The right lessons from Pulwama and Balakot

Context: Recently, Pakistan’s Opposition MP, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, alleged that the PTI government released the captured Indian fighter pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman due to fear of an imminent missile strike from India.

Background

• On 14 February 2019, the suicide car bomb blast in Pulwama led to the death of 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel.
• Avenging this, the Indian Air Force (IAF) targeted a seminary at Balakot in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan what is known as Balakot strike.
• The Pakistan Air Force attempted its counter attack the next day morning in Jammu and Kashmir, and in the ensuing aerial combat, Wg. Cdr. Abhinandan was captured by the Pakistan military.
• Later, Wg. Cdr. Abhinandan was released by Pakistan as a peace gesture.

What are the lessons from Pulwama and Balakot?

Pulwama attack

• Even, after the National Investigation Agency filed a 13,800-page charge sheet in August certain Questions have not been answered satisfactorily.
• The responsibility for the intelligence failure, violation of standard operating procedures by security forces and the possible involvement of disgraced Jammu and Kashmir police officer, Davinder Singh, remain unexamined.

Balakot Strike:

• The performance of the IAF has been seen with scepticism in most western capitals. For example, the IAF claims to have shot down a Pakistan Air Force F-16 fighter jet was not accepted.
• There were many questions damaging the professional image of IAF such as whether IAF were able to strike the designated targets, asking for providing proof of the destruction caused by IAF etc.
• For, all the questions and scepticism raised, the IAF didn’t have a convincing answer.
• Also, the fact remains that the IAF has lost a fighter aircraft and the pilot ended in Pakistani custody. That day, the IAF also shot down its own helicopter in friendly fire, close to Srinagar.
• The IAF has behaved in a partisan manner by preventing any media reportage of the incident before the Lok Sabha elections were over.
• In a healthy democracy, apolitical armed forces are supposed to follow the elected government’s lawful orders but do not work to further the partisan aims of the ruling party.
• This would set a wrong precedent for the armed forces and its senior leadership unless corrected.
• Also, neither the surgical strike of 2016 nor the Balakot air strike have infused deterrence in the Kashmiri hinterland or on the LoC, as evident from the senior Indian Army officers regularly claiming that Pakistan has hundreds of militants ready to be pushed across the Line of Control (LoC) at launchpads.
• In recent years, the institutions like Parliament, the judiciary and the media has earned a lot of attention, while the scholars have been shy of making enquiries about the conduct of the armed forces, an institution even more critical to the health of Indian democracy.

State, Non-State Actors and Security