India must respond without risking military escalation

In its last tenure in power, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government put in place a strategy for conflict resolution in Kashmir predicated on the abolishing of Article 370. It has since conducted elections in the Union Territory (UT) under the Supreme Court’s nudging, with its promise of a return to statehood in good time still pending.

The April 22 terror attack near Pahalgam, accounting for 26 lives, mainly of tourists, is evidence that the strategy is a work in progress.

Consequently, while measures such as enforcing accountability for any security lapse are put in place internally within the security apparatus, the government would do well to persist with the strategy without deflection.

Such terror instances must surely have been anticipated and the response contingencies worked out prior. The response would likely be to restore deterrence, to the extent that the terror strike demonstrates a certain dilution in it.

The strategy prong in regard to deterrence has been the bold conduct of surgical strikes. It is not impossible to visualise a retributive surgical strike, to restore deterrence.

Such a strike could range from visible military action along the Line of Control (LoC) or the Pakistani mainland to a covert, intelligence agency-conducted operation at the origin of terror.

Alongside, escalation control measures would need to be in place, which include pre-emptive military posturing to dispel any notion in Pakistan for escalation on its part.

Since the national mood is outraged, a cool-headed approach would be required so that neither the terrorist action nor the bellicosity of the mob influences decision-making unduly.

On this score, a preconceived perception management line of action for such contingencies would need to kick in early. Transparency within, including through a line to the opposition to manage its expectations, without compromising security, might be necessary.

It is possible that Pakistani handlers may have unleashed this terror action to get even over — in its perception — an Indian hand in the recent terror attack on a train by Baloch separatists.

It is apparent from the recent inflammatory speech to a diaspora audience by the Pakistan army chief that the Pakistan army is rather embarrassed by its sustaining a body blow from its domestic terrorists. Consequently, it has activated what it might believe is its response.

However, in order that the cycle does not acquire a momentum of its own, any Indian retaliatory action may be supplemented by a below-the-radar reaching out through existing subterranean intelligence circuits to Pakistan to caution it against getting into a self-sustaining tit-for-tat loop.

Diplomatically, while rhetoric may be deployed to play to respective domestic audiences by both sides, the professional channels must be worked to the extent they can — truncated as these have been for over five years without high commissioners in place — to sotto voce sensitise Pakistan to its vulnerable underbelly.

Managing the external environment would also be significant, since the terror attack was timed with not only the visit of the US Vice President J D Vance to India but also Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Saudi Arabia.

Given the terror hallmarks of the incident, the global opinion would be behind any Indian response. But foreign capitals would likely also encourage caution against falling prey to the design of terrorists out to generate an India-Pakistan crisis to draw attention to Kashmir as a festering problem.

In the event, Modi cut short his visit to take stock back in New Delhi, having sent Home Minister Amit Shah to manage the response on the ground.

While the resulting stock-taking might eventuate in a measured retribution, the political leadership would do well to acknowledge the pressures on decision makers in crisis situations and avoid resulting pitfalls.

Under the circumstances, single-mindedness in following through with the conflict resolution strategy the government has long been embarked on is sorely on test.

The government must stay the course and not be waylaid by a group of terrorists or their handlers out to throw a spanner in the works.

Any posturing or grandstanding can be as per the dictates of perception management, but must not be at the cost of strategic rationality. Such a remorselessly steady hand at the rudder will be its own dampener for any future acts of terror.

Strategic felicity lies in turning the incident into an opportunity.

The terrorists have directly hit the means of livelihood of Kashmiris: the tourism sector and its subset, pilgrimage. Taking advantage of their misstep, in tandem with the UT government, the Centre must retrieve psychological ground.

There is no denying that terrorism has been simmering in Kashmir. It can potentially upturn India's economic trajectory, through an India-Pakistan military faceoff, and aggravate social divides elsewhere in India. Those wishing for such an outcome must be denied it with sagacious handling of such provocation. 

The Centre’s trump card — restoration of statehood — can be deftly pulled out and launched with plausible benchmarks and a discernible timeline as culmination of its conflict resolution strategy.

(Ali Ahmed is a former infantryman, academic, and international civil servant)