Historically Pakistan has been conveying a strange logic on Kashmir to its people. It has been saying that despite the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, having acceded to India, it should have rightfully been with Pakistan because it is a Muslim majority state. Hence, its army exists to regain Kashmir and to prevent India from disintegrating the state. The army thus needs to be strong and appropriately funded. Without Kashmir, Pakistan is insecure and vulnerable. The real reason is that it needs Kashmir to survive as water for the country’s survival flows through Kashmir.

This misinformation has enabled the Pakistan army to gobble a large share of the limited funds of the country and exploit power. Every war which Pakistan launched was aimed at annexing Kashmir. In three major wars, solely aimed at annexing parts of Kashmir, it kept its army behind ill-equipped and ill trained volunteers, seeking to exploit their success or making them battle on their behalf. In 1948, it employed tribal militia from Waziristan to capture Kashmir, an attempt which failed.

It launched operation Gibraltar in 1965, which was led by a force termed the Gibraltar force, comprising of a mixture of a few army volunteers, mainly from POK regiments, and fresh POK residents who had been brainwashed. The aim was to infiltrate them and push for an internal uprising in Kashmir, which could then be exploited by the Pakistani army. Its attempt failed and Indian forces captured heights threatening Muzaffarabad, capital of POK. In desperation, the Pakistan army commenced the war, launching attacks in the plains. It gained nothing, on the contrary it lost key posts like Haji Pir.

Yet it twisted history and declared 6 September as defence day, the day the Pakistan army defended itself against India. 1971 was a different story as India sought to free Bangladesh from the clutches of a Pakistan army which was carrying out genocide and rape of the Bengali population. It led to the largest surrender after World War II. The Shimla Agreement signed after Pakistan’s surrender in Bangladesh and subsequently reiterated in the Lahore Declaration made the UNSC resolution on Kashmir of April 1948 null and void.

Pakistan nationals are made to believe that India, holding 93,000 POWs forced Pakistan at gunpoint to accept Kashmir as a bilateral issue, ignoring the UNSC resolutions. They miss the fact that it was reiterated in the Lahore Declaration, where there was no gun on Pakistan’s head. In 1999, it again used irregulars and the Northern Light Infantry, a force comprising of Shias from Gilgit Baltistan, whom they could disown as they are not Sunni Muslims from Pakistan’s Punjab province. Again, it failed and had to withdraw in defeat. Such was the panic within the Pakistani military hierarchy that they even refused to accept their casualties, who were buried by the Indian army with all military and religious honours.

Over the years, as the Pakistan army began expanding more into commercial activities, it began handing over national security to terrorists. This was a low-cost option and kept army personnel happy as they earned fat salaries and did nothing, except exploit poorly paid and brainwashed jihadis. It realized that by keeping neighbours internally involved, it could concentrate on expanding its internal businesses. Its Fauji Foundation’s net income in 2017 was over $ 1700 million. Thus, the Pakistan army was dumbstruck when India launched retaliatory strikes after the attacks in Uri and Pulwama.

It struggled to hide the truth of the Indian strikes, fearing loss of face before the nation, which it has directly or indirectly ruled since independence. The truth remains suppressed as the army controls the media and no one dare embarrass it in public. Further, the Pakistan army determines its own budget and salaries, which the government accepts unquestioningly. Simultaneously, since they command all forces within the country, whether it be the Rangers or Janbaaz, there is no civil power which can curtail their activities or actions. They have over time, rewritten their history books and converted defeat in every war into victory.

Such has been their power that Parvez Musharraf, the architect of the launch and withdrawal in defeat during the Kargil war of 1999, took over the reins and ruled the country for eight years. In any other nation he would have been sacked and spent his life in penury but not in Pakistan. When India retaliates against Pakistani misadventures and targets terrorist camps, they seek to call the Indian High Commissioner to register protests, claiming India is targeting villages. Pakistan’s army is neither interested in war nor keen to challenge Indian military power. The Indian decision to revoke Article 370 placed the Pakistan army in a difficult situation. Its narrative, carefully built over seventy years, had suddenly been rewritten.

It knew it lacked resources and conventional capabilities and hence began talking of employment of nuclear weapons, something no nation ever talks about. It was evident that they lacked conventional capability and were unwilling to militarily challenge India. It was therefore compelled to adopt diplomacy as its major tool and approached every nation seeking support to push India to withdraw the resolution. One after another, it kept changing approach, hoping for some international support. Every time it was rebuked. Their army chief was left with the only option of promising to continue support to Kashmiris in their fight for independence.

Since the army was neither keen to get involved in a conflict nor had the capability, it again turned to old jihadist hands. There have been reports of regular meetings between the ISI and multiple terrorist groups, whose help is again sought to target Indian forces in Kashmir. This army chief and head of public relations talk big and threaten India but hide behind terrorist organizations. It fears Indian firepower and avoids direct encounters. How effective would an army which concentrates on corporate ventures instead of professionalism and outsources national security and defence to brainwashed and illiterate jihadis be?

(The writer is a retired Major-General of the Indian Army)