After the bomb blast outside J&K Assembly Gen. Musharraf said: 

However in his January 12^th speech the same Musharraf banned the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed and for the first time made no distinction between terrorism and ‘‘freedom struggle,’’ and said what so far has been the unspeakable, 

" terrorism has no place in the Kashmir cause". 

By June 2002, General Musharraf was making further pledges to end infiltration and cross-border terrorism. What happened between Agra summit and June 2002 that made the General Musharraf, the Butcher of Kargil, change his mind?

Tragically it was not September11 and not the loss of innocent lives at J&K Assembly blasts or the attack on the Parliament that touched General Musharraf’s heart. Instead it was the clear message sent by Indian leadership that India will no longer be soft towards Pakistani sponsored terrorism that finally caught his ears. It was impossible for Gen. Musharraf to ignore the fact that India deployed more than half of its military at the borders with Pakistan.

This “deployment” is subject to considerable criticism by conservatives and liberals in public debates in India. The conservatives argued that the deployment was not doing enough to end cross-border terrorism (CBT). The liberals argued that the deployment had raised the tenor of conflict in the subcontinent making any resolution of outstanding issues with Pakistan impossible. This criticism doubled in volume when the Government of India decided to de-escalate and remove the forces from the high-alert (Readiness Condition-REDCON 5) posture. The conservatives now accused the Government of backing down and appeasing the Western backed dictator of Pakistan, Gen. Musharraf. The liberals neatly blamed the Government for conducting an expensive political drama with no gains. Given the secrecy surrounding the actual events there was no direct way to verify the projections of these two communities and all manner of chicken-and-earguments fill the air.

2        Know thy Enemy - The deployment by India was one of its largest and the resolve was transparent to be seen by the enemy. India’s deployment was matched by Pakistan and it was first time after 1971 both the armies were facing each other at such a large scale. India’s UAVs and satellites captured the entire Pakistani deployment. India’s strategic services analyzed the Pakistani posture. As a result the Indian analysts got an excellent idea of how the enemy will react in future in case of war. In short the enemy’s war book was made public. This was not the only gain. For the bulk of the past two decades Indian security analysts have predicted that a large irregular `Army of Islam’ would emerge from within the folds of Pakistani society to bolster any weak spots in the Pakistani defence perimeter. This prediction turned out to be true, by carefully examining the pattern of new unit-raisings and the recruitment drives in certain areas, the shape and form of this hitherto invisible `Army of Islam’ is directly seen as of today. Of course in true Pakistani style, General Musharraf boasted about the existence of an irregular army of about 150,000 Jihadis who could be called upon to fight for Pakistan. This was music to the ears of India’s intelligence agencies as it firmed up their estimates of the gross size of this `secret army’.

3        Cost of War - Pakistan put a price of USD 600 Million in cash to support US in its War on Terrorism. Subsequent US aid packages have funneled billions into the Pakistani economy. All of this money would have been used by Pakistan to buy arms for its military and pay terrorists to conduct terrorism in J&K. However the deployment of its Army cost quite a bit and that means what was supposed to be used for buying arms or creating terror was used just for deployment. This goes a long way in maintaining the present balance of military advantage in India’s favor.

4        Exposing Nuclear Blackmail - The Pakistani reaction to this arm-twisting by India was to resort to nuclear blackmail. Editorials in leading dailies like the Nation, the Dawn and the Jang, warned India of a `South Asian Nuclear Holocaust’ that would follow any attempt by India to conventionally attack Pakistan. Some analysts regarded this as posturing, however this was precisely the kind of posturing that was unwelcome at the time. At the time Pakistan was busy flaunting its "Nuclear Armed and Islamist" status in a bid to scare India, Western planners were busy drawing up contingency plans for a possible WMD attack on a western city by Al-Qaeeda terrorists, the very same terrorists that had been trained by the Pakistan Army.  Thus the Pakistani nuclear show-off was regarded as unwelcome. When the Pakistani representative to the UN made explicit nuclear threats in a fiery speech, he was greeted with a grim silence from western representatives but soon a strong international reaction followed, and the next day, a chastised General Musharraf was busy giving interviews denying he has ever made nuclear threats. Some analysts attribute this sudden change in public utterances to international pressure succeeding in getting a tight grip on Pakistan’s "crown jewels", but this point is in debate. What is not in debate is that the deployment forced Pakistani nuclear blackmail into the open. 

5        Splitting Allah and Army - India has always made its clear that she is not interested in any real estate in the Land of Pure (Pakistan) and is interested in stopping the terrorism supported by Pakistan. In the event of a war fought below the nuclear threshold, India could have destroyed some terrorist training camps, taken some POWs and some land, which would have probably been traded in the ensuing ceasefire. In that event India would have won the war but this would in principle have brought the Pakistan’s army and Jehadi terror syndicates closer together. The deployment forced the highest Jehadi General Musharraf to sing on of his top of the voice that "Pakistan’s territory will not be used to promote terrorism in Kashmir". In the Army controlled English language press, editorials simultaneously lambasted the failures of the Afghanistan and Pakistan policy, each time the blame was laid on the `uneducated Mullahs’. The vernacular dailies on the other hand repeatedly carried statements of the leaders of the various Islamist groups, all of which denounced General Musharraf’s decisions to simultaneously scale back the Jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The sheer size of these disagreements forced General Musharraf to lament in an interview to Defence Journal Editor Ikram Sehgal, " Civil War (in Pakistan) is quite likely".

6        Wounding the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) - After the December 13^th attack on the parliament, the Govt. of India repeatedly made a public connection between the deployment and the status of Pakistani supported terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed. This brought a lot of publicity to the activities of these groups and their links to the Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeeda. This publicity forced the US Government to take notice of these organizations. Eventually Gen. Musharraf as a measure of his commitment to ending sponsored terrorism in India, had to ban LeT, JeM and arrest its members. He also had to order his intelligence service, the ISI to stop providing crucial support to their operations. The vast networks of seventeen or so clandestine radio stations run by the ISI, which operate the logistics of the Kashmir Jihad, were shut down. This was a major set back to the LeT and the JeM, as Indian security forces moved quickly to physically exterminate several of the now disoriented terrorist cells. The LeT and the JeM have strong ties to the community in Pakistan’s heartland of Punjab. Several leaders of these groups are well respected in Pakistani society. Before the deployment it would have been unimaginable to spurn these people in so public a fashion. The idea that a `jihad’ against ‘‘poverty, intolerance and illiteracy” would take precedence over the Jihad against the Kafirs was considered implausible. The lack of brotherly love from the Pakistani Army is making the LeT and the JeM very uncomfortable. Though the Pakistani Army still continues to fund these organizations under a different name, the continuation of the funds now remains openly in doubt. The burden of the split between Allah and Army mentioned earlier was physically borne by the LeT and JeM. This would not have been possible if India had not publicly linked the deployment to the fate of these two groups.

7        Rise of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)- The discontent mentioned earlier forced the overt politicization of the “Army of Islam”. The MMA initially rose to prominence after the Pakistan Afghanistan Defence Council; an alliance formed in Pakistan to help the Taliban fight the US forces needed a nodal political body to operate. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal became that nodal body. The MMA argued that the jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir were central to the existence of Pakistan. It openly supported both these Jihads, in effect publicly linking them for the first time. Though the MMA failed to significantly impact the fall of the Taliban or `official’ cessation of the Jihad in Kashmir, it did offer a political platform for those Pakistanis who had participated in these Jihads and now felt betrayed by their government. Today both the Pakistani Taliban and the Kashmiri Jihadis seek shelter under the MMA’s umbrella. The statements emanating from the MMA camp are sufficient to raise international eyebrows and after September 11, the international community community’s tolerance for such ideas is shrinking fast. The fact that statements supporting Osama Bin Laden’s international Jihad against the West and the Jihad in Kashmir against India are now emerging from the same source will be hard to ignore.  

8        Permanent end to CBT in sight? - The Government of India had repeatedly raised the issue of infiltration of terrorists across the line of control (LoC). This demand never received the slightest bit of attention from the West. After securing a pledge from General Musharraf to stop supporting terrorists on Pakistani soil, Govt. of India quickly readjusted focus to the issue of infiltration across the LoC. Gen. Musharraf was reluctant to present measurable commitments on the issue of infiltration. However the deployment had palpably raised the tension in the subcontinent, by making the impossible seem very plausible. Nowhere was this more in evidence when the US Govt. and the Pakistanis mistook a routine movement of Lt. Gen. Kapil Vij’s 2^nd Strike Corps for an impending attack on the super-strategic node at the town of Rahim Yar Khan in central Pakistan. Similar events occurred again in April and May 2002. This apparent degradation in the situation convinced the US Government to lean on the Pakistanis to make public commitments to ending infiltration of terrorists across the line of control. From the Indian perspective this was an important outcome. This ensured that Musharraf would not simply offload what terrorists he had left in one mad rush through the LoC. The US Government also indicated that it wanted the same pattern to hold over the longer run. To India this means that the International community has now recognized that the terrorism in Kashmir was clearly supported by Pakistan Army and the decrease in terrorism in Kashmir will signal that Pakistan has abandoned its historical position. Further it was clear to everyone that mattered that elections in Kashmir were a first step towards greater peace and reconciliation.

9        J&K Elections - Having inculcated a deeper understanding in the International community that India is victim of terrorism supported by Pakistan and the only option to Kashmir issue is to support elections under the framework of the Indian Constitution. The Govt. of India proceeded to set in motion the machinery of elections in J&K. Here too the deployment acted as a check against Pakistani interference in the electoral process. Publicly General Musharraf and the Islamist terror syndicated denounced the elections. Their proxies in J&K clung to every word from Islamabad and brutally murdered several candidates, polling officers and voters. Several Kashmir groups in league with Pakistan banned voting in their area of operations. Despite all the public fury on part of the Pakistanis, the Indian deployment tempered any enthusiasm for adventurism. The Pakistani terrorist cells in Jammu and Kashmir operated on reduced materiel support, and could not mount as many operations as they would have liked to, their bans failed to be as effective. This openly was instrumental in conducting free and fair elections in J&K.

10    Enforcing Bilateralism- It was always a Pakistani strategy to ask for international mediation and therefore avoid solving any issues on a bilateral basis. The deployment turned this Pakistani strategy on its head. Straddled between rising commitments to the Global War on Terror and a possible Indian invasion, the Pakistanis were now forced to run to the international community begging for support. The Pakistanis however were quite stunned to be told that any negotiation on the issue of J&K would have to proceed as per the Shimla Accord of 1972. This is a major slap in the face of the Pakistanis. The Shimla Accord of 1972 was signed when Pakistan was on its back, having been decked by India in the War of Liberation of Bangladesh. Most of the top Pakistani policymakers today were soldiers in that war. Some were even made POWs by the Indian Army. The memory of this conflict causes them intense pain, as they recall fallen comrades and a national humiliation. To have to be told to negotiate with India under those terms is extremely demeaning. However the scale of Indian deployment ensured that the parallel between 2001 and 1971 was explicit to even Western observers.

11    International Expectations - The deployment and the attendant palpitation placed great strain on Western policymakers. Several members of this powerful clique had to make hasty trips to region, shuttling in the sweltering heat between Islamabad and New Delhi, all the while wondering if their airplane would hit by a misguided SAM or their convoy bombed by some “Al-Qaeeda” terrorist. This was quite a change of pace for most of these people who are more accustomed to the air-conditioned halls of Red Lion Pub in London or the comfortable dining in the Caucus Room in Washington DC. The West appeared to tire of Pakistan’s permissive policy on terrorism. Richard Armitage best summed this up when he said,

12    A Practice Run - The deployment has made Indian planners test India’s war preparedness and take some corrective actions. A vast amount of training exercises were undertaken and several new doctrinal issues explored. The deployment also gave massive impetus to several key defence acquisitions and structural changes like the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), the Integrated Defence Staff, and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). During the exercises conducted in the deployment period, several new paradigms of force integration were tested. Equally impressive were the Civil Defence drills and the emergency response improvements. This bodes well for any future conflicts.  When the real thing comes they can now better defend the country against the evil designs of terrorists and the Pakistani Army.

It’s very clear from the above that the deployment was timely, useful and achieved its political, economic, social and military objectives. Conservatives argue that terrorism still continues in Kashmir and that there is no guarantee that the future leadership of Pakistan or for that matter General Musharraf doesn’t reverse the commitments made by him. The author feels it is equally unlikely that a limited war (as no-one in his right mind would advocate an all out nuclear war) would have stopped the line of thinking which is prevailing in Pakistan’s Army and Mullahs. The author strongly feels the limited war would have hardened their stance, perhaps encouraging them to conduct more such acts in other parts of India. Liberals have stated that the deployment was incapable of producing any grounds for conflict resolution with the Pakistanis. An examination of the facts shows this to be quite untrue. The deployment forced the Pakistanis to consider what was most dear to them, i.e. their lives. What is required at this time to end terrorism is change in line of thinking in the Pakistan society. At this stage discussions in Pakistan weigh any gains in supporting terrorism in Kashmir against the immediate the cost to Pakistan. The realization that terrorism tarnishes the image of Pakistan is growing. The understanding that terrorism does not alleviate the poverty and unemployment prevailing in Pakistan, much less get them any parts of Jammu and Kashmir is slowly emerging. The heady days of the past when a provocative and adventurist foreign policy could be carried out without thought to the consequences are gone. This has created a common floor any future discussions with Pakistan. India on the other hand still retains the option of war, as means to coerce the Pakistanis to live up to their commitments. It is no wonder that this subtle strategy evokes visions among Pakistani analysts of the  “Chankian Earthashatter” (sic) of yore.