According to the Russian media, the Indian army is deploying extra troops and war machines along the Pakistani border. Gunship helicopters, battle tanks, military cargo choppers, medium to heavy ammunition batteries and military ration depots along Line of Control (LoC) are being installed.
Recently there has been a series of statements from Indian Army chief and government representatives of a limited scale operation, which is often referred to as Surgical Strike. Concurrently India is also celebrating the second anniversary of what it called a Surgical Strike carried inside the Pakistani border to avenge the blood of soldiers killed in Uri attack. Pakistan Army has achieved unprecedented success in the war against terror and it has been established that the terrorists are nothing but a proxy of India.
India has recently been very hostile toward Pakistan not only via belligerent statements but the incident of the Azad Jammu Kashmir’s Prime Minister’s helicopter being targeted by Indian troops along LoC also serves as an example to understand the Indian mindset. The incident took place in broad daylight when AJK PM Haider was going to visit one of his cabinet members to condole the death of his brother.
The prime minister was traveling with two ministers and his personal staff officer in the helicopter that narrowly escaped the attack near Abbaspur village. So far Indian officials have not confirmed or denied the news of extraordinary movement of weaponry and troops along the line of control.
But since it is the two year anniversary of the alleged surgical strike inside Pakistan’s territory, news like this help to keep the general public pumped up toward the “significant other” and away from the real issues. India’s real economic growth under the directive of Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a plunge, from 10% in 2010 to a mere 4.5% in 2015, because of the ill conceived step of demonetization.
Furthermore, the “Make in India” initiative which made headlines for the purpose of job creation for the Indians has not been able to yield any significant outcome. On the other hand, the Hindutva ideology where the religious minorities especially Muslims faced persecution at the hand of Hindu vigilantes was constantly in the news during Modi’s tenure. Going into the election next year, BJP wants the masses to look away from the real issues and create war hysteria against Pakistan. The idea of limited scale war, powered by Cold Start doctrine under the threshold of a nuclear confrontation, is impractical at its core.
India has always used the pretext of “BAT” or Border Action Force to be the cause of alleged incidents of execution and body mutilation of Indian BSF soldiers along the line of control. It is nothing more than a creation of Indian media which, according to them, consists of Pakistan’s elite special force personnel and regular jihadis, who cross the LoC to carry out their activities and mutilate the bodies of Indian soldiers afterward.
Pakistan’s Special Forces especially the Special Services Group (SSG) are very limited in number and they are mostly active in the tribal areas against Indian sponsored miltants. The possibility of them being used along the relatively cold and less intense Eastern border is absurd and tactically counterproductive. Therefore, it makes Border Action Force nothing but a “bogeyman” which India has used as an excuse for its warmongering attitude.
The existence of BAT has never been countered by Pakistani Media nor it has been the part of a serious debate on the international forum, but it is the part of Indian news bulletins and talk shows making it ‘the proof” of the Pakistani villainy in the minds of the Indian population. Recent developments are an attempt to engage Pakistan’s armed forces at the eastern front.
Pakistan Army has achieved unprecedented success in the war against terror and that has been a severe blow to Indian designs for Pakistan and the region at large. Since the militants have been engaged and eliminated, which is evident in the drastically decreased number of attacks inside Pakistan, India wants Pakistani troops to shift the focus towards the eastern border.
In this way, the western border, which is still porous to a great extent, will be used to infiltrate and reinforce a new force of militants into Pakistani territory via Afghanistan. The situation calls for a diligent and strategic understanding to counter Indian moves.
The idea of limited scale war, powered by Cold Start doctrine under the threshold of a nuclear confrontation, is impractical at its core. Hence, Pakistan has a stark need to take care of Indian attitude on the diplomatic front, while remaining vigilant on the border.