The Upper Hand

BRIG (Dr.) ASHOK PATHAK (Retd)

WHEN India’s national leadership cleared the surgical strike in Uri, it was a transformation from minimin to maximax approach in decision making where the decision maker opts for maximising the outcome with an inherent optimism of the future state. Any doubts about India’s new approach were cleared when the IAF breached the Pakistani airspace to strike at Balakot. The message was loud and clear and later re-emphasised by some other far-reaching and hitherto unexpected bold decisions:

• Telling Pakistan that terrorism and talks cannot go together.
• Ending the ridiculous interaction with Hurriyat leaders and making the organisation irrelevant.
• Abrogating Article 370 and 35 thus telling the rest of the world that India has one flag, one head of state and one constitution.
• Lastly, according electoral legitimacy to Gilgit Baltistan.

These initiatives announced the beginning of winning the Information war in Jammu and Kashmir. Nevertheless, this is just a beginning and there is a long and a hard journey ahead. To grasp the complete implications of this journey, we need to address the following:

• Full spectrum of Information War in the Indian context.
• The achievements and likely goals in the near future
• Information War: Adaption of the American concept to Indian context

The phrase became a global trend in military lexicon after the spectacular American victory in the first Gulf War of 1991.  Martin C Libicki’s write-up for the National Defence University Institute for National Strategic Studies (US) – ‘What is Information Warfare?’ in August 1995, gives out seven categories of IW. These are command and control warfare, intelligence based warfare, electronic warfare, psychological warfare, hacker warfare, economic information warfare, cyber warfare, Netwar, political war and economic war. Except for the first three, the other components of Information War do not involve national institutions and assets that are non military in nature. It is not our case to elaborate the American concepts of Information War and its component across the entire spectrum. However, as we look at the events and the consequent development of relevant theories pertaining to the modern conflict spectrum, it emerges that modern conflicts are undeclared, continuously involve national assets and institutions at various stages in different mixes and matches. The edifice of national capabilities to survive in the current global environment in specific context of India is structured on seven pillars:

• People and the leaders: This is citizen-centric strength derived from collective awareness of people, their psychological robustness to elect the right type of leaders, their productivity, creativity, and innovative skills. These strengths will insulate the nation from the continuous netwar, perception management techniques, and subversion.
• Vibrant economy: An inclusive, distributive, and sustained high growth economy based on innovation and constructive disruption provides resilience against economic war by the adversary.
• Dynamic knowledge and technology base: From a net importer and consumer of new knowledge and technology, we need to move to an era where we receive and internalise new knowledge, create new concepts, knowledge, and technology to be exported to the world at large. Higher rates of investments in this field is one of the inputs.
• Robust internal security apparatus: Border management, policing, judicial systems, governance, and administration constitute this apparatus. This apparatus must be people-friendly, efficient, and effective. Also, when people find the armed forces pitted against them for a long duration of time, their faith in the most respected organisation in the country for ensuring national security erodes.
• The armed forces: Motivated armed forces that are efficient, effective, and capable of synergistic concentration of effort and hence impact at the selected targets in time and space are essential in IW environment. These forces must be able to inter-operate and collaborate with each other (Army, Navy and Air Force) as also other organisations as per the operational requirement.
• ICT adaption: The overarching importance of ICT is established by its duality of use. ICTs provide most precious domain for governance in a vibrant democracy, facilitate creation and distribution of wealth, sustain the banking systems, track and neutralise internal threats and so on.
• International relations: The modern world is intimately interconnected. These linkages are through cyberspace as also through common threat perceptions, trade interests, societal linkages, historical backgrounds, cultural similarities, and so on. This interconnected global environment needs to be harnessed for economic growth through trade, forming a part of supply chain for high value products and services, joint cyber war operations both defensive as also offensive, counter terrorism and securing major sea routes critical for our international trade. Hence international alliances, coalitions, and treaties form an important pillar for IW.
• Winning the IW in J&K across the seven pillars

Post the abrogation of Article 370, the people of Jammu and Kashmir have expressed their vision for audacious goals. They are yearning to maintain peace, be a part of the larger Indian fraternity by shunning fissiparous tendencies and are up-beat about the future. The leaders so far are in sync with people’s aspiration. But it is just a beginning and there are a large number of gaps to plug before the strategic path for taking the region to its ancient glory of strategic importance.

As regards, vibrant economy, the growth post August 2019 has been encouraging. It ranks first amongst the UTs in District Good Governance index, tops the UTs in e-governance, and there is 28.69 percent increase in IT return filing. The GST filing has crossed 97 percent on an average.

In the dynamic knowledge sector, massive investments are showing results on ground. There has been exponential growth from kindergarten levels to research-oriented institutions. Some 518 smart virtual class rooms, 200 vocational training labs, centre for invention, innovation and incubation laboratories have been established. Fifty nine colleges are being accredited by NAAC. As regards skills development, 20,000 undergraduate students are being trained in relevant skills development.

The internal security situation is much better compared to the pre abrogation period. Major impact has been in the surrender of militants as can be seen from the table below:

The armed forces have strengthened their deployments, capabilities and orientation in the region to cater for threat from the eastern and western neighbours.

ICT adaption in the region has also seen tremendous impetus post abrogation. This is evident from the rankings in e-governance and good governance indices. Besides major initiatives are underway to get bring the region at par with the best in the nation.

In context of international relations, the most significant achievement in international relations with regard to J&K has been the conduct of G-20 meetings in the region. As per Amitabh Kant, who led the project, successful conduct of the event revealed that the Kashmiri youth is aspirational, highly forward-looking, well-informed, can see new avenues and has moved on from the Pak-sponsored terrorism.

It is quite evident that the audacious transformation has given immense hope to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, including those in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The giant fly wheels of peace, harmony, progress and citizen centric well-being have cranked into motion. But this fly wheel had been static and at times, moving in the reverse direction for a long time. It has to gain sufficient momentum of its own to make the froward movement independent of external force. That would require sustained effort by the people, leadership and institutions- in that order.

Srinagar, Leh and Jammu need to become international airports. The region needs to be integrated with Uttarakhand, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet as part of a Himalayan Belt. Its hubs need to be created as these exist in cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Gurugram and New Delhi. Remunerations in Jammu and Kashmir need to be at par with Indian and global standards. The start-ups need to be supported by providing security and incentives. Most importantly, the private sector needs to open its purse for the region.

(Brigadier (Dr.) Ashok Pathak (Retd) was commissioned into the Corps of Signals. He holds a PhD in Strategic Implications Of Management Information Systems, which was sponsored through the Chair of Excellence Program of the Army War College, Mhow. He served in the UN Mission as international observer in Angola. He also has many publications to his credit)