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Fifteen Years of Pakistan's Proxy War
Should the Kashmiris dare to hope?
Brig. (r) Gurmeet Kanwal
Since end-1989, Pakistan has been waging a ‘proxy war’ against India in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). It has done this by aiding and abetting disaffected and misguided youth to rise against the Indian state. Despite the one year old ceasefire on the LoC and the recent rapprochement, Pakistan continues to surreptitiously practice its peculiar brand of state-sponsored terrorism. This is borne out by the continuing attempts at infiltration and the number of incidents of violence in Kashmir during 2004.
Pakistan’s official position has always been that it provides only diplomatic, political and moral support to ‘freedom fighters’. However, it is now internationally accepted that the Pakistan army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate have been providing military training, weapons, military equipment, ammunition and explosives to the terrorists, besides financial support. The ISI spends approximately Rs 5 to 10 crores per month for its proxy war campaign. Till the present ceasefire came into effect, the Pakistan army actively supported terrorist bids to infiltrate into J&K by engaging Indian posts along the routes of infiltration with artillery and small arms fire.
In the first few years of militancy in Kashmir Valley, up to 1992-93, the militants had received local sympathy due to the Kashmiri people's perceived grievances against the Indian state. However, it was never a grass-roots movement and the Kashmiri people were soon disillusioned by the brutal and un-Islamic terror-tactics of the so-called mujahideen. The leadership soon passed into the hands of international mercenary terrorists from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Turkey and even Bosnia. They had anything but Jehad on their minds. They exploited the power of the Kalashnikov to indulge in extortion, drinking orgies,
womanizing, forced weddings and even rape.
The systematic ethnic cleansing carried out at the behest of the ISI resulted in the forced migration of almost the entire Hindu population out of the Kashmir Valley into the Jammu region and other parts of India. As this was contrary to Kashmir’s Sufi culture, the activities of the mercenaries caused immense resentment among the people and gradually the recruitment base of Kashmiri militants dried up completely. Also, concerted counter-insurgency operations conducted by the Indian army and the other security forces, based on the increasing availability of real-time ‘actionable’ intelligence from the Kashmiri people, decimated the militants and brought the internal security situation under control by 1995-96.
Frustrated in their efforts to create a popular uprising in Kashmir, the Pakistan Army-ISI-Jaamat-e-Islami combine then evolved a plan to enlarge the area of militancy to other parts of J&K. In the summer months of 1996, a new phase of Pak-sponsored terrorism began in the Jammu Division of J&K. In a series of brutal massacres at Barshala, Parankot, Hinjan Gali, Surankot, Phagla, Chapnari, Horna, Kalaban, Chandi and Sailan, foreign mercenaries targeted the minority Hindu population with a view to de-stabilise the hitherto quiet areas of Doda, Punch, Rajauri and Udhampur south of the Pir Panjal Range. The aim was to create an ethnic divide so as to trigger an exodus of the Hindu population from these areas too. However, this diabolical attempt to change the demographic pattern of J&K through terror-tactics was quickly thwarted by the people and the ssecurity forces.
By mid-1998, the security forces were in complete control of the situation in J&K and the state was rapidly returning to normal. Tourism was flourishing, industrial activity was gaining momentum, schools and colleges were once again opening up and political activity was being gradually revived. On the other hand, the Pakistan army and ISI were becoming increasingly frustrated. In a last ditch attempt to re-kindle the almost dead embers of militancy, the ISI pushed in a large number of regular soldiers under the guise of Kashmiri militants into the Kargil sector of J&K during the spring of 1999. This resulted in the Kargil conflict in which the Indian army fought relentlessly to push the intruders back across the LoC.
Up to November 2004, 18,203 terrorists had been killed by the army in J&K and over 25,000 had been apprehended or had surrendered. Of these, over 6,000 were foreign mercenary terrorists. Approximately 27,000 assault rifles and an equal number of assorted weapons had been recovered from the terrorists, besides almost a million rounds of ammunition. Weapons in these huge quantities could not have been smuggled into J&K without concerted efforts of the Pakistan army and ISI. (These figures do not include the tally of the Border security Force (BSF), the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and other central and state government security forces operating in J&K.) In a decade and a half, terrorism has claimed the lives of almost 30,000 innocent civilians and several thousand security forces personnel and rendered about 3,00,000 persons homeless. The loss to public and private property has been estimated at Rs 2,500 crores. India has indeed paid a heavy price for Pakistan’s proxy war.
Throughout this prolonged period of proxy war, India has shown tremendous restraint and immense tolerance in the face of grave provocation to its security. It is inconceivable that any other nation would have acted with the sense of responsibility that India has in not launching trans-LoC operations to eliminate militant training camps and interdict known routes of infiltration. Despite the provocation, the Indian leadership took political risks to hold out an olive branch to the military rulers of Pakistan to usher in an era of peace and stability on the Indian Sub-continent.
However, Pakistan’s military leadership has responded only half-heartedly to several Indian proposals and unilateral concessions. The composite dialogue process is showing signs of slowing down and may eventually amount to just another failed initiative in the long history of bitterness and strife between the two nations. Clearly, unless the Pakistan army and ISI are willing to accept the reality of changed circumstances, India and Pakistan will remain at loggerheads for many years to come. And, blood will continue to mingle with the waters of the Jhelum and other Kashmiri rivers.
(The author is Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.)
(Comments at: gurmeetkanwal@gmail.com)
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