Tread carefully

Tread carefully

The beheading of Paramjit Singh of the Indian Army and Prem Sagar of the Border Security Force by the Pakistani Border Action Team, is a barbaric act. The mutilation of bodies on the battlefield has been universally recognised as a war crime since the middle of the last century, and is prohibited under the 1949 Geneva Conventions. It is punishable under international law. The revulsion provoked by such cruelty stems from the respect professional soldiers have for each other, even if they are on opposing sides, their understanding of military necessity, and the rules of engagement. The Pakistan Army has denied that its soldiers have committed the atrocity, but there is little scope at the LoC for a whodunit. Nor is it the first time an Indian soldier has been beheaded at the LoC. Defence Minister Arun Jaitley has said India will give an “appropriate response”, but there is no denying that the incident comes at an extremely fraught moment for India.
The unrest in Kashmir, which erupted last July, has shown every sign of worsening. The NDA government’s message, that there will be no softening in the Centre’s approach until the terrorism and violence stop, has not led to a decrease in the number of incidents. New Delhi’s diplomacy with Pakistan is also at a dead end, a victim of red lines drawn by the government here, and in Pakistan, by the Pakistan Army around the Nawaz Sharif government. Indeed, the Sharif government is probably at its weakest in this moment, with the Pakistan Supreme Court order for an investigation into the Prime Minister’s family fortunes. For Sharif, who is on the defensive, bettering India-Pakistan ties is not the top priority.
As it deliberates on how to respond to the treatment meted out to the Indian security personnel by the Pakistan Army, there is a clamour that the government match its post-Uri response. But if India’s publicly declared “surgical strike” in PoK soon after the September 2016 attack was meant to tell the country that it could “teach Pakistan a lesson” as compared to the previous UPA government, the limitations of such a tactic have become evident over the months. The surgical strike did not secure the LoC. In 2016, the Army lost 60 soldiers until December 15 — twice the number in 2014 and 2015 — to terrorist attacks, Pakistan BAT operations, ceasefire violations and anti-terror operations in Kashmir, many of them after September. The casualties have continued in 2017. At the same time, public expectations of a tough reaction have gone up. India’s response must acknowledge that there are competing interests and that the stakes are high.