Sunday, January 20, 2019

mitr5

As I type this fifth part of my "Merit Is the Reason" (MITR) series, "Uri:The Surgical Strike" movie fever has already gripped the country. Expected to cross 100cr today (10th day, second weekend) or soon, it has become popular especially among the youth. In the theater where I saw it twice, there were 3 shows-a-day in the first weekend. This weekend, they have 6 and all sold out

I had mentioned in the comments section of MITR-1 that terrorism and defense related topics will be covered in this part-5 and the timing couldn't have been better. But where do I begin ?

19th June 2014 - barely one month into Modi govt. Security forces receive intel about Adil Ahmed Mir, Hizbul Mujahideen (HM)'s area commander. Unlike a "wait for him to attack us" approach, a squad of 8 - from 3 Rashtriya Rifles and JK Police's special Operations group -- reach the spot, kill Adil and two other terrorists. 2 from the Indian squad gets injured, but the Operation was successful (ref1).  This would perhaps be the first of a series of such special operations under Modi govt -- I started tracking some of the hi-profile terrorists killed in this post and its comments here ( link ), but I could not keep up - 2017(213 killed) and 2018 (222+) Ops are tracked in wikipedia (Ref1). The article mentions about some operations during 2003, 2004 .. and there after mostly under Modi govt !



Interestingly Adil was the mentor and trainer for Burhan Wani and a detailed account of the encounter can be found in "India's most fearless" by Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh. When one reads the book, one aspect stands out - Indian  Army's SOP demands that when an operation is launched based on Intel, utmost care has to be taken to ensure that it is indeed a terrorist and not a civilian mistaken. This means Army men take positions, literally call out "who are you?" (there by revealing their own positions and are exposed), and only based on the reaction (which in most cases is a volley of firing from the terrorist) act further. This amazing restraint from India's forces is a major factor that in spite of 200+ terrorists killed within Indian territory annually, there has been near zero accusations of civilian deaths, human rights violations etc -- OR if there has been any, it has been quite muted and not at an International pressure level -- which leads me to the two other factors that were needed for these operations to be possible - one, strong international relationship, and two cutting off the money supply, especially black money supply to terrorists and their "spokespersons"

Not just Kashmir terrorism, DeMo "broke the backbone of Naxal funding" also, and resulted in "increased number of naxal surrenders" [detailed report brought out in Oct 2018 is in Ref2]. This is where the genius of Modi-Doval combo makes it very different from previous govts. Their actions are not to be seen in isolation, not to be seen as reactive. Instead, its a carefully planned out strategy - a strategy for at least 5 years for sure.. Whether the strategy goes beyond 5 years, and whether there are still "dots to be connected", will be known only if India decides to re-elect Modi in a few months!

For those who have short memory, let me also remind readers of the implementation of OROP after it being stuck for 40 years [ Ref3 ], India's moral and diplomatic victory in Doklam [ Ref4 ] and indeed the fact that terrorist attack on civilians have been minimal, and even on Army men have considerably reduced after the "twin" (Pak and Myanmar) surgical strikes

Unfortunately, for some people, expectations are too high from Modi. They want him to solve all the mess that non-BJP govts have created for 60 years - within 5 years. One can only hope that Indian masses will not let down the "best-so-far" in demand (bordering greed) of an imaginary "even-better"

 mitr1 | mitr2 | mitr3 | mitr4 | mitr5 | mitr6 | mitr7 | mitr8
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Ref1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Army_operations_in_Jammu_and_Kashmir

Ref2: http://www.pprc.in/upload/Demonetization%20-%20Impact%20on%20Combating%20Naxalism.pdf

Ref3: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/government-delivered-on-orop-promise-committed-to-army-narendra-modi/articleshow/60928403.cms

Ref4: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/the-doklam-crisis-ends-a-diplomatic-victory-for-india/