Happymon Jacob - The Line of Control: Travelling with the Indian and Pakistani Armies

December 2017 wasnt remarkable for any particular reason, except perhaps to me. India and Pakistan played host to the usual milieu of relentless cross-border firing and selectively leaked secret meetings between their national security advisers (NSAs)not unique by any standard. This was the age of violence, both within and between the two South Asian rivals. It wasnt anything special or distinctly worrisome: the two countries had gotten used to it by then. Most people referred to it with routine indifference, if they referred to it at all. Others vowed revenge, but from within the confines of television studios, of course. Young men in uniform died guarding the citizens of India, and Pakistanthose with inflated national egos and those without.

In reality, 2017 was the bloodiest year since the IndiaPakistan ceasefire agreement came into effect in November 2003. Several dozens of Indian and Pakistani soldiers and civilians were killed and even more injured on the Line of Control (LoC). Ceasefire violations (CFVs) spiked alarmingly. Since 2014 (till the end of 2017), when the Hindu nationalist leader Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in New Delhi, India reported 2408 ceasefire violations; and Pakistan reported 2915 violations. According to news reports, the Indian Army killed 138 Pakistani soldiers in 2017, and lost around twenty-eight of its own. Young men continued to be mobilized by the two sides to be sent to the LoC, to kill and get killed.

The media got their drama as the two NSAs of Pakistan and India, Nasser Khan Janjua and Ajit Kumar Doval, men who had the ear of their respective prime ministers, scheduled a secret meeting at an undisclosed location in Bangkok on 26 December 2017. The retired general and the former spymaster had made it a habit to adjourn to Bangkok when things went south between their countries. The media houses loved the spectacle and the suspense. The meeting was covered for its theatre, not for its outcomes, of which there were none. Most of the 24X7 television channels had forgotten to ask hard questions. Why would they when nationalistic drama demonstrably raises Television Rating Points (TRPs)? To be fair, the nightly guardians of our national interest did ask probing questions of the hapless Opposition, most of whom ran for cover when the combined force of the mainstream media and the right-wing government took them to task.

The shelling, firing and killing continued apace. In the first three months of 2018 alone, Pakistan reported 900 violations and India 633. That is, India fired 267 times more than Pakistan.

Whats the big deal about 633 violations? you might wonder. Each violation could comprise hundreds of thousands of shots from weapons ranging from AK-47s to heavy pieces of military artillery such as 130-mm mortar guns in an area of 2050 square kilometres over a twenty-four-hour period. Statistics wont and, as a matter of fact, cant ascertain how many shots were actually fired. No one knows those numbers for sure. Not that it mattered. You dont count the raindrops when it pours.

The violence on the border had become routine. Some celebrated it; some ignored it as minor incidents; and some used it to make electoral gains. The families of those killed on the line often refused to condemn the violence by their own side; and if at all they did, no one reported it. Even faint suggestions of standing down in times of national catharsis could lose you the much-needed eyeballs, and commercial advertisements. What then stood out was a disturbing consensus on retaliation, on sorting out the adversary. This was a classic case of manufacturing consent.