Balakot’s benefit: There are dark clouds on the radar

In an explosive interview to The Wire, former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik revealed many things about his eventful stint in the erstwhile state. He spoke about the Pulwama incident, where a young Kashmiri suicide car-bomber claimed the lives of 40 CRPF personnel. The strike happened just as the election campaign for the 2019 parliamentary polls had begun, and subsequent proceedings proved that it was a turning point in favour of Narendra Modi-led BJP.

An extract from the interview about the responsibility for the tragic incident is instructive to understand the trajectory of events:

Satya Pal Malik: I can share with you that I realised that the entire onus is going to be put on Pakistan, so it’s better to be quiet on the subject now.

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The Wire: So, this was, in some way, a clever policy of the government to blame Pakistan…

SPM: Exactly.

TW: And we (the BJP government) will get credit, and that will help our election.

SPM: Exactly.

Though Malik didn’t absolve Pakistan of its involvement in the Pulwama incident, he argued that instead of fixing accountability and taking responsibility for the mistakes that led to the death of the 40 men, the Modi government decided to put the onus entirely on Pakistan. This was the basis for rhetoric-laden speeches by PM Modi on the campaign trail, even as the Opposition was put on the defensive in the name of national security, death of soldiers and supporting the country at a tough time.

Having prepared the ground with that narrative, the government ordered the Indian Air Force to strike at the Balakot seminary in Khyber-Pakhthunkhwa a fortnight after the Pulwama incident. Four years later, with the benefit of hindsight, it can safely be said that the operation was not the IAF’s proudest moment. One of the precision guided munitions did not leave the IAF fighter jet, while others overshot the target.

In the Pakistan Air Force’s retaliatory strike in J&K, the IAF reaction resulted in the loss of a MiG-21 aircraft, with the fighter pilot in Pakistani captivity. In the confusion during the period, the IAF shot down its own Mi-17 helicopter approaching Srinagar airbase, killing six persons. The Chief Operations Officer of that airbase is currently fighting a case in court against the disciplinary action initiated against him.

Tensions between the two countries were at a peak at this time, with both sides threatening to fire missiles on each other. Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State at the time, wrote in his recently released memoirs, “I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019. The truth is, I don’t know precisely the answer either; I just know it was too close.”

It was thus surprising to hear the IAF Chief claim at a seminar on Tuesday that “Operations like Balakot have also demonstrated that given the political will, aerospace power can be effectively used in a ‘no war, no peace’ scenario under a nuclear overhang without escalating into a full-blown conflict.” Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari went on to argue, “The response options available to the leadership have suddenly increased, and increasingly, air power has become an option of choice due to inherent flexibility and unmatched precision strike capability.”

The Air Chief’s rationale is not hard to understand. He is trying to secure the IAF’s role in an environment in which the national focus is increasingly on the challenges on the land borders and there is a fear of the IAF being marginalised by the proposed theaterisation of the armed forces. However, he may be guilty of drawing the wrong lessons from Balakot – the facts belie his assertions about controlling the escalation ladder.

The next crisis will not necessarily be a replay of Balakot. Imagine if the IAF pilot had suffered grave wounds and died in Pakistani custody, or an Indian missile had been fired accidently into Pakistan -- last year, a Brahmos missile was indeed fired accidentally during an inspection and it landed in Pakistan, although without a warhead and short of a Pakistani airbase. In the fog of war, the chances of an accident are even higher. That is indeed how the IAF shot down its own Mi-17.

As Pompeo writes, the two countries were “too close” to a “nuclear conflagration” after Balakot, and the US had to “convince each side that the other was not preparing for nuclear war”. This was possible because the two countries were willing to listen to the US then. At a time when the US has quit Afghanistan and has minimal engagement with Pakistan, it may not have the same leverage in Islamabad. Under the current geopolitical environment, Beijing could have a different view of things, and its influence over Pakistan will be a magnitude higher than that of the US.

The political and economic instability in Pakistan now makes the situation riskier. If Pakistan is incapable of generating resources for a limited conventional fight, its threshold for exercising the nuclear option could be much lower than what it was in 2019. A lack of serious political or diplomatic engagement with Pakistan, notwithstanding the back-channel run by NSA Ajit Doval, makes the situation more uncertain and complex.

Air power may be an option of choice, but the decision will be that of the political leadership. Especially when it takes even technical decisions for the IAF. In 2019, as PM Modi explained in a television interview, it was his decision to “take advantage” of the cloud cover and rain that decided the IAF’s timing of the operation: “Toh maine kaha itne cloud hai, baarish ho rahi hai…toh ek benefit hai, ke hum radar se bachh sakte hain...Then ultimately maine kaha..theek hai.. cloud hai…jaaiye…Chal pade (So I said it is very cloudy, it is raining…there is a benefit, we can evade radar…then ultimately, I said, fine, it is cloudy, go. And they did)”.

PM Modi is right about taking benefit. Balakot was certainly beneficial. As Malik said, for Modi’s re-election in 2019.