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A wake-up call for all
By Nasim Zehra


The August 10 shooting down of a Pakistan Navy plane by Indian Air Force jet fighters is a grim reminder of India's commitment to its preferred mode of interaction with Pakistan - the mode of deliberate aggression.

India's unbroken record of turning to illegal and aggressive use of force in settling outstanding issues with Pakistan stretches from its 1947 occupation of Hyderabad and Junagarh to its 1984 occupation of Siachen. Similarly in response to the Pakistan-supported Kashmiri freedom struggle against India's occupation of Jammu and Kashmir, New Delhi has consistently resorted to the oppressive use of force. India ascribes to itself the Monroe Doctrine role in South Asia. Encouraged by the western response to its Kashmir policy and by the Kargil withdrawal, through the August 10 shoot down New Delhi has attempted to further strengthen its credentials as the regional bully.

According to the Pakistani military sources, the French-built anti-submarine aircraft Atlantic-1 was unarmed and on a routine training flight with 16 people on board. The plane, visible to Pakistani and Indian radars, was flying at a height of 7,000 feet over Pakistani airspace, over the Rann of Kutch area near Badin.

Around two hours after take-off from Karachi, the plane was downed by an Indian missile. Earlier the Pakistani radar did pick up movement of two Indian MiG-21 fighter jets at around 60 kilometers distance from the Pakistani plane. This did not alert the Pakistani authorities since the Pakistani naval aircraft was on a routine training flight. Also the Indian fighters were flying over their own territory.

The plane was evidently shot over Pakistani territory. Its wreckage, found around 2 kilometers inside Pakistani territory, is strewn over a radius of 1.6 kilometers. Significantly it was at least an hour after the Navy's plane went down that the Pakistani military's rescue teams arrived at the crash site. When the teams arrived, according to the ISPR, they found Indian forces, including India's Border Security Force, attempting to remove pieces of the debris to their side of the border.

The ISPR version has been supported from the most unlikely source. At least twice the BBC has shown footage of the removal of the debris by Indian personnel. The footage shows a few men frantically picking up pieces of the debris, turning around and literally running in the opposite direction.

Indian authorities have acknowledged that they did shoot the plane. Within hours of the incident, the Indian director general of military operations conceded to his Pakistani counterpart that India had shot down the Pakistani plane. He, however, maintained that the plane had come ten kilometers inside Indian airspace. New Delhi's men are justifying the shooting down of the plane on the premise that the plane had violated Indian airspace and instead of following the instructions of Indian fighter jets to land at an Indian airbase the plane made some "threatening moves."

This Indian view sharply contrasts with the incontrovertible fact that the wreckage of the plane is in Pakistani territory and, therefore, it must have been shot over Pakistan's airspace. Planes shot at and destroyed by missiles do not glide in the air. And if the Indian version of the Pakistani naval plane having entered 10 kilometers into Indian airspace is accepted, then the missile-hit plane would have glided for at least 10 kilometers for its wreckage to have fallen inside Pakistani territory. The Indian position is evidently untrue.

New Delhi is attempting to "sell" to the international community what has clearly been Indian aggression by design and not by accident. More specifically, New Delhi has made three claims. One, that Pakistani naval plane had violated Indian airspace on 8 previous occasions. The dishonesty of such an allegation is evident from the fact that New Delhi, otherwise deftly engaged in constant anti-Pakistan propaganda, did not even once raise the violation issue at any forum. Two, that the wreckage has fallen in Indian territory. To engineer this baseless claim, the Indian Air Force decided to provide an aerial view of the wreckage to the foreign journalists. But how could India fly journalists over Pakistani territory? The Indians must have erroneously banked on their ability to intimidate Pakistan by getting cover for the helicopters carrying the journalists through Indian MiG-21 fighter planes.

It is significant that while reporting on the incident that occurred while the BBC's correspondent Daniel Lak was flying towards the wreckage site, he failed to indicate that the wreckage site, as had already been determined by foreign journalists on August 10, was on the Pakistani side. That in fact taking the journalists under cover of jet fighters would have involved either violating Pakistani airspace or at least flying within 10 kilometers of Pakistani airspace which would amount to a violation of the April 1991 agreement.

The third issue being raised by New Delhi is that by flying its anti-submarine aircraft at a less than 10 kilometers distance of the Indian airspace, Islamabad violated the April 6, 1999, Pak-India Agreement on Prevention of Air Space Violations and for Permitting Over Flights and Landings by Military Aircraft.

Pakistan refutes this claim maintaining that the plane did not fall in the category of the aircraft identified under Article 2(a) of the 1991 agreement. Islamabad maintains that even though technically Atlantic-1 is a maritme reconnaissance plane it was unarmed, on a training flight and flying over land, not water. Flying over land, Atlantic-1 was not in a position to either pick up sensitive information regarding Indian submarines or to attack Indian submarines.

Even if the Indian version of violation of its airspace is accepted, the Indian decision to opt for a unwarranted and bloody aggression is indeed indicative of India's broader approach on the question of Pak-India relations. While such a move within weeks of the Kargil affair does smack of the cowardly and primitive instinct of calculated revenge, it also reaffirms India's proclivity and preference to opt for aggression, for power projection and for the bully instinct as opposed to the language of law, of justice and of fairplay.

In the post-Kargil phase, New Delhi appears to have adopted an increasingly aggressive posture towards Pakistan as well as towards Kashmir. Within the context of how the international community supported India during the Kargil phase and subsequently how Pakistan found itself diplomatically cornered, such Indian behaviour is not surprising.

Although, ironically, the Kashmiri movement has gained momentum in the post-Kargil phase, Islamabad has still not come out with a clear and convincing position on its relations with India. Mixed and contradictory signals emanate from Islamabad. The policy center remains somewhat nebulous. All this could be misread by India. Encouraging it to become more aggressive, and militarily and diplomatically create difficulties for Pakistan.

It is, therefore, not surprising that following its August 10 aggression, India has violated Pakistani airspace at least three times. Its helicopters and jet fighters have entered Pakistani airspace in an attempt to get photographs of the crash site, to take away parts of the wreckage and finally to intimidate the Pakistani forces.

There are questions being raised by the G-8, P-5 and the western media regarding the wisdom in Pakistan's decision to fly military aircraft so close to the Indian border. They argue that Pakistan should be more cautious, especially after the Kargil episode.

The thinking in Pakistan is likely to be the reverse. Any defensive moves by Pakistan will be misread in New Delhi. Even if mistakes were committed by Pakistan on the Kargil front, Islamabad cannot afford a defensive modus operandi vis-a-vis New Delhi. That would be a free-for-all signal to the regional bully.

However, to contain New Delhi's aggression, Islamabad itself must first be clear on its policy towards India. Cool, competent and confident calculations are required. No half-baked approach can be afforded. Neither propagating baseless claims that the international community is sympathetic towards Pakistan's position nor that the international media is recognising, at least at this point, the truth on the August 10 incident.

Kargil is too close to us in time. Its lessons cannot be lost. Either in framing our future policy towards India and Kashmir or in understanding the existing mindset of the G-8 and P-5 towards India. It's an uphill task for Islamabad. Yet very doable. Requiring of course a leadership which is both competent and confident. One that understands the connection between the defaulted bank loans, institutionalized decision-making, encouraging freedom of the press and between the pursuit of a principled and successful foreign policy.