The Indian Air Force is reportedly preparing to raise the first squadron of the indigenous LCA Tejas Mark1A fighter jet at the Nal air base in the Bikaner district of Rajasthan near Pakistan, ANI reported.
The first lot of the LCA Mk1A jets is slated for delivery to IAF in early 2024, following which these would be inducted into functional squadrons as a replacement for the 1960s vintage Soviet-era MiG-21s.
India has taken nearly 40 years to get a self-made functional combat jet inducted into its air force, with at least two squadrons of the Tejas LCA currently flying operational missions regularly, including close to the northern and western borders with China and Pakistan in recent months.
Pakistan Gripped By N-Bomb Mania Despite Socio-Economic Ruin
Be it a punitive action against the Bloch nationalist volunteers or the diehard Durand Line contender TTP, Pakistan is using full firepower to coerce them into subjugation and servility.
At the same time, the Pakistan Army has augmented its tactics of sending suicide bombers across the Line of Control (LoC) in specific sectors where the gangsters can find safe sneaking and then inflict maximum damage on the security forces and the harmless civilians on this side of the border, charging them with indulging in espionage.
Deployment of drones offered to Pakistan by Turkey drop arms, ammunition, drugs, and fake Indian currency close to the LoC or International Borders for their conduits to pick up.
Of late, many known and designated terrorists holding essential positions in their outfits have been selectively targeted by unidentified assailants in different cities of Pakistan. Police and intelligence authorities have failed to track them down and to assuage the anger of the public; the officials say that the killing of the former terrorists is the handiwork of Indian intelligence personnel.
When the suspecting public demands dependable proof of Indian involvement, they have no way of diverting their attention other than bringing the onus to the doorsteps of India.
Pakistan’s Missile Program
As a supplement to its policy of containment of India’s growing economic and military clout, Pakistan talks of nuclear power. On October 18, Pakistan conducted its second test launch, code-named Asia Ababeel, a medium-range ballistic missile, which, according to war experts, is the first in South Asia to have reached the testing phase that has been designed to carry multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs).
The weapons remain under development. This was Pakistan’s first acknowledged missile test since the April 2022 launch of the Shaheen III medium-range ballistic missile and the first test since General Asim Munir took the office of Army chief in November 2022.
It has to be noted that the test launch at the Sakhi Sarwar range in Punjab province was conducted during the visit of the Pakistani caretaker government of Anwar Ul Haq Kakar to China. Does a caretaker government have the right to give a nod to the test firing of a crucial war weapon with consequences known to every knowledgeable person?
Why did Pakistan change the testing site to Punjab, not Baluchistan or Sind? When the pieces of this story are stitched together, it becomes clear that Pakistan is making progress in its goal of acquiring the capability to penetrate India’s nascent missile defense. China has never reconciled with Moscow, offering India an S-400 missile protection shield.
Subverting The Agreement
Interestingly, Pakistan complies with Article 3 of the 2005 India-Pakistan agreement on pre-notification for ballistic missile tests. Pakistan did issue seven Notices to Air Missions beforehand. The principal notice indicated an upper boundary of 930 kilometers seaward, but the actual range of the test is unknown. What does this mean?
It says that the test occurred short of the missile’s maximum range of 2,200 km since these notices customarily provide warnings covering a rocket’s entire potential flight path.
Pakistani Armed Forces media division, the test’s purpose was to “re-validate various design and technical parameters and performance evaluation of different sub-systems. One technical input says that the test launch site selected was Sakhi Sarwar in Punjab and not at coastal ranges because Islamabad may have been interested in tracking the boost and mid-flight phases of the missile from land.
Pakistan is reported to have procured optical tracking equipment from China that it could have used to collect missile and payload performance data. In the 2017 test, a multi-axle transporter erector was also supplied by China.
There are widespread reports that China and Pakistan have engaged in technology transfers as part of Beijing’s broader effort to support Islamabad’s missile program. The presence of many civilians in the video suggests that the Army Strategic Forces Command has not yet taken control of weapons.
India-Centric
Pakistan never conceals that its missile and nuclear programs are designed only to deter India. Pakistani analysts argue that an MIRV capability would increase stability and deterrence by increasing the chances of penetrating India’s emerging ballistic missile defenses.
Pakistan believes that India’s purchase of Russia-made S-400 Triumph surface-to-air missile defense is an immediate challenge to Pakistan’s ability to penetrate Indian airspace, with the subsonic Raad and Babur land attack cruise missiles being especially vulnerable. India is preparing its own MIRV capability.
Middle East War Ramifications
Pakistani military experts have been monitoring the Israel-Hamas fight very closely. They believe Pakistan can borrow new ideas from that war. It made a trial of training gliders that could fly and land in enemy territory without airlifting them.
One trainee glider missed his destination on return to earth and landed among the people and VIPs assembled to witness the feat. In the ten-day-long exchange of gunfire in the dense forests in Poonch, some weapons and ammunition were recovered that have been listed among the war materials left behind by the fleeing US troops in Afghanistan. Digging secret tunnels is the old trick the Pakistan army learned from Osama.
Pakistan is fighting a war by proxy against India. Late General Musharraf once said that the most advantageous position against India is that 20 percent of the Indian population is Muslim.
Some have been misled by Pakistani propaganda, but most of them reject Pakistan’s policy of aggression, much less the nuclear option. The more Islamabad vomits nuclear rhetoric, the more dangerous the situation it makes for the Indian Muslims as well as others.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of saner elements in the Islamic world not to make fun of Pakistan’s play game with its nuclear weapons. Resorting to the nuclear option means the death of the subcontinent. It will change the entire geography and history of the world.
- KN Pandita (Padma Shri) is the former director of the Center of Central Asian Studies at Kashmir University. Views Personal.
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