Surgical Strikes: Why The Government Should Not Take Credit

In the times of hyperbole, half-truths and unabashed self-promotion, it is not out of place that the surgical strikes of the night of September 29, 2016 have been turned into a potent marketing and propaganda tool by the Great Leader. The leader, whom we shall not name here but refer to as Great, simply because he would believe and like us to believe that there was none equal to him in muscular thought and action in Indian history. He has been tirelessly conveying to the masses that the strikes were a never-before incident and they would not have been possible without him.

Well, how true is his claim on the joint operation conducted by the Indian military? The fawning media, the propaganda arm of the Great Leader, won’t tell us the truth. So, let’s dissect it from scattered information that is available to us through the media and other sources.

Were the surgical strikes the first such operation across the border by the Army

Make it a big no. While cross-border actions varying in scale keep happening and stay beyond public knowledge, there have been at least three such recorded actions since 2008.
In June 2008, a week after a soldier of the Gorkha Rifles was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) in Kel sector and subsequently beheaded, the Indian Army retaliated. Eight Pakistani soldiers were killed in the raids on Pakistani posts. The soldiers brought home four severed heads.

In August 2011, the Indian Army retaliated to the attack on an Army post in Gugaldhar. In the surgical operation, called Operation Ginger, 13 Pakistani soldiers were killed and three of their posts devastated. India had lost six. The soldiers brought back the heads of three Pakistani army men.

In a surgical attack in January 2013, termed Operation Badla, Indian defence personnel flattened a Pakistani post across the Poonch sector and killed six Pakistani troops and some terrorists. This was in response to the beheading of Lance Naik Hemraj by Pakistani Border Action team. According to defence experts, the security personnel usually have a free hand to deal with such situations on the border. Retaliations from the Indian side are common, but they are not publicised or politicised. The September 2016 surgical strikes across the LoC followed the attack on the brigade headquarters at Uri, which claimed 18 Indian soldiers. It was a big operation, which reportedly saw 38 terrorists and two Pakistani soldiers dead.

In many ways, it was the continuation of whatever had been going on for decades. The assumption that the Indian army was showing the other cheek to the militants all these years before the Narendra Modi government came to power, is reflective of the poor assessment of the character of our defence personnel, who are known for their heroic feats and have won several wars against the enemy.

What long-term purpose did it serve?

The Great Leader and his propaganda machinery won’t tell us this about the surgical strikes: it is an operation that delivered no real results on the ground. It changed nothing. Pakistan has not mended its devious ways and it does not look particularly scared of India; terrorists keep infiltrating to the Indian side; and the number of our defence personnel killed or injured by intruders is no less than earlier. Here’s a look at some worrisome numbers.

According the government’s own admission in Parliament, there was more than 200 per cent increase in ceasefire violations along the Line of Control in 2017 compared to 2016. The number of ceasefire violations in 2016 was 228. In the year after the surgical strikes, it stood at 860. In 2018, the number of ceasefire violations along the LoC were even higher, at 942.

If every action is judged by concrete results, then we don’t have much to flaunt here. If the surgical strikes were conducted to avenge Uri, the Pakistan-backed militants struck back at Nagorta quickly, killing 28 personnel. It is possible the Indian Army has stuck back in kind. According to the government’s report, 342 terrorist strikes took place in Jammu and Kashmir in 2017. In 2016, the number stood at 322. More terrorists were killed in 2017 compared to 2016, but the number of security personnel killed was also marginally up, from 80 to 82. The big point in all this is nothing has altered significantly in the tough terrains along the border after the strikes.

Why is it odd when the Great Leader takes credit for the surgical strikes?
If it were just a military action involving brave defence personnel, it would have been perfectly acceptable. But the Great Leader fished for personal glory in the achievement of the army, a force that belongs to the whole country. The message he sought to convey is this: It is under MY inspirational leadership that the Indian defence personnel achieved the impossible. They were wimps under other leaders earlier, sitting ducks to trigger-happy shooters beyond the border. So, actually I am great. I deserve the credit for the surgical strikes.

The attempt to appropriate the achievement of the defence personnel for personal self-glorification and political ends is what troubles everyone, not the surgical strikes per se. Of course, the Great Leader and his ideological fellow-travellers will have none of it. Perhaps it’s time the country was told the whole truth, not a sugar-coated version of it.