Though many defense and security analysts in this country opine that India should go ahead with a Geronimo like surgical raid in Pakistan to eliminate the masterminds of 26/11, for all practical purposes this doesn't seem a viable option at all given the geopolitical location of India. Moreover, India doesn't have the capability, including technical and human, to carry out a warfare what SEAL team could able to execute with extreme precision.
The worst fear that grips the leaders of this country is that the immediate fallout of this operation could escalate to a nuclear war, which could be potentially disastrous for India. Their fear psychosis is valid. However, that doesn't stop us to weigh out other viable options apart from diplomatic bargaining and political dialogues which have yielded any results in all these years.
On the contrary, what India can do on a quid pro quo basis is to execute a covert intelligence operation to eliminate the most wanted terrorists on the Pakistan soil. But the inherent problem here is that our external intelligence wing RAW is more driven by the political interests than the national interests. Over a decade and half, specifically after Narsimha Rao regime, RAW has drastically curtailed its covert operations outside India and for that the political masters of this country are responsible. As a result, the incidence of terrorists attacks in India has increased manifold.
Now the fact of the matter is that to carry out any advance counter-intelligence operations outside the country, the agencies should be given enough space for independent decision making, which could be possible only when RAW or IB will operate independently without political interference. Furthermore, the political think-tank of this country needs a complete transformation vis-a-vis the emerging global dynamics on multi-lateral fronts.
Political dialogue is one of the most ancient methods that kings and emperors practiced to engage them in regional peace process and that worked well because the parameters for complexity of situation were limited; however, in the 21st century world, the complexities of today's problem are far beyond the ones those were supposedly prevailing during 500-1000 years before. We have also noticed that during last two governments – NDA and UPA – political dialogues have hardly been effective in establishing a peace process across the region, primarily because in both the cases our prime ministers have initiated it as a personal political aggrandizement rather than considering the core national interests. And this time again, if Dr. Manmohan Singh is making some efforts to move forward on peace dialogues, the results could be unyielding because the current political scenario in Pakistan, in the aftermath of Geronimo, is quite hostile and unstable, and the internal pressures from the public there are mounting high on both the civilian and military leadership to get the truth behind the America's surgical raid.
Given the unstable political situation in Pakistan, a peace dialogue process is just another off-target approach. Neither will India politically benefit from this in long run nor the citizens of this country will get justice for the 26/11 terrorist attack. However, a covert intelligence operation to eliminate the most wanted terrorists from Pakistan soil can be successfully carried out, if the political leaderships of India collectively converge to execute certain decisive actions, at least in favour of national interest.
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