 Hello and welcome to NewsClick and I am Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay and you are watching Present, Past and the Future. Future historians are going to look at the year 2019 and the elections in two parts, pre-Pulwama and post-Pulwama. Prior to Pulwama or the 14th of February, quite paradoxically also the Valentine's Day which actually started an entire new chapter in mutual hatred and animosity. Prior to that it looked like that the ruling party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on a weak wicket that the entire issue was being fought on issues of unemployment, rising rural crisis on questionable deliveries of the government. By and large basically they were estimates you know that the government was not doing, the ruling party was not doing very well. But Pulwama completely changed it because suddenly it became an opportunity for Mr. Modi to do what he does best, which is to propagate muscular nationalism. In the days immediately after the attack on the CRPF convoy in Pulwama, there were three basic narratives which set into place in India. The first narrative was what would be India's retaliation, what is the Prime Minister going to do against Pakistan or the Pakistan based handlers of the terrorists who struck in the convoy. The second narrative was the immediate targeting of people from Kashmir in different parts of India and those who were opposed to the narrative which was being presented by the government or by the ruling party. The third narrative was that of the politics of it, that this after all is going to be something which is going to play out very majorly in the elections as things develop. Eventually a lot has happened since then primarily with the airstrikes against Pakistan then thereafter the Pakistan violating our space coming in sending their aircrafts here, we also retaliating, capturing or capture of the Indian wing commander there and thereafter his release. So a lot has happened both diplomatically as well as militarily. These three areas which ultimately get down connected which is politics, diplomacy and military is something that needs to be understood and it is going to play out very majorly in the elections which is going to soon be acquiring the entire mind space of all the people in this country. Now to discuss these issues you know basically what I have done is that I have put together three of us you know I have Mr Vivek Karju who spent a lifetime in the Indian Foreign Service who handled most importantly very important charges including the sensitive during the the desk during the Kandahar crisis who's also been an Indian ambassador in different countries including Afghanistan most importantly Praveen Sani a former journalist who is also the editor of a former journalist by and say that Praveen and I we work together in a newspaper many years ago. He is the editor of this important defense magazine called Force a very independent voice somebody who looks at military policy very clearly and critically. Mr. Karju let me begin with you by trying to get some kind of a diplomatic assessment and also this very intriguing fact which I noticed you know that that when the de-escalation happened the first indication that something was happening came from the American president Donald Trump when he announced all the way you know in you know while he was traveling to the Korean handling the Korean issue said that something attractive news is going to come. Now in diplomacy it has been claimed by Mr Modi that we have been able to get the support of people much more other countries much more than we have ever been able to do so. Now if any gains have come if any support has come it wouldn't come absolutely free as they say that nothing is free in life. A broad what you know trying to understand a diplomatic assessment from you and also that if there is going to be a future price for the kind of support which has been extended to India. I will try to place this in some perspective you raised the question of the American president comment. India's traditional policy is that India-Pakistan relations are direct and bilateral and there is no place for parties. I believe that and history shows this that when it comes to long-term issues with Pakistan say the Jammu and Kashmir issue we do not admit anyone to come in. I think if anyone even the Americans want to play a role they'll be rebuffed and the world has accepted a position that unless both sides both countries want the Pakistanis of course want but unless India also wants we will not. And we remain committed to the composite dialogue process. Well we remain in principle committed to the composite dialogue process but there is a caveat and that caveat is that talks and terror don't go together that's been our basic position though at times governments have resided from this position. Now this position holds but when it comes to a crisis situation then it is not unnatural for the major powers to take an interest because the possible or the potential of disruption of regional peace and security or international peace and security impacts them. At that stage no country can rebuff their coming diplomatically or at a political level and talking and occasionally making suggestions to try to diffuse the situations that has been the pattern as far back as I can remember. Crisis situations they come in. Now the Americans quite clearly after Pulwama as indeed many other countries would be in discussions with us and in discussions with with Pakistan. I don't take this as third party intervention because I'm clear in my mind the third party intervention the connotation is when you're actually talking. No when you're actually looking at the longer issues the basic issues in this case you can't obviously rebuff if supposing there was a potential of war between the superpower the big part you'll take you'll talk to them because it impacts on you directly similarly they do so. So I do think that in this case the Americans were talking to us they were talking to the Pakistanis and what the American president said was a reflection of that discussion separate discussions and his diplomats would be telling him that there's good news coming. Okay just one question to this after the de-escalation we have seen and several speeches Mr. Modi is repeatedly saying that the world views India with greater respect and he claims and he seeks to claim political kudos for this. Well politicians all politicians claim kudos so Mr. Modi is not alone in that especially because this is an election year also yes of course election year and while on national security so he's stressing that this is a major achievement of his government that he's been able to get the international backing in order to ensure that Pakistan does not escalate any further. Let me put that in context too if you permit me. The traditional Indian approach has been to absorbs terror. It's been there all through it was there even in after Mumbai. Mumbai too it was there. Now the first change came after the Uri terrorist attack when Mr. Modi ordered surgical strikes right this time around and there were no elections then so quite clearly he was in signaling to Pakistan and to the international community that India would get India is becoming a known on since state India would get I don't look upon it in these terms I look upon it if you permit me in a little more conceptual framework that India would get its conventional forces into play something which Pakistan warns against if it thinks it's necessary in the case after terrorist attack. This is a doctrine thing. This time around and it was unrelated to the elections this time around he's carried that forward and he has said I will get my things my forces into play there's when he says that the international community has not has been supportive I would put it a little differently no one has criticized us except the Chinese who said something like about sovereignty of a country has to be respected no one else criticized us and I do believe that in many parts of the world this question was always asked when will India's strategic patience run out my last point he's taking political kudos for it because I think he was in search of what I say a dominant narrative I've discussed with you this with you in the past that whenever there's a dominant narrative and a person who is politically dominant then the marriage of the two has a capacity to harness that politically harness it politically then the marriage of the two leads to electoral great electoral success it's been there in the past so I do think that there is deep potential for getting that dominant narrative on this account. Praveen Sani both after surgical strike and as well as after this round of military exchange if I can use that particular phrase you have consistently argued that India has compromised its conventional deterrence I would want to understand from you that as to how in this time you know when there's a general gung ho in the atmosphere you know that general feel good that India has actually been able to avenge the killings of the CRPF soldiers that India has secured a lot and actually been able to set a new paradigm how and why are you arguing that our conventional deterrence has been compromised so first of all there's a difference between perception and reality now which narrative is accepted is higher is a matter of you know how much people understand military power now talking of reality let me get to the bare bones what has happened without getting technical so what has happened is that the I'm talking of the air element first because this is the first time it has happened we can talk 2016 later so as far as this air element is concerned what has happened is that stealthily we did breach the LC because I'm convinced the LC has been breached and this has been accepted by the Pakistanis if it was not breached they would not have retaliated so how much it is breached it's a matter of you know we can keep discussing now how many casualties are there it's immaterial the point is we stealthily we it doesn't matter you see I'm just getting you to the basic point what has happened the LC has been breached by us stealthily now the retaliation has come the next day in broad daylight now pause what it means is they were not deterred by us this is a straight conclusion now what is deterring in modern war it is the air element not to go in the details which will be the pivot of warfare right which means that the Pakistan Air Force and the Pakistan state is not deterred and they come in broad daylight too and they breach our LC our side however they may do it's not important but it's been breached and we have accepted that what they have done was a military aggression we have accepted what they have done was an act of war we did not retaliate so in the first instance they were not deterred in the second instance we did not have a the political will to retaliate and b we did not have the military capabilities to retaliate and this is where on the one hand the conventional deterrence will you know it's quite significant which you're saying that we did not have the military capability do you elaborate on this yes yes I mean this is the easiest thing to explain this is the easiest thing to explain you and I and everybody reads the paper every day we know the air force needs this this this we know the army needs all this we know the air for the navy needs all this we know the capabilities are not there capacities are not there moody is already declared you know that if we had rafael then the story would have been no no that is politics the bison can do a as much of a job in this thing as a rafael care right we are not talking war right now we are talking of that first step where we did not retaliate to a military aggression what mr moody is talking of is war that's something entirely different right all right so we did not have the military capability we did not have the political will both the things let me explain the political will the first part was easier if you recall on the 26th itself they held a meeting of the national command authority now what is national command authority Pakistan it is actually nothing it basically is where the entire the government the government today which is which is the political leadership the military leadership they sit down and they are supposed to discuss the nuclear issues the reality is the nuclear is the entire nuclear thing is with the pakistan army right it's not there with the civilian but the signaling was done here the signaling was done here that we've held this the problem in this country is and i say that i have been saying this for the last four decades nothing has changed and what has not changed is after we have done the nuclear test we have never bothered to understand that there is a need for a seamless transition from the conventional to the nuclear aspect we do not understand and all politicians are scared of this so you need a political will to fight a war you see they were aggressive they were ready for the escalation we are we were not ready for an escalation so basically what i'm saying is we have whether we accept or we don't accept because nobody will accept what i'm saying because it doesn't go against the national narrative the truth of the matter is we have exposed our air force we have exposed that we did not have the war fighting capability and here is the bottom line therefore to my mind like the 2016 surgical strike the air force has been used for publicity right i have been seeing this mr carju that you have been disagreeing but also besides disagreeing i would also take the steer the conversation a bit further the basic objective we should not forget is cross-border terrorism and also besides whatever is done by forces across the border there's also that there is a ground reality in india so a political situation which allows cross-border terrorism to prosper there is a political problem we need a certain kind of a resolution of a problem in kashmir that is also there so where do we go from here now how do we and does this government show any will in i'll i'll i'll i'll give you my take with all the deepest respect and i'll be very i followed this for many years professionally of course you have you handle after after 1998 the tests the pakistani said that india should never get its conventional forces into play because there is the danger of nuclear escalation right seamlessly it might go into a nuclear war they don't have a no first use doctrine they don't the object was to paralyze us it was that if you get your forces into play use your forces to counter a terrorist attack to send a signal to us then it's much too dangerous and they used to tell the world pass the police council in their restraint we followed that even after Mumbai we absorbed which we don't anymore let me just complete that we absorbed it and we started saying that terrorism does not constitute a strategic threat and therefore it should be handled politically diplomatically because our GDP and some strategic thinkers were saying that look what is the loss to GDP i believe this was wrong i believe that terrorism have extra has extracted a terrible price including a social price now over the last over 2000 from 2016 till now these two attacks have put major holes in that doctrine of nuclear of nuclear overhang and what is the signaling today as i interpreted the signaling is that escalation does not begin with the use of conventional forces it begins with the use of terror and india has no option but to apply force in a manner it wishes now i'm convinced that this will send a very sobering effect to pakistan quite clearly one act will not deter them because there are proponents of the nuclear overhang doctrine in pakistan who would say we have to attack massively we have to convene the national the national command authority to signal to the world that escalation is taking place and you should prevent indians from doing something somebody like me would argue that while it is important to send a signal to pakistan to stop cross border terrorism aiding forces which are working against india it is also important for us to look at the issue from a political perspective to try to see what are the issues what are the problems which are there within the country as to which allow the space for some third party to come and intervene i will answer that i believe that there are many issues in india many center state issues i for one have always believed that in jammu and kashmir we have two separate issues one is a center state issue right kashmir is a part of the union and we have to address the problem of the jammu of jammu and kashmir especially particularly the kashmir valley within the confines of our political system right that is our internal problem we have an external problem with pakistan because of territories under their control which we believe are ours the real difficulty is that the pakistanis have developed such intrusive capabilities in our part of jnk that we are finding it extremely difficult to address them and historically we have not been able to address them now we can have differences of views within our polity as to how to address jammu in kashmir fine fair there is a problem of great unhappiness in jnk and some people can be very unhappy with the way this government has handled that but there are two separate issues and let us be mindful of this so third party intervention is not happening in that issue it is third parties come in when there is a crisis and that is where i drew a distinction right pravin we also have an election you know which simply is going to become the most overbearing narrative over the next few weeks in such a situation where the attempt of the political leadership is going to be to maximize the gains you know whatever are the projected gains of this entire conflict do you think that there is any probability of this being tackled in a reasonable and a rational manner within the country over the next few years what being you know what we are talking about that there is a problem which is across the border which we know because of pakistan and so you see it's like we have to talk to people in kashmir yeah so the first thing is you know just a bit of a clarification here you know let me simplify it further it's something like this i have a neighbor who's very strong all right and we've got a common hedge i will dare not cut his hedge because he i will not do it because i know he is very powerful but he will cut my hedge and i can do bugger all about it now what i'm trying to put across to you is when people say that we have to do more strikes the problem is before that you have to build military power that is the whole problem if you have military power now compare it with china do you know or how many people know in this country that what we keep talking of this transgressions from both sides are actually one sided we are not going anywhere across the line of control in fact all along the line of control are patrolling limits are well inside because we know that they are formidable for militarily so what i am saying is all this is fine if you do not build up your capabilities and the pakis have assessed we do not have capabilities which is why they did what they did on the 27th morning so to go back again that we will do this again it is making a political statement you see because we have to first get our military power i mean who doesn't know we have shortages who doesn't know we do not have a defense industrial complex who doesn't know there are no military reforms here who doesn't know that we have a very limited budget i mean these are things which everybody knows if i mean this is no state secret so if you do not have a military power in place now talking of the surgical strike the then foreign secretary jay shankar has accepted to the parliament committee headed by shashi tharoor that these were low level low level counter terror operations and we went and called them surgical strike that this label has stuck they were not because the indian army i know in the 90s and the 20s you know the first part of the century the indian army has done raids what is raid raid is that you cross the lc and hit a pakistani post and what was done in 2016 september was we just hit the launch pad we never went to the post so the point i'm making is for god's sake first build up a escalation capability build up your military power then everything all these theories are fine you know miss kaju you know as we get into towards the concluding part of this discussion you know there's something very important which we also need to understand that what is also playing out politically politically it is being played out that any tendency to ask questions is being frowned upon in this country we are actually reaching a stage where we possibly face the prospect of the indian elections which are called to be a festival of democracy not being a festival anymore but instead being a very singular narrative where only one narrative is allowed you already had this horrible incident in kanataka where a professor was asked to kneel because he had a slight different way of looking at how the pakistan prime minister decided to release the indian pilot so we have a situation where the basic democratic culture of this country is being compromised how it plays out politically is something which we have to see and what will happen in the elections what verdict is going to be there what kind of government is going to come what policies is going to be pursuing is something which time will say but somebody as a person who spent a lot of time in the world diplomacy you know how does this play out diplomatically that you have a changed political you know a greater amount of bellicosity within the country that you have this entire rush for a muscular nationalism being propounded by the government of the day i think this is an internal thing my experience shows that foreign countries have the economic interests which are preeminent and they don't give a tinker's dam to an internal situation unless it would impact on their interests particularly their economic interests having said that i do believe that our constitutional value should never be compromised the government any government has to answer questions having said that i do think also that the timing and the manner in which a question is put is also significant and that is so not only in india it is so in my diplomatic experience all over the world for example and i do believe this that we'll have to very closely look at these structures there is need for structures to be created in our parliament of the kind that exists in several democracies right where accountability is exercised accountability is exercised and also this important point through committees multi-party committees and perhaps there the members of the multi part of these committees swear a note of secrecy we do have a fairly robust committee system but your question which are bipartisan but where questions are asked he was referring to the committee which is headed which was headed by Shashi Tharoor i will i have something else in which we don't have here there are in america they have the senate in the house intelligence committees where briefings are in confidence and we do not have we have a situation where the opposition parties for the last 15 days or 20 days since february 14 being saying that they clueless as to what is going on within the government's mind that is why i'm suggesting and anytime that they raise these questions they get slammed by the prime minister saying that these people are not only against me but they're against the country that is politics and i'm not unfortunately politics and state policies gets into no but i'm politics is politics what i'm suggesting is a serious conceptual thing exactly which is that if we had systems in place something like the united states where they are committees intelligence committees committees where the government where everyone because there's a national thing where everyone swears oaths of secrecy right then and there is confidence all around that whatever we are conveying will remain within it will not be used for political purposes it is there then i can tell you that the bureaucracies and the because these are all bureaucracies would be confident to exchange information i'll just if you'd give me half a second i'll tell you explain something to you how clarify i recollect and this goes back 20 years mr gujral was was the prime minister no he was then heading he was heading the standing committee on or the consultative committee on on external affairs and members there were pressing i was present as joint secretary the foreign secretary of course in the chair to give evidence i was assisting him and members were pressing to know what india was doing to assist the anti-taliban forces in afghanistan now mr gujral would have been there during the india government this was during the india government and mr gujral had remained foreign minister and prime minister so he knew fully that we were doing he's the one who's crafted the the composite dialogue eight issues well composite dialogue process so no but i'm talking of this was in the context of afghanistan so he said what are you people there was whole lot of congress people everyone forcing us tell us what are you doing mr gujral let it go on for about five minutes and the foreign secretary was giving general answers and then he said i know what everyone is doing no more questions okay so here he was he was in the opposition then he was not part of the india and he just put an end to it he said i will not have allow this to be discussed why because you didn't have that mechanism i think well said and at that note i'll have to conclude this discussion because you're completely run out of time thank you for having watched this program what mr karju and pravin sani said you know is something very important most importantly you know that we must have situations you know where there is a structure should exist where there is dialogue between the opposition and the government not what we are seeing complete breakdown of communication on both sides where every issue becomes a question of scoring political brownie points i'm sure that over the next few weeks we'll see much more of it as we are getting into the elections but we hope that after this elections you know we are able to get a verdict which will possibly allow temperatures to be cooled down and then we can reset everything and look at whether we can allow politics and policy to be intermaced the way it has been over the last few weeks thank you very much for watching this program