Pakistan's strategy may look irrational, but it is entirely rational from its army's own narrow point of view to retain power. This is why despite efforts to revive political dialogue, it finds ways to get under our skin

Even as the Indian government is groping towards a sensible strategy on dealing with Pakistan, it is stumbling over its own rhetoric in order to show it will not take provocations lying down. While the Narendra Modi-Ajit Doval doctrine of retaliating against Pakistani provocations on the border with double force is unexceptionable, it is unable to fully reconcile its other strategic initiative - reopening the dialogue - with its own need to project an image of machismo in public.

The foolish decision to detain the separatists of the Hurriyat before releasing them yesterday (20 August) is precisely the kind of empty macho action we don't need. We have also sent an advisory to Pakistan that meeting the separatists before NSA-level talks is not on. This is counter-productive. Nothing convinces the Pakistanis to go ahead and do something more than our opposition to it.

Going through these motions of toughness proves nothing as they are devoid of strategic content. If anything, they show the weakness of our position – that we can do nothing when the Pakistanis seek to irritate us. If we are going to jump and scream every time they plant a pin under our butts – like by making a show of talking to the separatists - we are merely displaying our impotence. They know they can easily get under our skins. It gives them an additional handle to manipulate our angry reactions to their advantage.

Projecting strength is important, but it is effective only when that power is displayed where it matters, not by hitting out blindly in all directions when provoked. This way our enemy gets the upper hand.

A coherent strategy against Pakistan cannot be tweaked every time to show the domestic public we are not weak. The Congress’ efforts to bait the government on its Pakistan strategy should be ignored, for trying to prove something to the Congress is pointless.

Any strategy to counter Pakistan’s mischief has to be well thought out, consistent, and long-term in nature. It must flow from an understanding of what our enemy wants to achieve, and what is in our own interest. Our problem is we think Pakistan is an irrational power and that no strategy may work with them. The truth is Pakistan uses its outward shows of irrationality to further a strategy that may be extremely rational from its own perspective.

Pakistan - and especially the Deep State that comprises the army, the ISI and its jihadi fronts - is a "greedy", ideological state that will not rest without changing the status quo on our borders. But Pakistan is not just about rearranging borders and grabbing the parts of Jammu & Kashmir that are still in our possession. Pakistan is an all-or-nothing state which seeks victory for the ideology of Islam in addition to grabbing territory. It sees itself as the true successor to Ghazni and Ghori, and its state’s mission as defeating "Hindu India." This may not be what ordinary Pakistanis want, but it is certainly what Pakistan's Deep State ideologues want. The Deep State needs Hindu India as an enemy to retain its own power.

Pakistan's alleged irrationality and nurturing of dangerous jihadi groups in order to harm India is rooted in the rationality of the aims of the Deep State. Its goals are to ensure the following: retention of effective power in the hands of the army; grabbing what territory it can from India through sweet talk or jihadi action; preventing India from concentrating its energies on economic development and growth; establishing the supremacy of Islam by defeating "Hindu India", et al. Just as suicide bombers seek psychic victories rather than real ones, Pakistan has no qualms about destroying itself if, in the process, it can destroy us as well. The reason why jihad is so important to Pakistan is that it knows it cannot defeat India in any normal war.

However illegitimate or irrational we think these aims are, if you do accept these goals, the Pakistani posture of unremitting hostility to India is entirely rational. So Pakistan will always do the following: send jihadis over for decades on end even if it damages or destroys itself in the process; tie up with any anti-India force (whether a state actor or non-state, which means China and movements like Khalistan) to damage us; plan economic sabotage (this was the real purpose of the 1993 Mumbai blasts, not just revenge for the riots that preceded), distribute of counterfeit currency in India (which also helps finance jihad at no cost beyond printing fake money); exacerbate social tensions inside India by using religious and caste faultlines; prevent civilian governments inside Pakistan from gaining the upper hand with the army and ISI; and - most important - use dialogue as a tool to wrest one-sided concessions from us, and provoke India to suspend talks frequently to show that Pakistan is one seeking peace, and India is the warmonger.

Given this Pakistani strategy, what should be our counter? Our strategy needs many prongs, including a two-faced policy of sweet talk and hard action. The five prongs of this strategy should be the following:

One, emphasise growth and the building of economic power as the primary objectives of Indian state policy. The US defeated Communist Soviet Union not by a military buildup alone, but by making western economic supremacy unbeatable. We can beat Pakistan by defeating it economically.

Two, building effective border defence - which actually goes without saying, but is worth repeating – against both Pakistan and China, if necessary by developing tactical nuclear weapons.

Three, strengthening state-level police forces that can take on terrorists without the army or NSG having to step in. The police are our first line of defence against terrorism, but we have weakened them for political reasons. The Gurdaspur terror strike was handled by the police, not the army or NSG. But the defenders had poor equipment while the terrorists had armour-piercing guns. Clearly, our police forces have to be retrained and strengthened from below to tackle terror.

Four, we have to build covert capabilities. This means both better intelligence (both electronic and spies inside Pakistan), and offering covert support to groups fighting for autonomy and independence from Pakistan. We should support the Baloch, Sind, Mohajir and other struggles against Punjabi tyranny. The core of anti-India ideology lies in Punjabi control of the Deep State and jihadism. This needs to be smashed. India has no stake in a united Pakistan.



Five, practice the art of jaw jaw while being ready for war-war. We must keep talking till it hurts them, not us. As a democracy, talking can never hurt us - as long as we don't expect too much from it. Let us be clear: it is Pakistan that wants to abort the NSA-level talks since it does not want to listen to evidence being amassed by Doval & Co about its involvement with terror. We already have one live jihadi in our custody to confront them with. This is why Pakistan is provoking us to get us to break off the talks.

Pakistan's invites to the separatists for talks are meant to provoke us, not to get ideas from them. They are being used for Pakistan’s purposes. When Pakistan has no further need for them, they will be sold down the Indus river. Our attitude should be one of indifference: sure talk to them if you want. If anything useful comes of it let us know. In fact, we should stump Pakistan by calling all J&K parties - the mainstream political parties, the Hurriyat and Panun Kashmir, among others – for talks on restoring peace. We can then tell the Hurriyat that they are being used. They may not be easy to convince, but talks should never be a problem.

If Pakistan wants to bring up Kashmir at the NSA-level talks next week, we should be ready: let us talk about Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan. We should talk about when Pakistan plans to give these areas back to us as per the instrument of accession signed by Hari Singh in 1948. We should ask Pakistan why it gave away territory to China without involving us. We should discuss human rights and AFSPA too - and tell Pakistan that as long as they send jihadis over, we are unable to reduce the army's role in Kashmir and hence the need for AFSPA. AFSPA can go the minute their murderous "baraatis" return to their homes in Pakistan instead of overstaying their welcome here and tormenting the locals. If they want to bring up so-called Hindu terror, so be it. We can have the pleasure of paying them back in their own coin, by dismissing their evidence as “interesting literature.”

The reason why we should always be pro-dialogue is because that is the one thing the Pakistani army is afraid of. We should never concede anything in the dialogue except when there is genuine give-and-take. There should be no unilateral concessions from our side, as in the past.

This would be a real strategy. Talks are a part of it, and not a tactical bargaining chip to be crushed arbitrarily whenever Pakistan irritates us.