How Should India Handle the Next Conflict With Pakistan? Lt Gen Hooda Speaks
Lt Gen Hooda offers a perspective of what the approach towards the people of Jammu & Kashmir should be.
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After Operation Sindoor and the recent India-Pakistan conflict, new lines have been drawn, and the countries are learning to live with a 'new normal.'
In an exclusive interview for The Quint, senior journalist Harinder Baweja speaks to Lt Gen Deependra Singh Hooda (Retd), who oversaw the 2016 surgical strikes, about the critical questions that still linger in the aftermath of the conflict.
From ceasefire diplomacy to General Asim Munir’s provocations, Lt Gen Hooda offers a perspective of where things stand. They also discuss what the next crisis can look like and what the government's approach towards the people of Jammu and Kashmir should be.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
Three strikes in nine years, new red lines drawn, headquarters of the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba damaged. The million-dollar question remains: Has Pakistan been deterred?
What India is trying to say is that there is going to be a cost going to be imposed on Pakistan for promoting terrorism within India. Deterring Pakistan is a long game for India, so I'm not sure whether one strike will do.
I think what the government has done is that they are also following up with diplomatic steps. They put Pakistan on notice as far as the disparity is concerned so I think a combination of these steps will help. And, you know, military action that has been taken and this time it is significantly different from what we have seen in the past. What India is trying to tell Pakistan is the continued use of terrorism will come at a price.
As as we know, Pakistan has been using proxies terrorists as a part of state policy. It's not going to be easy for them to just give this up, because they feel there conventional inferiority is sort of overcome by use of terrorism and proxy actors.
You're saying it's not easy to deter Pakistan, and Pakistan will continue to use its proxies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made India's line rather clear by saying that he will not distinguish between state actors and non-state actors. But you feel, and you are the military expert, that Pakistan will continue its policy of bleeding India through a thousand cuts?
Look, this is something that they have been doing. What is also clear to them is that this will come at a price. And I think the second thing is, you know, more critically, importantly, in every crisis Pakistan would wave the nuclear card and say, look, if you do anything, it could just quickly escalate into the into the nuclear domain.
I think that is also something that India has now made quite clear that we will carry out military operations, despite the fact that both countries are are nuclear armed. So I think a combination of these steps is going to give sort of some pause to Pakistan to think this what we can do.
The continued use of of proxies is something that is very ingrained in their in their military culture. It's also not easy for the Pakistan military to break its very deep nexus with the jihadis.
The government sent all-party delegations to different world capitals, and even as they were visiting different nations spreading India's message of zero tolerance, we saw Pakistan gain the United Nations Security Council. chair for counter terrorism. There are questions also about the ceasefire and why India agreed to that ceasefire. Do you think India agreed because it had met its objectives? Or do you think India agreed because Donald Trump and his administration started working the phone lines?
There is no doubt that Donald Trump's administration did work the phone lines, I mean, that has been admitted. You know, this question is often asked why did India sort of agree to a ceasefire? History will judge whether this was right or wrong, but if you look at statements by India, every time it was we don't want to escalate, all we are doing is non-escalatory, we are only responding to Pakistan's attacks.
So I think at that stage, if that is what India set out to do, then the ceasefire falls in in line with whatever thinking was going on in the government.
Why did General Asim Munir choose to escalate at this point of time?
It was a deliberate provocation and I think there are two-three reasons. One is, you know, things were getting better in Jammu, if you look at the overall data of violence levels, terrorist killings, civilian deaths, etc, things were improving. You were having record number of tourists who were who were coming and, in fact, the government was claiming these figures as one of the matrix for success, that everything is now normal.
I also think if you look at what is happening within Pakistan, you know they were more sort of openly claiming that India has been supporting militancy in Balochistan.
It's a pity, isn't it, that Jammu and Kashmir gets caught bang in the middle each time tensions soar between India and Pakistan. I've always believed, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, or your point of view is different, I think, looking just at the number of tourists is the wrong yardstick to measure normalcy.
And, you know, pushing tourists to go there and painting this picture of a 'Naya Kashmir' post the revocation of Article 370, I mean, the ground situation does not change only because you've got rid of one article in the Constitution.
I think that I agree with you. I have been saying this, how do you measure success in J&K? I think we need to start looking at what indicators we are using. It is, look, we killed so many terrorists this year, or we have so many lakh tourists who are while visiting Jammu and Kashmir.
But I think we need to do a little sort of deeper analysis of what's the sentiment among the people? What is happening to the levels of radicalization within the state. These are also some is intelligence flowing in the way we wanted to flow in.
These are not very easy to sort of measure, but unless we take these indicators into consideration, we will tend to fall into the trap of 'everything is fine' when actually things are not completely fine.
So what are the steps you think the government needs to take? Will the restoration of statehood be enough? Or or does the government need to do more?
Whatever we do, whatever campaigns are, they should be directed at at the people. I've always believed, and I think many of us in uniform believe that a long-term solution will require a completely people-centric approach. Restoration of statehood is one step, because it leads to sort of more political empowerment of the people that that would help a campaign.
Frankly, you know some of the narratives that you hear in in Jammu and Kashmir is that the government is only concerned about the territory and not about the people. I think that narrative needs to get reversed, that look, we care, we care for you as much as we care for citizens in other countries.
I think we should also look beyond Kashmir. Jammu has its own issues. How do you get some kind of respectable resolution to the Kashmiri Pandit problem? The Gujjar have their own sort of angst over some of the steps that have been taken.
I think a conversation also needs to start between the people of Jammu and the people of Kashmir.
Often we are only managing the conflict managing by saying, look, let's keep the violence levels down. But there is a difference between how you manage the conflict and how you look at the long-term resolution.
Watch the full interview.