LOC Violations: Let’s not Play the Victim Card

The entire cov­er­age of the cease­fire vio­la­tions at the LoC reminds me of the Israel Pales­tine con­flict. Supe­ri­or to Pales­tine in mil­i­tary and eco­nom­ic strength, Israel has time and again waged war, main­tain­ing that its actions are always in retal­i­a­tion to aggres­sion by ter­ror groups in Pales­tine. It is a nar­ra­tive ingrained in the inter­na­tion­al Eng­lish news media, pri­mar­i­ly because it fits the ‘War on Ter­ror’ tem­plate. How­ev­er, it ignores how Israel has been slow­ly
cap­tur­ing Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ry, iso­lat­ing its civil­ians, and keep­ing them under the jack-boots of its mil­i­tary – all in the name of fight­ing ter­ror. On the oth­er side, the pro-Pales­tin­ian media ele­ments claim Israel are the aggres­sors, high­light­ing civil­ian casu­al­ties to make their case – gloss­ing over the polit­i­cal sup­port behind Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tant out­fits used to bal­ance the pow­er scales in the con­flict. There are clear­ly agen­da dri­ven nar­ra­tives sur­round­ing the con­flict, and in this infor­ma­tion war, Israel out­guns and out­mans the Pales­tini­ans. Sim­i­lar­ly, the nar­ra­tives sur­round­ing the LoC vio­la­tions can use a lit­tle more hon­esty.

Nei­ther India nor Pak­istan is the aggres­sor or the vic­tim at the LoC. In one of the most mil­i­ta­rized zones in the world, posts are manned by well-trained and patri­ot­ic sol­diers, who are geared to retal­i­ate imme­di­ate­ly and effec­tive­ly. When under fire, any sol­dier will sel­dom under­go a moral dilem­ma over what is the appro­pri­ate response, or will attempt to fath­om the geo-polit­i­cal reper­cus­sions of his actions. He picks up a gun and fires back with the inten­tion to kill. More­over, with the long rope giv­en to bor­der forces, local com­man­ders at the LoC also play a sig­nif­i­cant role, invok­ing their agen­da on how best to safe­guard their troops and stem the fir­ing from the oth­er side. The debate on who start­ed fir­ing first is mean­ing­less. The infor­ma­tion pri­mar­i­ly comes from the Pak­istan and Indi­an mil­i­tary sources, and no side will admit who fired first. Both sides have drawn enough blood with­out provo­ca­tion. The real­i­ty is that the Indi­an army is supe­ri­or in num­bers and fire­pow­er to the Pak­istan army. There is rel­a­tive calm at the LoC because the Indi­an forces have ham­mered the Pak­istani posts, reduc­ing their capa­bil­i­ty to hit back.

The sig­nif­i­cant change in the India-Pak­istan dis­pute under the new gov­ern­ment is that Prime Min­is­ter Modi has estab­lished new red lines for the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment and has not giv­en out any mixed sig­nals on his stance. There was weak diplo­mat­ic pres­sure on Pak­istan under the Con­gress gov­ern­ment, as it insist­ed on dia­logue despite repeat­ed infil­tra­tion and cease­fire vio­la­tions. The Modi gov­ern­ment on the oth­er hand has called off flag meet­ings over the cease­fire vio­la­tions and even called off the sec­re­tary lev­el talks last month after the Pak­istan envoy met sep­a­ratist lead­ers. There has been no shift on that stance. The geopo­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion is also tilt­ed in India’s inter­est. Pakistan’s attempts to bring the Kash­mir issue to the inter­na­tion­al stage are also not work­ing. Nations are now unin­ter­est­ed in inter­ven­ing in the con­flict, call­ing for a bilat­er­al res­o­lu­tion. Pakistan’s lat­est attempt to seek inter­ven­tion from the UN was denied on the same grounds. There is now increas­ing pres­sure on Pak­istan to sev­er the diplo­mat­ic link with the sep­a­ratist groups in Kash­mir, and engage only with India on the Kash­mir issue.

India’s mil­i­tary response has been the same, but its diplo­mat­ic stance has become tougher. Yet, in this posi­tion, it will be naïve of us to think that we are vic­to­ri­ous vic­tims on the right­eous side of the bat­tle. Giv­en our mil­i­tary strength at the bor­der, giv­en the emo­tion­al nature of these con­flicts, there are a num­ber of fac­tors, which make the Indi­an army as much an aggres­sor as Pak­istan at the Line of Con­trol. Yet, the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment must come to terms with India’s supe­ri­or mil­i­tary and diplo­mat­ic strength. It must adhere to the red lines chalked out by the Modi gov­ern­ment if it tru­ly desires peace and bet­ter rela­tions.