The CRPF Needs To Overhaul Its Command And Control Structure

The CRPF Needs To Overhaul Its Command And Control Structure

The whole nation is shocked and angered by how an explosives laden civilian vehicle can be rammed into a bus full of uniformed CRPF soldiers killing 44 and gravely injuring many more. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed stiff retaliation against both the JeM terrorists and their Pakistani sponsors. He indicated that he has given the Armed Forces a free hand to execute this determination. But even here, it is seen, Pakistan regularly kills our soldiers, and we, mostly, just the cannon fodder of their low cost terrorists. Pakistan has always managed to split the beam and divide our attention, because of the way they structure their aggression.

The quantity of IED  used by the suicide bomber is estimated at anywhere between 200 kg and 350 kg – a formidable amount to assemble at the carnage spot in a car without local support and organization, undetected by intelligence or the security forces. There was reportedly some vague intelligence on the possibility of a explosive-  laden vehicle being used for a terror strike, but nothing on when and where. 

However, on the other side, the time of passage of an unnecessarily prominent 70 vehicle convoy with over 2,000 CRPF personnel en route from Jammu to Srinagar was known to the JeM. And this, probably well in advance for the entire plan to be executed. In a sense, this is a bold statement from the JeM, reduced and decimated in the recent past by Indian security forces in Kashmir, that they have successfully regrouped. This is their first devastating attack in three years.

Civilian vehicles plying on the highway were apparently neither sanitized nor asked to be removed from the route of the convoy, despite the high security nature of the movement. This requirement has only dawned on the authorities after this devastating blast. Air transport was not used at all.

Slackness of this order in the face of a vicious and determined enemy is responsible for the success of such attacks, whether they occur at an Army base at Uri, an air force base at Pathankot, or on the benighted CRPF on the highway between Jammu and Kashmir.

 This is sadly far from the first time that CRPF convoys have been attacked, both in the Maoist badlands of Central India and  J&K with devastating results and horrendous loss of life. That the organization apparently fails to learn from past experience  points to grave lapses in its leadership quality, the intelligence leakages from within the organization, as well as its systems, procedures, command and control structures. There is also some comment on the experience and seniority of the personnel who take such decisions on troop movements on the ground. Should junior officers not be supervised on something like this substantial troop movement? Did it really need to move such numbers simultaneously by road on the only highway connecting Jammu with Kashmir?

While the involvement of the JeM was proudly claimed within moments of the blast along with the release of a highly offensive and hate-mongering propaganda video, it is clear that it motivated a Kashmiri youth to actually carry out the bombing. Pakistan as a state therefore has plausible deniability. The JeM, though Pakistan sponsored, its leader Masood Azhar repeatedly protected from UN sanction by China, is working in J&K using radicalized Kashmiri youth in the main. Burhan Wani, an earlier scourge, was also similarly trained, motivated, and sent in to create mayhem.

That there are a number of prominent and vocal politicians, separatist organizations in the Valley, as well as their supporters in other parts of  India, to lend support to the terrorism, is another ongoing obscenity, inexplicably unchecked by the Indian government. If this is in the name of democracy, then what price sedition?

Across the border, this attack, once again points to the effectiveness of Pakistan’s ISI, Army and terrorist organizations. They attack in violation of the ceasefire constantly on the borders, along the LoC, picking off both security personnel and civilians in a battle of attrition. And the terrorists are developed in Kashmir or elsewhere in India, or sent in, to do likewise within our territory.

India’s response, despite hundreds and thousands of attacks via the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency/terrorist outreach over the years, has been grossly inadequate. We do not seem at all equal to the task of retaliation because of a political ambivalence on the best course forward.

This is clearly not Pakistan’s problem. They, evidently, just want to kill as many Indians as possible- soldiers, civilians, women, children, rich, poor, fellow Muslims, and old people irrespective. 

Under no political dispensation or scenario have we managed to make it prohibitive for Pakistan to carry out its policy of a thousand cuts. Our hesitation and caution in the face of a sophisticated guerilla war, works invariably in favour of the Pakistanis.

In all out conventional war however, including Kargil, India has always won, and even sequestered East Pakistan into Bangladesh. This humiliation still smarts in the Pakistani establishment and it never ceases to exact revenge in Kashmir, though Pakistan may not recognize that India simply helped a restive East Pakistan to break away in 1970.

If indeed Pakistan had other provinces determined to leave the Pakistani union today, we might be tempted to help again, but alas that is not the case at present. An under-populated Balochistan,  overrun by the Chinese presence in Gwadar, and all along the road cum China-Pakistan economic corridor from Xinkiang, is not a good option.

But supporting an insurrection  in Balochistan has never been off the table at any time. The same sympathy extends to the Pakhtuns, but nothing much more can be made of it as things stand.  

While the killing of so many soldiers in a terrorist attack could be construed as sufficient provocation for war with Pakistan, it could well be an overreaction. However a counter attack and retaliatory strike on Pakistani terrorist assets and their Pakistan Army/ISI handlers is inevitable.

This attack in Pulwama has come in the nearness of a general election. While terrorist strikes tend to take their opportunity whenever presented, the Pakistani establishment may be quite happy to project the Indian government as lacking in sufficient willpower to do anything about it. For Modi however, this may be an opportunity to disabuse Pakistan of its bluster.

Our task however is not only to seek revenge but to make sure our response is more or less proportionate in order to contain the fall out. Even an all out war cannot change the borders very much given the exigencies of global pressure to maintain a status quo. And it may not be in India’s best interest to conquer territory from Pakistan with its radicalized, restive, and ideologically fractured population.

The nuclear option is a zero sum game for all sides, but Pakistan, much more so than India, could well be tempted to use tactical nuclear weaponry and not just in the event of all out war.

India is making steady economic progress, and this will be retarded in the event of all out war, even for a limited period. So we cannot, in our own interest, indulge our outrage in that manner. Instead we need to sharply improve our clandestine deep strike capabilities. The fact that the armed forces are presently low on the best equipment and armaments due to years of procurement neglect is another major cause for concern. Our Defence budgets need to be sharply enhanced because half of the current one goes in servicing the establishment costs, and quite a bit more in  paying interest on debt. We have to pay for almost all new armaments and equipment on an ad hoc basis off-budget.

The strategic quest, in which we have failed so far, must be to make this kind of terrorism unaffordable for Pakistan. Revoking the unilateral MFN status given to Pakistan in the hope of a reciprocity that never came, is a bounden necessary and welcome first step.

Diplomatic moves to tighten the definition of terrorism pending at the UN that the Indian government wants to push, may not be very easy to  execute, given the support 

Pakistan enjoys in sections of  both the general assembly and security council.

As it stands, and given our international support from most of the big powers, we could well be justified in suspending the Indus Water Treaty in protest. And if we did institute machinery and mechanisms to stop all the water that flows into Pakistan, it would seriously hamper its food production and create an existential crisis. Of course, we would release water after a period on humanitarian grounds, but it provides a permanent choke point to ensure good behavior. But does the Government of India   truly mean business, or will it allow Pakistan and its agencies to get away with this kind of cowardly slaughter again and again.

(1,476 words)

For: My Nation

February 15^th 2019

Gautam Mukherjee