surgical strike 2.

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In retrospect: the 26th Feb 2019 attack and beyond

Ram Iyer | March 01, 2019

I
am an ordinary citizen. And as an ordinary citizen of a country
that hates terror attacks, and personally holding the same stand as my
country, I was upset and immensely angry on the 14th of February 2019,
when forty crpf jawans got killed in a terror attack. The terror outfit, Jaish-
e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for the strike. I was upset that India’s
September 2016 strike on terror camps in Pakistan hadn’t borne fruit—
that the terrorists hadn’t received the message the right way. The first
thought that crossed my mind was the wish that our intelligence find
Masood Azhar and our defence castrate him in public, after which, any
citizen who liked to kick him in the gut, was allowed to.
On the 26th , I woke up to the piece of news that a dozen Mirage 2000
aircrafts of Indian Air Force had entered Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and
bombed a region, destroying a terror camp of JeM. I was ecstatic. Why? In
a little bit. But of course, none of this is a “political” or “defence” analysis.
This is just what a common Indian citizen knows and understands.
It was fantastic news. What I had read at the time was that twelve jets
entered PoK, and only while they were returning, Pakistan identified
them and scrambled its jets. But there was no military engagement, no
civilian casualties. This was just another example for why we are the
fourth-strongest air force in the world. Having been part of the Aero
India 2019 show (which I had been to on the 23rd ) and having interacted
with iaf personnel on a few things, I could much easily relate to the whole
operation.
Needless to say, Pakistan convened an internal meeting, and long story
short, decided that they would like to show us that they can enter our air
space, too. Of course, our defence were on high alert following the strike,
and a dogfight ensued when their jets entered our air space, at the end of
which, two planes had been shot down, one of ours and one of Pakistan’s.
None of the pilots landed on our side of the Line of Control, and our Wing
Commander who fell in Pakistan’s region was captured by them. Talks of
de-escalation began.

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Social media was on fire. There were some saying India should go out
on a full-blown war, while others said Pakistan was right in what it was
doing. Then there were personal comments. And there was the so-called
“warmongering”. The worst of what I saw was Rahul Kanwal of India Today.
Disgraceful, to say the least about what Kanwal said. What B.S. Yedyurappa
said on Thursday was probably the only worse thing to Kanwal’s state-
ments. Of course, the latter later “clarified” that his statement was taken
“out of context”. Anyway.

On India's actual problem

Understand that this particular strike was never about Pakistan. Imran
Khan had said, what the world now has is a new Pakistan, which likes
peace and quiet, and is anti-terror and development-oriented. He’d said
that this Pakistan wants to look at better ties with the rest of the world and
so on. Fair enough. India does not have a problem with Pakistan, per se.
We have a problem with terror outfits operating out of Pakistan. One of
them is the JeM. Pakistan has maintained that it cannot see them in their
land. (Cough, Abbottabad, cough!) India could. In my opinion, India said
in its gesture, ‘No worries, fella, we got this.’ As per my understanding, the
International law gives every country the right to eliminate an imminent
threat to it. Our attack was specifically targeted on the JeM camp, which
happened to be in Pakistan. Because our intelligence reports indicated at
near-future attacks by the JeM, we were within limits to go hit the target.
An important point to remember is that in this strike, no civilians were
injured or killed. (That great news I spoke about.) No military establish-
ments were attacked. The camp was far away from any civilian or military
presence. Therefore, I don’t see a problem in India’s attacking the terror
base, which was allegedly not only used by the JeM, but other outfits as
well. I will not comment on the numbers because there is no official word
on it.

Pakistan's response
Here is where perspective comes into play. Pakistan (unwittingly, if I may
say) considered this an aggression. Their problem statement seemed to be,
‘India crossed the Line of Control into our air space and did what they did,
on our land.’ Their stand was that there were no JeM camps in the areas
that the iaf had attacked. Their stand was that the iaf dropped bombs
on empty lands. Therefore, adding their A and B, this was an aggression

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on non-military Pakistani land which had nothing to do with terror.
Now, is this true? As an Indian who goes by what my defence organisations
and my government say, I am relieved to be told that the said terror camp
was destroyed by the iaf, and I would say, Pakistan is wrong. However,
I will not go as far as speculating that Pakistan government is run by its
defence, which in turn takes instructions from the militants. But think
about it this way: If Pak accepts that India did indeed drop bombs on terror
camps, it would be accepting that there were terror camps on Pak soil. If
there were terror camps on Pak soil and Pak hadn’t done anything about it,
then it had failed as a peace-loving country, it had shamefully failed in its
surveillance, and had not kept the promise it had made to the world that it
would curb all forms of terrorism on its soil. The only stand Pakistan can
take at the moment is maintaining that there are no terror camps. Now,
if it said there were no terror camps, then what did the iaf hit?

Some definitions
Aggression: When someone violates borders or lines of control with an
intent to attack a military or civilian establishment.

Surgical strike: A military strike conducted with a specific target in

mind, without collateral damage. This target, usually, is a military
establishment. (Source: Wikipedia)

India’s strike: I deliberately add this to clarify that India’s 26th Feb strike
was not a conventional surgical strike, but a non-military pre-emptive
strike targeted on Jaish-e-Mohammed. This has been more than
made clear by our government. This strike was surgical only in that it
specifically targeted a camp, and caused zero collateral damage. No
military establishment lost anything—on either side—no civilians
were injured or eliminated. Anyone who can see the difference
between the sun and the moon can see the difference between an
aggression and a non-military strike.

Imran Khan's obvious stand

Given the above stand that Pakistan (obviously) took, it is in Imran Khan’s
interest—as a Prime Minister and as a Pakistani—that he stand by that
statement. Again, I would not speculate on what happened to Ayub Khan,
or Yahya Khan, or even the Bhuttos. As usual, Pakistan demanded that
we give them “proof” that the Pulwama attack was done by JeM. There is

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no place for proof in my opinion because JeM themselves owned up to it.
But as usual, the Indian government agreed, and handed over a dossier to
them as always.
Credit is due where it is due: When Khan spoke out to the public, I did
find it refreshingly “statesman-like”, and very mature on Pakistan’s part.
Great articulation. The approach was different, in a good way, from those
approaches by the past Pak leaders. However, coming to think of it, in
the address to the world and to India in specific on the 27th , I’m sorry, but
what content was new in it? He did not accept the argument that there
was a terror camp in Balakot, he was misinformed about the number of
pilots, and ultimately, asked for peace. His statement, though, was not
obnoxious like in the past; it was simple and one acknowledging both the
powers as opposed to blindly yapping:

With the weapons you have and the weapons we have, can we
really afford a miscalculation?
—Imran Khan, Prime Minister, Pakistan

The Indian stand

But here is what is wrong with Khan’s statement, which of course, many
will not accept. He spoke of war—on the past wars, which rightly, have all
been miscalculated. India didn’t speak of war. Everyone on both the sides
needs to understand that India—neither the defence nor the government
(though they don’t operate as different entities on this side)—said we want
war. The government only said that we were ready for any eventuality. War
is only one of the eventualities. Every sovereign country that has a military
establishment has to be ready for any eventuality. So are we. Where is the
talk of war? Ostensibly, in the newsrooms.

On the Prime Minister's address

Our politicians are as shameless as any out there in the rest of the world.
Therefore, there are those asking why Prime Minister Modi never ad-
dressed anyone like Pakistani Prime Minister Khan did. Some of our
politicians are more disgraceful than the rest; they go around beating
their chests about the strike, and talking of the number of seats. The me-
dia organisations that are calling them disgraceful are themselves being
jingos in their newsrooms. But let us keep all that aside for a while.
There was a time when I criticised PM Modi for always taking the centre
stage—such as announcing demonetisation—and that he never gave any

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other minister their due voice or power. To me, this seemed like autocracy.
And to many others as well. This time, though, (unquestionably valid
criticism that he is busy with rallies even at this situation aside for the
moment) something good has happened: If this is the Minister of External
Affairs’ purview, what is the need for the Prime Minister to address the
nation or hold talks with other countries? He’s being part of the talks that
he’s needed in. If we felt that the PM was going around to several countries
building ties with India, and doing what was actually supposed to be done
by the Minister of External Affairs, I think it is good that eam Swaraj is
doing what is her job to do. Just because Pak chose to let its PM speak,
why should India? We work in our way, they work theirs, isn’t it? But
having said all that, PM Modi should ideally be addressing the crowds
as the Prime Minister, and not a politician; speaking of the valour of our
soldiers, building their confidence and the confidence of the common
public, and not taking jibes at political opponents. Why will we not be
angry with a party that behaves in this way?

“Better PR” by Pakistan

An accusation made on the Indian government is how we are releasing
statements hours after the fact. How Pakistan is “setting the narrative”
while “we’re playing catch-up”. I would like you to think about the number
of things the Pak government said in an attempt to have “better PR”, which
turned out to be false later. A few cases in point: The number of jets used
by Pakistan, the type of jets used by Pakistan, the number of Indian pilots
they captured, etc. Most of their initial statements were retracted at a
later point, which ultimately conceded with the statements that we gave.
India is among the soft superpowers in the world. Our approach was:
There is always one statement, and only one statement. We should con-
tinue with that model of working. Every statement made to the public
needs thorough fact-checking. And fact-checking takes time. Better qual-
ity of information over “Better PR”. Any false statement that comes from
the government out to the world makes us look bad. An example is how
one of our government officials once gave fictitious numbers about the
percentage of doctors in the US, and nasa scientists, etc. being Indians.
Another aspect I loved about the Indian government’s handling of this
situation is how there is only one voice. There is no chaos. There is no
clamour. There is fact gathering, there’s assessment, there is review, and
finally, a single statement (and no looking back). This process is necessary,
especially in a world of information. Information needs to be ascertained

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before being released. I am happy as long as this model is being stuck to.

Call for peace

Understand: A war is detrimental to everyone involved in it, except those
selling the weapons. Pakistan is only getting started on its journey of
development. If they do get involved in a war with us, whether they win or
lose, they have very little to lose. At most, they will lose a bad democracy,
an almost-crashing economy, of course, apart from millions of innocent
lives. India, on the other hand, even upon winning the war, would have
lost much more than Pakistan can even begin to imagine. We will lose our
morale. We will be economically twenty years further backward. Not only
will we lose a lot of funds in equipping our military establishments for the
war, we will have to rebuild a lot in the country, and bringing it back to
what we are today will take decades, by which time, the world would have
progressed a great deal.
And all this for what? We never had a problem with Pakistan as a State. We
have a problem with the terror outfits that are operating out of it (again, I
will not speculate on whether they orchestrate the Pakistani government).
But think about this:

• Would destroying Pakistan eliminate terrorism?

• Would this war not lead to a destruction of Kashmir, which is what is
actually at the base of all this? (For the benefit of the short-sighted:
LeT, JeM, etc. are causing terror here in India, in order to claim
Kashmir—either make it an independent state, or conjoin it with
Pakistan.)
• Do we still understand that Pakistani people, Pakistani government,
Pakistani defence, and Pakistani militants are different entities?
While the second, third and the fourth may be operating on a single
agenda, the first of the four is the majority, and the majority of the
majority have nothing to do with all this. Even though a good chunk
of the said majority of the majority are short-sighted (within the
rights of human beings, just like us) to ask for a war.

On defence
Indian military establishments are collectively called the Indian Defence.
For a second, sit back and concentrate on the meaning of “defence”. Mil-
itary establishments are not for a nation to go on a war, but to defend

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it from attacks. And India still is the country that does not offend. We
don’t violate ceasefire. We don’t attack neighbouring civilian or military
establishments.
The only change in India’s behaviour is that today, we enter the neighbour-
ing territory to attack terror groups—not civilians, not the military estab-
lishments, but terror groups. And this is well within international laws.

Return of Wing Commander Abhi

Many see this as a “peace gesture”, while in reality, it is just something
Pakistan (along with several other countries including India) agreed to:
Geneva Conventions. This is not some unconditional gesture Pakistan is
showing. This is not a leverage for de-escalation. This is simply following
the rules. I wouldn’t make a personal attack on Pakistan saying things
like, for the first time they are following a rule without making a fuss
about it. That would, first, be fictitious (because a lot of fuss did happen,
unfortunately) and second ... well, let’s leave it at that.
One point of stupidity was how people on (social and other) media posted
family history and other things about the Wing Commander, in spite of
the man saying that he could not tell Pakistan anything else about himself
other than his name, his service number and for reasons best known to
him, his religion.
And one point that I am immensely proud of is how the gentleman, in the
enemy territory, surrounded by enemy force personnel, was composed
like cold steel. He knew exactly what to say, and said it with resolve.

On knowing what to say

Part of it, I said already. The rest is, notice how our Indian officials have so
far used measured words to accurately convey messages. We (as per our
tradition) have been open about claims we made about losing an aircraft,
an iaf pilot being “missing in action”, etc. We did not make claims on who
he was until very recently. None of what we said was said without proper
analysis, and we said nothing more, nothing less. This speaks volumes
about transparency and good communication, and why we are a respected
nation in the international space. Someone once asked me, ‘You say you’re
proud to be an Indian. What exactly are you proud of?’ This is one of the
things I’m proud of.
It was easy to say ‘Our Wing Commander Clooney McRobertson was
captured by the Pakistani Army. His family lives in Townsville. His father

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is an ex-Mayor of Townsville. His mother is a surgeon in the Townsville
Medical College. But of course, none of this is related.’ It is also easy to say,
‘Well, our boys played well, and brought down four hundred F-16s, even
though Pakistan has only 160 of them.’ Instead, our statements were, ‘It is
premature to comment on it at the moment.’ or ‘The concerned officials
will take a decision and revert with a statement.’ or ‘We lost a MiG-21 in
the process, and the pilot is missing in action.’
Having said that, there are those asking what attack was done on the
terror base, and what was the damage done to it. There has not been a
word about it from our side, while Pakistan is circulating satellite pictures
of craters seemingly created by our attacks, the craters being in forests, at
least two hundred metres from what could be considered “targets”. This
is an important point. In order for us to claim that we did a non-military
pre-emptive strike on a JeM training camp, we need to prove that we
did hit a JeM training camp. That piece of evidence is the only one that
says that this was indeed a non-military pre-emptive strike, and not an
aggression. In other words, without that piece of evidence, what we did
will be construed as an aggression.
Am I saying that I don’t trust my government or the defence? Absolutely
not. Does the question upset people? Yes. Is the question necessary? Yes;
I want my country to be seen as a trustworthy player in the international
arena, and this piece of evidence is necessary to ensure that it is.
It is commendable that the Indian Air Force is exercising restraint by not
revealing anything beyond what the government has authorised, but it is
important the government make available the data about the strike and
the locations, or at least explain why the data has not yet been released.
No government official was sent to survey the damage done (in spite of
Pakistan’s open invitation), no independent body has verified it from our
side, either. Those keeping quiet are keeping quiet only because of the
faith that the Indian government will not lie about these things. Parties
lie, politicians lie . . .

An important question
Should the matter de-escalate? One hundred percent. Should we stop
fighting terror? Never.
Understand that the situation is taking a very different turn, which is not
in the interest of anybody. And I think that’s India’s stand as well. India
says, ‘We are ready for any eventualities.’, Not ‘We want war.’ We want an
end to terror. If calling for an end to terror leads to war, we are ready for

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it—that’s the meaning. Being ready for something and wanting it are two
very different things. I want peace, not only between India and Pakistan,
but more importantly, within the Indian territory. Eliminating terror is
an important step in the direction. And my country has enough wise indi-
viduals in the right places who are doing what they have to. Not making
unnecessary noises will go a long way in letting them concentrate.
I stand by my government. I stand by my country’s defence. In that
order, because my country is a parliamentary democratic republic. And I
trust that my government (not an individual, not a political party, but the
government) cares for my country’s defence as much as it stands for the
citizens, if not more.
Jai Hind.