Dangerous, debasing and deplorable (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 5 : International Relation
Prelims level : India-Pakistan
Mains level : India and its neighbourhood relations

Context

• Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan should perhaps follow Russia’s example and that of the United Arab Emirates and confer Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Pakistan’s highest civilian award, the Nishan-e-Pakistan.
• This is for the Indian Prime Minister’s war-like efforts to bring peace to the region and for his dexterous effort to pull Pakistan and India back from the nuclear brink by first setting the threshold of the nuclear escalatory ladder really low and then artfully enlisting and fielding leaders of other nations to do the rest of the job easily the more difficult part, behind the scenes.

Background

• The story of what really happened will come out, sooner or later. But here is what we now know for sure. U.S. President Donald Trump was in Hanoi, in February, in the midst of extraordinary talks with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, when India sent planes to drop four super smart bombs on Balakot.
• The bombs were pretty smart. So they left no evidence of the destruction they allegedly caused and yet forced over 300 terrorists to vanish from the face of the earth without any funerary frills. It is arguable that the bombs.
• The modestly contained explosions that left the targeted buildings standing defiantly afterwards, were so chosen that it would give the Pakistanis enough room for deniability as the stage was set for mediators to hastily step in.

Managed outcomes

• Mr. Trump prefaced the press conference of the aborted summit with Mr. Kim with the news that he had been able to broker a deal between India and Pakistan, as did Bill Clinton before him but without dragging the Pakistanis to Blair House.
• Mr. Trump revealed, “They’ve been going at it, and we’ve been involved in trying to have them stop. And we have some reasonably decent news. I think, hopefully, that’s going to be coming to an end.”
• Between the magical strike at Balakot and Wg Cdr Varthaman’s release, Mr. Modi’s brinkmanship, which included threatening Pakistan with missile strikes if Wg Cdr Varthaman was harmed, not only kept U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton busy, but also brought the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and

China actively into the behind-the-scenes act as well.

• This delicate game of managed outcomes requires choreography and pre-verification of public stances that border on a pointillist painter’s obsession for detail to get the overall picture perfect.

Hardly shock and awe

• Balakot is not about to change Pakistan’s behaviour. It has not frightened the terrorists into reformatory huddles and got them to stop dreaming their jihadist dreams.
• Pakistan seems to have an unending capacity to absorb punishment and inflict twice as much at the same time through cunning ways.
• According to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, last year saw 262 terror attacks on Pakistan that left about 600 dead and more than a thousand injured. Balakot is not even going to figure in the next year’s listing.
• And Mr. Modi’s government is not in a position to hand out death certificates even.
• Mr. Modi may have played the game of brinkmanship on the cheap and better than Atal Bihari Vajpayee did during Operation Parakram, when after Parliament was attacked by terrorists he mobilised the might of our entire armed forces against Pakistan even while the Americans controlled much of Pakistan’s airspace and sea routes.
• But Mr. Modi has dangerously lowered the nuclear exchange threshold, debased the language of deterrence, and made deplorable attempts to appropriate the armed forces as a political tool, including by exhorting first-time voters to vote for the Pulwama martyrs and for Balakot.

Conclusion

• The last is ironic, considering that the army veterans remain a smited lot when it comes to the One Rank One Pension scheme.
• He has used every opportunity to work the theme, which includes even the anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test.
• The Defence Research and Development Organisation went into mission mode over six months ago.
• That test too could have just as easily been done significantly earlier as well.

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General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) The term Price Deficiency Payment, often seen in news, refers to
(a) payments provided on targeted produce if the price falls below the minimum support price.
(b) subsidy provided to manufacturers of generic medicine.
(c) cash incentives to promote institutional delivery among poor pregnant women.
(d) None of the above

Answer: A

Mains Questions:
Q.1) The Modi regime has embarked on a game of brinkmanship with Pakistan for just an advantage on the electoral stage. Comment.