed Aman ki Aasha kind of nonsense. These talks must necessarily be hard ones, focused on getting Pakistan to abandon its Islamism. The talks cannot ever be about ceding Kashmir or parts of it to Pakistan.

Which brings us to Kashmir itself. Clearly, articles 370 and 35A have outlived their utility. Article 370 can be abolished once we agree to amend the Constitution in general to devolve more power to states. Article 35A, which empowers the state legislature of Jammu and Kashmir to make discriminatory laws, was inserted into the Constitution even without Parliament’s okay in 1954. This article needs to be removed as it has no legislative backing, and one hopes the Supreme Court will hold it as unconstitutional in a case currently before it.

Jammu and Kashmir also needs to be broken up into three states, with Jammu and Ladakh being separated from it. Apart from the need to give these two regions their due, there is also a need to insulate them from the Islamist tendencies of a part of the population in the valley. The valley itself needs to be told clearly that it cannot discriminate against Indians from other states wanting to settle there. This demographic change should be held out like a covert threat to send the message that backing separation will have consequences.

Meanwhile, we should prepare our population to abandon general sentimentalism and tell them we are preparing for a 100-year war of attrition. We should never make the mistake of telling our people that peace is just one Lahore bus journey away or a quick dash to Pakistan by our prime minister. Goodwill gestures are not a substitute to real bloody-minded willingness to hit the enemy where it counts – and at low costs.