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The Print
05-07-2025
- Politics
- The Print
Kutch was the cue, Sindoor the signal. India needs a 6-month, 2-yr & 5-yr plan for Asim Munir
Pakistan launched the war having learned the wrong lessons from Kutch. We might hope for better sense six decades later. But hope isn't a plan or strategy. The Subcontinent's record tells us this is not the best place to be in. We have a precedent in the short Kutch conflict of 9 April, 1965. Both sides called a truce, but the first full-scale India-Pakistan war followed five months later. While it is only India that still formally calls Operation Sindoor an unfinished business, both countries are seeing it as something of a trailer. Or a prelude to the next round. Not an issue fought to any conclusion. It takes a lot for Pakistan to accept defeat, liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, or a clear capitulation in Kargil, for example. Anything less than inarguably decisive, you can count on them to call it a victory. And once they psych themselves into 'see we won that little war' state of mind, you can expect them to come back, sooner rather than later. At this point, each side is drawing its own lessons. Just hours before I sat down to write this column, Lt Gen Rahul Singh, one of the three deputy chiefs of Army staff, reflected on some lessons learnt and pointers for the future. This is good thinking. At least one side (the good side, us), isn't mindlessly celebrating victory, but thinking ahead. This too has parallels with Kutch. India drew its lessons, too, more sensibly and realistically and the result was a strategic victory in the subsequent war. Strategic victory for India because Pakistan was the only side with an objective (grabbing Kashmir) and started the war. The objective was denied, and it was forced back on the defensive across the entire frontier. A stalemate, with the aggressor and first-mover Pakistan on the defensive, was victory for India. In the end, the difference was the lesson the two sides drew from Kutch. India was now preparing for a counter-offensive towards Lahore and Sialkot, in case Pakistani pressure on Kashmir mounted. It's a recorded fact that it was sometime in the late summer following the Kutch ceasefire that then defence minister Y.B. Chavan, Home Minister Gulzari Lal Nanda along with top Army commanders met at the XI Corps headquarters in Jalandhar, and conferred on plans to open out new fronts into Pakistani Punjab if needed. This plan, Operation Riddle, was months in the making. This was a post-Kutch learning and preparation for India. The most succinct and uncomplicated reading I would recommend is War Despatches by Lt Gen Harbakhsh Singh, then Western Army commander. Western Command then included J&K too. Kutch is our most forgotten war, though it lasted much longer (9 April to 1 July) than the 87 hours of Operation Sindoor. There are parallels in learnings from both. Also Read: India is re-hyphenating itself with Pakistan all over again. It needs a new 3D strategy The 'lesson' Pakistan learnt became its establishment's grandest miscalculation. It concluded that Lal Bahadur Shastri accepted defeat in agreeing to a ceasefire and international mediation. That was just the impetus it needed to launch Operation Gibraltar first (massive armed infiltration in Kashmir) followed by Operation Grand Slam, the big armour thrust to try taking Akhnoor and cutting off much of Kashmir next. While we hope and pray for peace and stability, we have to keep that history in mind. The Pakistani military's brain, I have said multiple times, is not located in its head. Theirs is located somewhere lower down in the anatomy that I'd rather not elaborate on. The nation with the higher stake in peace and progress must prepare for the miscalculations of an adversary that compulsively thinks tactically. As we had noted in this National Interest on 31 May, 2025, Asim Munir has limited time. While Pakistan's army will continue to own the country, his own lease over his army isn't permanent. In the course of time, probably over the next few months, he will see challenges to his unconstitutional and un-institutional power from his uniformed peers and the politicians. What's the meaning of un-institutional. In the past, Pakistan's military dictators have had their army take over power formally as an institution. In this indirect takeover, not only has Munir collected that additional star, he has also grabbed political power as an individual. This is too cosy to last. He's the first to know it. That's why you can count on his impatience leading to a new adventure. He'd think, learning erroneously from Operation Sindoor as his military ancestors did from Kutch, that another skirmish will be good. That India's stakes in stability, its economic growth are too high for it to risk a longer conflict. The big powers will move in. He would think short conflicts like these will keep India off-balance, destabilise the Kashmir Valley, but most importantly, protect his own public support. He'd think he has India gamed. A terror attack in Kashmir, the inevitable military response from India and then a few days of dust-up. It will also keep the region 'internationalised'. His first move with Pahalgam, he'd think, succeeded in shifting the world's understanding of the issue in the Subcontinent from terrorism to nuclear conflict. So he's got something to work on. We've already told you where in their bodies their brains rest. Also Read: India-Pakistan terms of engagement: H-word, M-word & the Trump hyphenation We can't time when this miscalculation will come, but it's nearly inevitable. India, therefore, needs a graded plan. For six months, two years which takes us closer to the next general election, and five years, respectively. Five years should be the deadline for us to build deterrence to a level where this Munir, or another, won't have the same temptations. For the six months India has to fill in all the critical gaps in missiles, ammunition, sensors and stockpile in the fastest possible manner, focusing on the critical instruments that worked this time. Brahmos and SCALP missiles, long-range 'smart' artillery shells (Excalibur category), make the multi-layered air defences much denser. Naval platforms should also have their vectors topped up and war wastage reserves built. Most of it can be done domestically and on a war footing. Not the usual Acceptance of Necessity (AON) today and trials 18 months hence. Remember, you said Operation Sindoor is not over yet. Over two years, India must have at least two more (more than that isn't impossible) of Beyond Visual Range (BVR) capable fighters. Long-range artillery should be improved and increased to a level that it becomes a pulverising deterrent in itself. You can have most of it made here and some smart ammunition bought from overseas. This will be quality with quantity. And over five years, begin with upping your defence spending from 1.9 to 2.5 percent of the GDP over the next three years, and then keep it there for the following two. It will be a stretch, but India can afford it. Our national resolution has to be that if we get five years, there will never be an occasion when India will be outranged, out-gunned or out-watched in a conflict with Pakistan even for a few hours. Despite the Chinese. Focus on economic growth, diplomacy and alliances alongside. All of that goes without saying. But you cannot do any of this without guaranteeing your own security. I'd borrow the advice to India from Israel Ambassador Reuven Azar at ThePrintOTC conversation last Monday. Strengthen your defence and liberalise your economy, he said. Because, he elaborated, for investors to come in, they have to have the confidence that your defence is strong. To think that this is a strategic lean-back period will be an unforgivable historic blunder. This is a lean-forward, all-hands-on-the-deck moment. The success of Operation Sindoor is a success to savour, but more importantly, it's impetus for the future. Also Read: Op Sindoor is the first battle in India's two-front war. A vicious pawn in a King's Gambit
The Print
07-05-2025
- Politics
- The Print
Away from LoC, General Munir is losing a far more fateful war within Pakistan
General Asim Munir, though, is fighting a far more significant battle on a second front in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where soldiers of the Peshawar-headquartered XI Corps are engaged in a grim war within. Few figures are available, but at one stage, the campaign drew in tens of thousands of soldiers. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) jihadists, streaming south from Afghanistan, have carved out small emirates across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, coexisting uneasily with both the state and its enemies. Late on Tuesday night, Indian missiles rained down on nine jihadist-linked infrastructure targets across Pakistan, in revenge for the massacre of 25 tourists and one local citizen in Kashmir's Pahalgam. International media, citing Pakistan military sources, said five Indian jets were shot down during the course of the operation, allowing Pakistan Army chief General Asim Munir to claim victory. India has denied Pakistan's claims. Tin chests, charpais, bundles of blankets, almirahs: their lives piled up on ageing Toyota pick-up trucks, the villagers of Lakki Marwat's Sarkatti Michan Khel last week began a long journey to outrun the searing heat of war. The week before, after a battle that claimed the lives of eight Pakistani Special Forces personnel, the villagers were ordered to cut down trees and brush around the village and ensure jihadists could no longer enter the mosque. The villagers decided their best chance of survival was to leave. Azm-i-Ishtekham—the military operation launched in 2024—was named 'A Resolve For Stability'. So far, it has mainly succeeded in grinding down ordinary people, not the terrorists it is targeting. For Indian strategists planning their next steps, the state of Azm-i-Ishtekham holds out an important lesson: Forcing Pakistan to commit more troops to holding the Line of Control would bleed it of resources far more effectively than flamboyant air strikes. Also read: Operation Sindoor aimed at hands that wield the gun, not brains that control the hand Emirates of the night Long before the villagers of Sarkatti Michan Khel left home, their lives had already transformed beyond recognition. As reported by Abubakar Siddique and Abdul Hai Kakar, music had been banned, barbers forbidden from trimming men's beards, and women barred from leaving home without escorts. Girls' schools were shut due to threats—or in some cases, blown up. The Army is, without doubt, the most powerful force in the region. And yet, the Tehreek-e-Taliban rules. Figures are hard to come by, but past interventions have sucked in up to two brigades drawn from the Indian border, in addition to two elite Special Services Battalions—on top of the three divisions and paramilitary forces normally available to XI Corps. The Pakistan Army, in turn, uses religious imagery to discredit its adversaries, calling them khwarij—extremists who reject Islamic consensus. Last month, Dawn reported that 'hundreds of military personnel have been martyred in attacks in 2024; the number of police martyrs would add to this total.' In Kashmir, that number is in the low double digits. Just last week, Islamabad-based Islamist cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi—who led an attempted insurrection against General Pervez Musharraf's regime in 2007—declared the Pakistani state to be kufr, or founded on the rejection of Islam. To his followers, he proclaimed that siding with the Pakistan Army against India was impermissible under Islamic law. Also read: US won't pick sides in India-Pakistan crisis. Islamabad is stronger with China's backing A war not to win Even as the military declares growing success in counter-terrorism operations—56 terrorists were reported killed in ambushes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border at the end of last month—Khyber Pakhtunkhwa does not appear any safer. Last month, 18 men working for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission were kidnapped from Lakki Marwat's Zareefwaal mines; some are still missing. Earlier, a police officer guarding a polio vaccination team was shot dead. A government official suspected of spying on the TTP was tortured and killed. For the best part of 25 years, as scholar Zahid Khan reminds us, the Pakistan Army has responded with a deranged effort to crack walnuts with sledgehammers. In 2003, as Pakistani jihadists began consolidating in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa—out of reach of Western troops in Afghanistan—Lieutenant-General Muhammad Safdar Hussain, then commander of XI Corps, launched Operation Al-Mizan, deploying 70,000-80,000 soldiers across 35 square kilometres in the Wana region. The idea was to displace commanders such as Nek Mohammad Wazir, Noor-ul-Islam, Haji Mohammad Sharif, Maulvi Abbas, and Maulvi Abdul Aziz—all of whom hosted large numbers of foreign fighters. One result of that offensive was a peace deal with Nek Muhammad Wazir. In a video recorded in the spring of 2004, he garlanded Lieutenant General Safdar and declared: 'The most important thing is that we are Pakistani soldiers, too. The tribal people are Pakistan's atomic bomb. When India attacks Pakistan, you will see the tribals defending 14,000 kilometres of the border.' The United States killed Nek Muhammad in a drone strike in 2004, but the problem didn't end. As Khan writes, a succession of ill-fated counter-insurgency operations followed, often backed by US intelligence and air power: Rah-e-Nijat and Rah-e-Rast in 2009, Sher-Dil in 2008, and Zalzala and Rah-e-Haq in 2007. In each case, artillery and air power were heavily used, ostensibly to target jihadist strongholds—often at massive civilian cost. As scholar-journalist Daud Khattak has noted, each offensive eventually ended in a peace deal. The Army ceded territory held by jihadist warlord Baitullah Mehsud through the 2005 Sararogha Agreement—even compensating him for destroyed land and homes. Violence, however, continued, as Mehsud used his new legitimacy to expand his influence. After the 2007 showdown at Lal Masjid, jihadist Fazlullah expanded his shari'a-based regime in Swat, preventing girls from attending school and banning women from wearing burqas in public. The government gave in, passing the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation in Swat on 15 February 2009, effectively conceding to a shari'a mini-state. Also read: Operation Sindoor strikes aren't the 'end'. It's the first salvo of a long-drawn-out battle Keeping out democracy For the most part, the Pakistan Army's objective has been to ensure that its jihadist clients can exercise power—so long as they don't threaten its hegemony. The real threat, from the military's perspective, comes from secular political formations demanding democratic rights—like the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement. In 202, popular politician Sardar Muhammad Arif Wazir was assassinated in a drive-by shooting by a TTP hit squad. Legislator Mohsin Dawar, a central figure in non-violent democratic mobilisation, has been repeatedly targeted for assassination. General Munir's soldiers—like those before them—are showing they are good students of their Imperial British forbearers. The Raj sought to subdue Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with a mix of bribes and subsidies for loyal proxies and brutal violence against dissenters. 'The brigade had demonstrated its power to take and burn any village that might be selected, and had inflicted severe loss on all who attempted to impede its action,' wrote future Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1888, describing the Malakand Field Force's campaign to suppress ethnic-Pashtun insurgency. 'The assailants retire to the hills. Thither it is impossible to follow them. They cannot be caught. They cannot be punished. Thus, only one remedy remains: their property must be destroyed.' Faced with genuine political resistance—not just in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa but also in Balochistan—the Pakistan military's strategy is nearing irretrievable collapse. India ought to be able to discern opportunity in this situation. The new political movements in Pakistan do not seek secession. They demand a nation ruled not by generals, but by its constitution. Their grievances have not made them enemies of Pakistan. Nationalism continues to be a powerful force. A genuinely democratic Pakistan, however, would be one where the generals' jihadist proxies no longer enjoy state patronage and impunity. India must avoid hostile ultra-nationalist polemic and existential threats—moves that will only push Pakistan's new democrats to rally around the military. Praveen Swami is contributing editor at ThePrint. His X handle is @praveenswami. Views are personal. (Edited by Prashant)
