Terror strikes in Jammu: Time to comprehend Pakistan’s deep-rooted anti-India attitude.
On July 15, 2024, Greater Kashmir posted a tweet by RR Swain, DGP of Jammu and Kashmir, which said:
“Pakistan successfully infiltrated all important aspects of civil society, thanks to so-called mainstream or regional politics in the valley. There is ample evidence to show that many had owned the art of running with the hare and hunting with the hound, which left both the common man and the security bewildered, frightened, and confused. Visiting the homes of killed terrorists and expressing sympathy in public was normal. While the elimination of new recruits in terrorism was allowed and tacitly encouraged, those who facilitated recruitment and arranged finances were never investigated. SP-rank officers were arrested and put in jails alongside terrorists for crimes they had never committed. The drowning of two girls in 2014 was allowed to be hijacked by narrative terrorism that held the valley at ransom, hartals, and rioting for many weeks. A very detailed investigation by the CBI and verified by AIIMS forensics proved it was an accident. Things had come to such a pass that the so-called mainstream political parties had started cultivating leaders of terror networks and sometimes directly to further their electoral prospects.”
As a counterterrorism analyst who has done extensive field research in Kashmir, I find this statement coming from a high-ranking police official a bit unusual. Had it come from a researcher or an intelligence professional with a nuanced understanding of terrorism, it would not have been surprising. However, Swain has spent many years in the intelligence world. With Swain’s statement, it appears that finally India’s security apparatus is developing a much deeper and layered understanding of the Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in J&K.
A lot has been written about the immediate causes and factors behind the sudden upsurge in terrorist attacks in the Jammu region.
Majority of the analysis focusses on tactical and immediate factors such as poor safety and convoy movement drills, shortage of the specialised gear, devices and equipment needed for night warfare in jungles, long period of relative quiet in Jammu region resulting in Security Forces’ inadequate exposure to tough counterterrorism operations, militants shifting focus towards Jammu region due to tightened security and dominant presence of counter-insurgency grid in the Valley, attempts to compensate for the absence of big-ticket events like Pulwama, Uri and attack on Amarnath yatra by a series of small-scale attacks, to maintain relevance and designs to derail state assembly elections and project an image of situation being far from normalcy.
Further, such pieces argue that this is only a temporary phase, a repetition of such phases in the past, and it will be over in time with innovation in counter insurgency measures.
With reference to such analytical formulations, it must be noted that we are again repeating our past mistakes of being largely reactive, myopic, superficial, and missing the larger strategic picture.
Getting the Fundamentals Correct
It is time we got our fundamentals about Pakistan correct. First and foremost, for Pakistan and its ISI circles, the battle against India is perceived as an existential and religious war, i.e., jihad against Hindu India. Such notions emanate from the basic idea of Islamism underlying Pakistan’s formation. As a result, the passion and fervour among the Pakistani intelligence set-up and its proxies is that of a religious war.
The nucleus of the enmity and hatred towards India is primarily constituted by the religious factor; geopolitics comes after that. In the Indian security and diplomatic apparatus, the overwhelming belief is that the India-Pakistan problem is essentially geopolitical in nature, not religious.
Over the years, such fallacious understanding has led India to commit several strategic blunders. In the diplomatic history of India-Pakistan relations, one finds that our diplomatic set-up and political leadership have always believed that lasting peace can be established between India and Pakistan.
Despite Pakistan’s repeated betrayals and backstabbing after India’s series of peace initiatives since 1947, our policy advisors have always taken a positive view of Pakistan and hoped that relations could be improved towards peace.
Here, the emphasis is more on the diplomatic apparatus than the political leadership because, in India, diplomats play an overwhelmingly dominant role in foreign policy making and implementation. Unfortunately, barring a few exceptions, our political leadership has lacked sufficient knowledge, wisdom, and analysis to indulge in foreign policy issues. And our diplomatic cadres have lacked independent and critical thinking; hence, their understanding of Pakistan and China has been very superficial, ad hoc, short-term, and reactive. It took us almost 70 years to realise the futility of the peace process with Pakistan when, finally, PM Narendra Modi decided that terror and talks could not go together. However, as compared to our diplomats and politicians, India’s external intelligence set-up has shown a far better and more realistic understanding of the Pakistan and terrorism challenges.
Further, despite being a smaller and militarily weaker country, Pakistan has always been an aggressor towards India. Pakistan’s Major General Robert Cawthome proposed the proxy war doctrine to bleed India through its religious, caste, regional, and other fault lines after the Kabaili intruders were ousted by the Indian army in 1948, though not without taking a major portion of Jammu and Kashmir.
Later, General Zia-ul-Haq mastered this project of bleeding India through a thousand cuts. In the 1971 war, though Pakistan lost, they won in diplomacy, and India lost what it won in the battlefield by unconditionally returning 90,000 prisoners of war without any territorial gains.
For the last 35 years, Pakistan has waged a proxy war against India. Even the Kargil War, one of Pakistan’s most ambitious projects, was won at a huge cost (527 martyrs and 1,363 wounded). Notably, Pakistan’s proxy war is not confined to Kashmir. Instead, Pakistan and its proxies have established a firm foothold with their sleeper cells in almost the entire country.
Pakistan’s proxy terror groups have committed terrorist acts in major Indian cities like Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, etc. The ISI has established connections with other anti-India forces like Khalistanis, Naxals, anti-Brahmin Dravidian activists, Dalit and caste activists, and separatist groups in the North East. In Bangladesh, even though India helped get its independence, today, the eastern neighbour has become a hotbed of Islamic extremists with a strong penetration of ISI.
Regarding Kashmir, we must not forget that we are not killing their soldiers, but jihadists from Madrasas. They are expendables, trained, and indoctrinated to die. Even if Indian SFs kill them in hundreds and thousands, it does not affect Pakistan. By a rough estimate, Pakistan has around 2 to 3 lakh trained and armed jihadis. Some estimates suggest an even higher figure of 6 to 7 lakhs. However, in terror attacks, Pakistan is killing our real soldiers.
In the last 32 months, 48 soldiers have been martyred in terrorist attacks. In the last month, after Narendra Modi’s swearing-in as the Prime Minister of India for the third time, about 28 soldiers and civilians have died in terror attacks. If we count the total number of deaths in Pakistan-sponsored terror attacks, riots, and sabotage incidents across the country and in foreign lands, the death figures would be much higher. While looking at the intensity and spread of the terrorism challenge, we also need to look at the spread of Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Indian Mujahideen (both formally defunct now), Popular Front of India (PFI), Jamaat-e-Islami, and other Islamist entities spread across the length and breadth of India.
The ISI and Pakistan-sponsored terror groups have nurtured robust linkages with these groups. Hence, we need to ask a fundamental question. Are we winning this hybrid-proxy war against Pakistan? In my assessment – not actually. And the reason is that our fundamental understanding of Pakistan, Islamist terrorism, and the radicalisation problem is flawed and skin-deep.
Recent Upsurge in Terror
Coming to some of the more immediate reasons for the sudden spike in terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, a crucial reason that we are missing is perhaps related to Pakistan’s internal situation. Quite likely, Pakistan’s internal political, security, and social situation is worsening due to instability, deep-rooted popular resentment against the army, rapidly rising terror attacks by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baluchi separatist groups, and fast-deteriorating ties with the Taliban.
Pakistan’s military-civil state is finding it extremely difficult to manage this situation. Reportedly, a dominant section among them blames India without any concrete evidence. Hence, it is quite possible that with the recent terror attacks, they are signalling to India or they are provoking India to retaliate, knowing full well that India cannot go beyond a point of retaliation.
However, India’s retaliation is most likely to unite Pakistani society on a nationalist-religious issue, which will be a respite for the Pakistani state.
Pakistan’s deep state, dwelling in its imaginary world, blames India for their internal chaos and turmoil; hence, they are likely conveying a message through this sudden spike in terror attacks. It is highly likely that Islamabad is acting under the directions of Beijing to build pressure in the Jammu region so that India calibrates upon its huge deployment on its borders with China.
Intelligence shortfalls have made SFs extremely vulnerable. Over the last few years, SFs have mostly relied on TECHINT (technical intelligence). In the process, the quality and quantity of HUMINT (human intelligence), which require specialised efforts, declined. Over time, the terror groups innovated to elude the TECHINT-based interceptions and surveillance.
The biggest loophole in the current militancy scenario pertains to the infiltration of foreign terrorists. In the recent terror attacks, though the names of terror groups sound indigenous, foreign terrorists have perpetrated most of them. By a rough estimate, around 50–60 foreign terrorists are present in the Jammu region. The most critical question that arises here is: How could they infiltrate despite such a robust anti-infiltration grid? After the fencing and deployment of sophisticated sensors and devices like LOROS, infiltration had become extremely difficult. All the infiltration routes on the LoC and international border are well identified. Our SFs have been guarding these regions for several decades.
Another widely touted reason for the recent terror attacks in the Jammu region by specialists is Pakistan’s design to obstruct the upcoming assembly elections in J&K, with the underlying motive to project that the situation is far from normal in the Union Territory. However, India’s intelligence, diplomatic community, and policy brass give too much importance to elections. They tend to perceive elections as some kind of eternal and ultimate solution to the entire gamut of J&K’s problems. This belief comes from their obsession with projecting the image of normalcy at an international level. However, this obsession with elections has made them lose sight of the bigger and deeper picture of Kashmir’s jihadist militancy.
Needless to say, Pakistan and its jihadist proxies hardly bother about elections as a serious concern because the penetration of separatist and extremist elements in all the mainstream institutions of the state, including politics, is complete.
After elections, the people coming to power from the mainstream political powers have strong ties with Pakistan. One can imagine how easy it can be for terrorist groups to operate when terror convicts and separatists like Engineer Rashid get elected to parliament. Earlier, during the rule of J&K regional parties like the National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party, separatist and extremist entities like Jamaat-e-Islami and Hurriyat made deep inroads in academia, administration, judiciary and legal fraternity, police, intelligence, media, banking and financial institutions, students and workers’ unions, civil society, business, religious clergy, politics, and non-profit charities.
Nevertheless, disrupting elections always makes up for scary optics in front of Western media, intellectuals, international organisations, and NGO watchdogs, who are obsessed with the Western model of electoral democracy, which ultimately serves Pakistan’s purpose.
Finally, terrorist cadres have cultivated a strong support system in the Jammu region. Some senior generals argue that Jaish and Lashkar have activated their 20-year-old network in the Jammu region. Such assessments sound more like a nice plot for a Bollywood thriller. Closer scrutiny of the facts on the ground reveals a different picture. Over the last decade and a-half, during the rule of regional parties in Kashmir, a separatist-extremist nexus, under the directions of Pakistan and with the active support of the ruling elites in J&K, which includes politics and bureaucracy, settled a large number of Kashmiri residents with separatist and Islamist leanings in the Jammu region.
One can find new Muslim settlements in Channi, Sidra, Bhatindi, and several other areas of Jammu. These settlements are virtually cordoned off Jammu, a strategic city, hardly 12 km from the international border. Such projects always had hidden anti-India motives. Today, when foreign terrorists cross into India in the Jammu region, they have a robust support system of sympathisers to recruit OGWs and local coordinators.
Conclusion
Emboldened with jihadist fervour, Pakistan is always innovating and improvising to sustain and intensify terrorism in Kashmir. This pattern can be seen over the last 35 years of militancy in Kashmir. In the early 1980s, Pakistan supported Kashmiri terrorist groups like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and encouraged Jamaat-e-Islami to strengthen its roots in society. After 1990, when militancy gained ground and Jamaat became strong, Pakistan created Jamaat-supported Islamist terror groups like Hizbul Mujahiddin to counter relatively moderate and secular groups like the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) according primacy to Kashmiri identity and its independence instead of accession to Pakistan.
Later, they nurtured foreign terrorist groups like Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Lashkar to have a stronger grip on militant groups. Then, to keep a check on Lashkar, they created Jaish. At the same time, after the acquisition of nukes, they had the audacity to indulge in Kargil misadventures and sanction big-ticket fidayeen missions in J&K.
From 2008, they invested heavily in fomenting civil unrest and stone pelting create and nurture a conducive environment for orchestrating and sustaining home-grown militancy, the phenomenon that we witnessed after Burhan Wani’s encounter death in 2016.
After Lashkar’s name figured in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the ISI brought Jaish to the forefront to avoid getting blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force. Following the abrogation of Article 370, Pakistan has unleashed new groups with secular-sounding and indigenous groups such as The Resistance Front, Kashmir Tigers, Lashkar-e-Mustapha and revived Al Badr, old terror groups active in the 1990s, to avoid the scrutiny of global terror watchdogs. To offset SF’s prowess in TECHINT and the resultant success in encounters, Pakistan has revolutionised the entire modus operandi of militancy, including its OGW network, intelligence gathering, weapons distribution, and training. After 2019, Kashmir saw the phenomenon of ‘hybrid militants,’ part-time civilians and part-time militants.
Likewise, they have innovated in training, recruitment, weapon systems, technology, communications, and finances over the last 35 years. Alternatively, they boil up north, south, and central Kashmir. Reviving terrorism in the Jammu region has always been on the Pakistani agenda. There is nothing new about it. Earlier in 2019, terror groups were murdering Hindu leaders and orchestrating a milieu where the Hindus did not feel safe, leading them to either convert or migrate. During the rule of regional parties, people with separatist and extremist leanings were brought from the Valley and settled in the Jammu region, in and around Jammu. Radical Deobandi clerics, Jamaatis, and Tablighi Jamaat cadres made serious efforts to radicalise tribal Gujjars and the residents of Doda, Poonch, Rajauri, and Kishtwar. Today, when one finds local supporters in the Jammu region for the foreign infiltrators, it is hardly a matter of surprise.
Hence, there is ample evidence that Pakistan has a long-term strategy and vision. Sometimes they take a tactical retreat, only to come back with renewed vigour. They have done that in the past. After 370, there was a phase of lull because Pakistan was devising a new strategy for sustaining and ramping up Kashmiri militancy. They infiltrated new batches of militants with advanced gear, weapons, and ammunition, asked them to disperse among the locals, cultivate a support system, and stay radio-silent.
Thus, Pakistan perceives it as a war till eternity, a religious war—Jihad against infidels. They will continue to innovate and unleash new forms of terror in the future, not only in Kashmir but in Punjab, West Bengal, Kerala, and many other states of the Indian hinterland.
The current phase of Muslim radicalisation in India and polarisation, strengthening of Hindutva movement provides fertile ground for Pakistan and its proxy terror groups to find recruits, supporters, and sympathisers among the Muslims of the Indian hinterland. Global geopolitical developments such as the rise and spread of the Islamic State-Khorasan Province, the Israel-Hamas war and India-Israel friendship add to the congeniality of the situation for Pakistan.
Hence, in light of the above-mentioned fundamentals of the conflict between India and Pakistan, I would like to conclude that it is high time we explored and implemented a long-range vision, strategic understanding, and a lasting solution to the Pakistan problem and its internal spill-overs in India in the form of jihadist radicalisation and terrorism.
Also, having done this analysis, I believe that this is the very question with which this article began. i.e., what explains the recent upsurge in terrorist attacks in Jammu, is itself a superficial one. Ideally, we should be asking the following questions:
Can there be a major terrorist upsurge and other kinds of Pakistan-orchestrated violence in other parts of the Indian hinterland? The answer is that they have already displayed the signature of their capability to disturb things deep in the Indian hinterland in the past. With their proxies and assets and the alarming radicalisation of the Muslim community and communal polarisation in India, they can activate their terror machinery anywhere in India, as per their choice and will. Are we capable of fighting that?
The author is the founder and CEO of Usanas Foundation, a foreign policy and national security think tank. A Cornell University grad in public affairs, and the author of ‘Radicalisation in India: An Exploration’. His latest book ‘Terror Financing in Kashmir’ has been published by Routledge in December 2023. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
