Any criticism of the Government of India in the pulwana attack, I am afraid will be construed negatively at an election time when the ruling party has taken up the cause of ‘’punishing the guilty’’.
The so-called Pakistan sponsored terrorism is not new and was not just born now. Even before the word terrorism was not heard off in global jargons, militants supported by the deep state in Pakistan played havoc in J&K. The Mumbai attack to attacks on security forces is indeed an orchestrated attack coordinated by the terrorist leadership based in Pakistan duly supported by the intelligence agency of Pakistan. Now the question is, does the democratically elected government and the people of Pakistan responsible for it and thereby the government of Pakistan and its people punished. ?
In democracies that are firmly practiced as like in the US, UK, and India, the decision making process is guided by policy formulation supported by the parliament where the security agencies are just precision implementers. It is not like that in Pakistan. From our understanding of that country- which spilled away from our ecosystem on the basis of religious identity-democracy have always been a namesake. It is a de facto military state with the military having not only a direct say in the security-related issues but acts clandestinely through its agencies like the ISI. In such a quasi-democratic set up blaming an inefficient democratic system as a cause is not the right policy in India.
Setting aside the question of why there were security lapses in the system which resulted in this suicide attack, the primary question is what is the counter terror policy? It is not sentimental muscle flexing that is required but a firm policy on how we counter this aggression. What is missing is this lateral thinking among our decision making machinery. It is a difficult situation where you have to handle a military-managed state. How do we manage terror financing, How do we destroy the terrorist training camp, how do we build international consensus on our right to counter strike. How do we link our economic growth and international leverage in planning a structured attack aiming the terrorist leadership? The policy establishment should focus on this instead of shooting on our own toes by attacking the common people from that country like banning artists, sportsperson and blocking trade.
The banning of participation of Pakistani shooters made the international Olympic committee rebut us. Banning the 2 billion dollar trade by levying import duties will only increase the informal and smuggled trade which is double than the formal trade. It will also help Pakistani traders search for alternative markets. These don’t create result but only sentimentalism.
What is required is a lateral strategy and there is where statecraft comes into being.
