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Adversely impacted lives of people

Young Bites. Dated: 9/18/2017 9:04:28 AM

The ceasefire violations have adversely impacted the lives of people living in border areas. Their access to education, health services, transportation, emergency and other basic services is consistently unavailable or disrupted. The agriculture- based economy has suffered severely, impacting people’s livelihoods. Security fencing laid by the security agencies in the middle of cultivable land has impacted crops and led to large parts of land lying unused. Local and migrant workers are unable to work in the fields due to fear of firing and shelling, leading to large-scale migration and displacement. The schools are regularly suspended and turned into relief camps until peace is restored. These camps are in dismal condition; food, water and hygiene facilities are inadequate, forcing people to return to their homes before they are declared safe. While some areas see major delay in relief, compensation and rehabilitation policy for the affected people, no such measures even exist in other villages. India has taken the border firing battle right into the Pakistani camp and the Indian forces have caused much more devastation in Pakistan than what Pakistani troops have done to India. So much so that the Pakistan government is reported to have imposed gag orders on their TV channels and restrained them for showing the damage caused by the Indian shelling. In a way, the Modi government is already doing this. It has effectively pursued an ‘eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ strategy rather effectively in dealing with Pakistan’s intransigence at the borders. But there is a diplomatic cap on such a strategy. Also, Pakistan’s political and military leaders now want India to stop and are talking in conciliatory terms. India has refused to heed these signals from Pakistan – and rightly so. The Indian reasoning is not difficult to comprehend. After all, it was Pakistan that started it all and the onus lies on them to stop the cross-border firing before any talks take place between the military commanders of the two sides. But this has to change. And this has to change without a military solution. The real solutions lie in raising the political costs for Pakistan and augmenting India’s covert warfare capability to never-before levels. Therefore, India will have to think in longer term and devise solutions accordingly. The best course available for India to achieve this would be to upgrade their own stealth, surveillance and intelligence capabilities while degrading Pakistan’s capability to surprise India with such provocations at the borders in future. The vulnerability of these border areas is used to gain create political mileage. The armed forces and the media of both countries indulge in irresponsible blame-games and trading of allegations, which ultimately only harm citizens and lead to escalation of conflict. The people living in border areas are in a position of disadvantage not because they live in border areas, but because border areas have become a site for acting out political conflict and jingoistic nationalism. Border areas have been made consciously uninhabitable in a bid of one-upmanship between India and Pakistan, causing irrevocable harm to citizens on both sides of the border.