By Jamal Hussain::
[[[The title of the article has been inspired by the brilliant novel ‘And Quiet Flows the Don,’ by the Russian writer Mikhail A. Sholokhov and is a rough translation of the Urdu idiom ‘Ulti Ganga Behti Hai,’ which alludes to an anomalous statement of events or to go against the tide. The current controversy of the Indian claim of a surgical strike inside Pakistan and Pakistan’s vehement denial that no such aggression occurred fits the Urdu idiom like the proverbial glove.
Consider the following: throughout the turbulent history of Pakistan and India, short of war when one side accused the other of major or minor border violation, the accused invariably issued a firm denial. In the post Uri attack, India proclaims it has conducted an effective surgical strike across the Line of Control, the de facto border between Azad Kashmir and the Indian held Kashmir (IHK) in a night raid between 27th and 28th September, 2016. Pakistan maintains that no such strike took place but does concede heavy exchange of artillery fire between the two across the LOC, which is a fairly common occurrence specifically since the past couple of years. What a turnaround of events and why this sudden reversal, one wonders.
Initially the official Indian version of the event was very sketchy and even to date, the details of how the mission unfolded its achievements, casualties inflicted on the enemy and suffered by the raiding team have not been clearly spelt out. The requests by the Indian media to display necessary proofs of the attack have been brushed off by the Indian military with a terse response that these will be revealed at the appropriate moment. Even after a week, the appropriate moment has yet to arrive while the Indian and the international media are still waiting with bated breath.
There are too many loopholes in the official Indian version; loopholes that have been exposed by Pakistan, foreign press and even by quite a few in the Indian print and electronic media. There is no need to further belabor the point except to point out that what actually took place on the night of 27th and 28th September, was not a surgical strike but an attempted punitive raid across the LOC. Pakistan has admitted to two deaths and seven injured on its side and claims the aggressors were spotted in time, engaged and forced to flee and an unspecified number of the intruders were killed in the process. India on the other hand maintains that the raiding party made it to the target and after eliminating the terrorists who had assembled in the training camps returned home unscathed.
Assuming for the sake of argument that Pakistan sponsored terror camps exist in Azad Kashmir, why would these be established so close to the LOC, is a query that has no answer unless either the Indians are lying or the Pakistanis are morons. If the raiders had actually infiltrated undetected and reached the so called terror camps within 500 meters of the very hostile LOC and killed all those assembled there, surely the team must have snapped pictures and made videos of their heroic deed. Where the pictures and videos are, is the question the Indians have themselves posed only to be told to wait for the appropriate time. The appropriate time has long gone past and any video of dead terrorists that the Indian military may produce now will be looked at with utter suspicion by all, including the Indians. The question, therefore, is not so much of what happened but what force the Modi government to employ such a hair brained scheme.
The Uri massacre is a reality and the killing of 18 Indian military men (some believe the number is much higher) is something that cannot be ignored. The Indian government led by Narendra Modi has squarely blamed the state of Pakistan for the attack even before the smoke had cleared and continues to maintain the stance without providing any substantial credible evidence to show the attackers had infiltrated from across the western border; and assuming they had, they were sponsored by the Pakistani government. The anti-Pakistan vitriolic spewed by Modi and his ministers was picked up by the Indian media, especially the electronic media where Pakistan bashing reached a crescendo. The Indian public led by the RSS, which is the military wing of the BJP, the party Modi heads as the Indian Prime Minister, was baying for the Pakistani blood to avenge the killing of their soldiers. Modi had unleashed a monster that could threaten his very power base unless it was appeased.
As reports emanating from India suggest, Modi held a detailed meeting with his top military commanders on the available military options that could be exercised against Pakistan. Given the nuclear overhang, any major military offensive was ruled out. Even the mission objectives as envisaged in the Indian Cold Start doctrine were considered too risky because of the development and induction of tactical nuclear weapons by Pakistan. A raid within a kilometer of two across the LOC by a small team of commandos was an option that could be exercised without any serious risk of escalation, was perhaps the only option put on the table by the Indian military.
Finding a suitable target that could be engaged without facing much resistance must have been the next dilemma and perhaps this was resolved by selecting a small civilian village or hamlet very close to the LOC – a number of such dwellings are known exist within a kilometer at least on the Pakistani side of the LOC. The plan, therefore, was to infiltrate the raid party under cover of darkness and artillery fire whose task was to make it to the selected target, kill all the dwellers there, make necessary videos of those killed and agress back to base. The mission could then be projected as a surgical strike that had struck a terror camp inside Pakistan and eliminated the terrorists assembled there. This bold attack would be in sync with the much touted US led Global War on terror (GWT) and welcomed by the international media. Pakistan in the process would be humiliated, taught a lesson and the Uri murder would avenged to the satisfaction of the Indian public, or so it was hypothesized.
Unfortunately, things went awry when the raiders were spotted as they entered the no man’s land; they were engaged and in the firefight both sides suffered causalities. From the details made available so far it appears the Indian commandos had to make a hasty retreat to their side of the LOC without reaching their objective. Besides the report of half a dozen or more bodies seen lying in the no man’s land, the absence of any video supporting the Indian claims support such a hypothesis. Given the available evidences released so far from both sides, this appears to be the only plausible explanation that connects the dots – or the Indians come up with a more believable version of events.
In the American film ‘Life of Pi,’ the young Indian Piscine Molitor nicknamed Pi was the lone survivor of a Japanese shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean. After being adrift in a small lifeboat for weeks he eventually made it to the Mexican coast. He is rescued and brought to a hospital. Insurance agents for the Japanese freighter company interview him, but do not believe his story of an orangutan, a zebra, a spotted hyena and a full grown male Royal Bengal tiger called Richard Parker being a part of the rescue lifeboat with him. The spotted Hyena according to PI kills the orangutan and the Zebra before Richard Parker the tiger kills it leaving Pi and the tiger Richard Parker to survive the ordeal. The agents ask Pi to tell them what “really” happened. He tells a different story, in which the animals are replaced by human survivors of the shipwreck; his mother for the orangutan, an amiable sailor for the zebra, and the ship’s brutish cook for the hyena” – the tiger Richard Parker being Pi himself. In this story, Pi kills the cook and feeds on his flesh until he reaches Mexico. Perhaps the Indian military can take a leaf out of the young fictional Piscine Molitor aka Pi and tell the world the true story of what actually happened during the fateful night instead of spinning a fairy tale, from their viewpoint, of fantasy.
