Surgical strikes: A Goebbels’ tale

The myth behind the ‘surgical strikes’ – And Indian propaganda machinery’s failure

A year after the Indian army claimed to have conducted “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control on alleged ‘terrorist launch pads” in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, it has failed, beyond point, to substantiate its claims.

More than a year ago on September 29, 2016, the then Director General of Indian Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh addressed a press conference in New Delhi along with external affairs ministry spokesperson, Vikas Swarup, claiming that the Indian army had made strikes in Azad Kashmir.

Other than beating about the bush and sticking to the rhetoric that “significant casualties” had been inflicted on alleged “terrorists”, the DGMO provided no further details. “The operations aimed at neutralising the terrorists have since ceased. We do not have any plans for continuation of further operations,” he said.

The DGMO said the surgical strikes were conducted by the Indian army, thereby ruling out the use of the Indian air force or fixed-wing aircraft, but the mechanics of the operation were never spelt out.

He took no questions after his briefing. Unofficially, the army told Indian media the strikes targeted seven different “terrorist launch pads” at a distance of 500 metres to about a kilometre across the LoC.

If airstrikes are ruled out, the other means of hitting a target could be: firing across the LoC on specific installations using mortar (as specified by some Pakistani sources), artillery or even missiles, or raids by special forces, moving either on foot or using helicopters to enter. If seven targets were hit, as some Indian media sources have put out, a combination of these methods could have been used. Hence, the claim shrouded in mystery and independent analysts have failed to find any evidence or plausible reason to believe the Indian claims.

After the Indian claims, Pakistan countered. The then Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Lt Gen Asim Bajwa took international media to the areas that Indian army claimed to have struck.

After visiting the area and talking to people extensively, International media reports supported the Pakistani rebuttal. Since then, the Indian military and the government have refused to provide any evidence to back their claims raising doubts further.

Ironically, the then Indian defence minister Manohar Parrikar had expressed ignorance about the “surgical strikes”. He had told media that he had no knowledge of the ‘strikes’, concluding that the entire drama was conceived in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office.

Traditionally, such announcements are made by Indian officials and not by the army.

Another interesting fact is the admission of Indian state minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore that “aerial operations were not included in the operation”. Rathore’s remarks endorsed the version of the army’s media wing, ISPR, which insisted: “There has been no surgical strike by India, instead there was cross-border fire initiated by the Indian side.”

Another point to be noted here is whether Indian military is equipped and capable enough of conducting such “surgical strikes”. Although India has been boasting about it, the International media has repeatedly raised such questions and have unfortunately or deliberately found no answers.

While several Indian analysts have nailed the Indian claim, Indian politicians have also raised doubts.

Firebrand Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal had urged PM Narendra Modi to release evidence of the ‘strikes’ which he had “are shrouded in mystery”. Kejriwal had said, “Pakistan has already ripped to shreds the farcical claim as an illusion being deliberately generated by India to create false effects”.

A day after Kejriwal questioned the authenticity of India’s ‘surgical strike’ claims, another Indian politician, Anand Sharma, and senior spokesperson of India’s largest political party, Congress, demanded credible evidence of the incident. “The government must expose Pakistan’s denial. It has all the tools and instruments to do so,”

Another Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam termed the claim “fake” and said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government was trying to derive political mileage out of it.

Interestingly, the most important refutation of surgical strikes claim came from Srinagar, the capital city of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK).

Awami Ittehad Party chief and unionist lawmaker from the Langate constituency of Kupwara district in northern Kashmir, Sheikh Abdul Rasheed, blew the lid when he, at a presser in Srinagar, said the Indian army was “shooting a video of a fake operation in Leepa valley in frontier district of Kupwara” to present it as evidence of its alleged surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC).

“Very credible sources have confirmed that Indian army is engaged in filming videos in Nowgam and Leepa sectors, adjacent to borders showing as if army is carrying out covert operations in enemy’s territory, so that the same can be provided as evidence to satisfy Indian masses and world community,” Rasheed said while addressing a press conference.

He also hinted at election ambitions as a core reason for the surgical strikes claim, saying that all the chest-thumping by the BJP in claiming the ‘surgical strikes’ was being done to promote Home Minister Rajnath Singh as its chief ministerial candidate for Uttar Pradesh, which was going to polls in 2017.

Kashmir’s firebrand lawmaker and a propagator of right to self determination, according to the UN resolutions, said army and police have been staging managed dramas in the past from Pathribal to Machill and claims of “surgical strikes” and that of apprehending a Pakistani militant Bahadur Ali are the recent additions to these staged dramas by India to blame Pakistan.

Apart from the politicians denying their own governments’ claims, former Indian military officers raised questions about the strikes.

A noted Defence analyst of India, Colonel (R) Ajai Shukla, also tweeted, “Much ado about claimed Indian ‘cross border strike’… which has hurt Pak so much that they flatly deny it took place! #IsThisPunishment?”

The failure of Indian military to provide any evidence to the international audience also raised several key questions and several stories appeared in the mainstream media terming Indian claims a “farce”.

Leading US newspaper The Washington Post, in an article, published interviews of locals living along the Line of Control in the areas where Indians claimed the strikes. The majority of villagers in the three areas along the LoC said they did not witness any cross-border movement of troops or hear the sound of helicopters.

Another reputed publication, The Diplomat, in a piece titled “Is India Capable of a Surgical Strike in Pakistan Controlled Kashmir?” raised some serious questions about the capabilities of the Indian military to carry out such technical operation in the most difficult terrain.

According to a BBC Urdu article, when locals residing merely two kilometres away from Indian check-posts were inquired about the strikes they said: “What surgical strikes? That day there was just extraordinary firing.”

Conclusion

It seems India wanted to rebrand heavy shelling across the LoC as ‘surgical strikes’ aiming at creating media hype. Perhaps, the Indian establishment wanted to win local elections by projecting a false image of Narendra Modi as a macho man who can fix Pakistan.

The reason for Modi to enact the drama was to resuscitate his own image of the “Macho Man” with 56 inch chest “who would teach Pakistan a lesson”.

Another objective of claiming surgical strikes may be to suppress the indigenous freedom movement in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK) which has witnessed another intifada since the martyrdom of young Hizbul Mujahideen Commander Burhan Ahmed Wani last year.

Wani’s killing led to a massive uprising in the region against the Indian rule. Kashmir was shut for six months while the Indian state imposed curfew for almost 55 consecutive days. Almost a hundred youth were killed while more than 20,000 suffered injuries. Indian state used “Duck Hunting” pellet guns on the civilian population who protested against the Indian rule. More than 10,000 were arrested and put behind bars, while the resistance leadership was caged either at their residences or in jails.

Presumably, Modi regime wanted Indian people to believe that Kashmiris fear him and that the premier will crush all voices calling for freedom.

However, the post-Burhan killing uprising belied those expectations of the Indian people. They saw that during Modi’s time, Kashmiris actually completed their transformation. A friend from Kashmir told me that the 2016 uprising actually revived and inculcated a culture of resistance among the youth.

Besides, Indian military has routinely been involved in fake encounters and ethnic cleansing in a bid to suppress freedom struggles in several Indian states and IoK.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over, the central government has used state force blatantly to suppress dissenting voices. On the other hand, media is being used to twist facts and mislead the public at large.

The only challenge the Modi regime faced came from the resilient Kashmiris who bravely fought against Indian tyranny and forced the fascist forces to step back by offering the blood of its youth.

Analysts also believe that after failing to calm down the uprising in Kashmir despite repeated killings, the Indian regime enacted the drama of the “surgical strikes”.

Faking and twisting facts has long been a practice of the Indian regime. In 2013, the Indian government admitted in parliament that 555 fake encounter cases were registered across India since 2009.

Majority of those fake encounters were registered in Uttar Pradesh (138), followed by Manipur (62), Assam (52), West Bengal (35), Jharkhand (30), Chhattisgarh (29), Odisha (27), Jammu and Kashmir (26), Tamil Nadu (23) and Madhya Pradesh (20). Only 144 cases, out of 555, have been solved so far, the government admitted.

Significantly, the data showed that of the top ten states, five were Naxal-affected. Barring 2012-13, where there has been a slight drop in such cases pan-India, there has been a steady increase in fake encounters. The total number of fake encounter cases in 2009-10 were 103, which went up to 129 in 2010-11 and then to 197 in 2011-12. This is how India treated its citizens.

But when it comes to Indian Occupied Kashmir, Indian brutalities have no parallel. According to Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), over the past three decades, the Indian army and police martyred over 70,000 Kashmiris. But the culprits of the genocide have gone unpunished as courts stand compromised.

The failure of the state to punish the culprits suggests that Indian army has been turned into a rogue force which kills and maims people at will. Moreover, unabated fake encounters and fake surgical strikes would not help India mislead the world.