Pakistan army seeks to hobble Nawaz Sharif, trip up India

NEW DELHI: The Pakistan army's aggression along the Line of Control and its assertion domestically indicate a desire to hobble the Nawaz Sharif government while upping the ante against India through heightened violence in Jammu & Kashmir.

Though Sharif 's intent to engage with India has often been subject to opportunistic inclinations, the Pakistan army's moves to step up hostilities flies against several signals Islamabad's political establishment has sent out over the last six months.

Pakistan can argue -- from its point of view -- that its repeated urgings for resumption of dialogue without conditions has been spurned by India and any deterioration in ties is only to be expected. But the provocative beheading of two Indian soldiers does not square up with Sharif 's professed desire to seriously pursue peace with India.

The Pakistan military is now openly driving policy with Sharif reduced to little more than a figurehead, his gestures like addressing the Hindu community on the occasion of Holi swept aside by a fresh wave of aggressive acts by the army under General Qamar Bajwa.

The Pakistani PM is politically hamstrung by the probe ordered by the Supreme Court into his family's alleged connections with offshore Panama accounts. With two military representatives on the inquiry panel, the court's decision -- not the first time it has acted in a political manner -- has put Sharif under a cloud. Indian observers feel that the Pakistan army does not intend to depose Sharif but will be content with allowing him to limp along till the next elections. It will take a view on who will be the "king's party" ahead of polls with indications that it sees some utility in former cricketer Imran Khan.

The reported "truce" between the military and Sharif -- over the leak of a security review in which government figures reportedly told the army that its policy of playing favourites among terrorists had caused Pakistan immense damage --is just that. It is an agreement to put the episode behind them but with the terms now loaded in favour of the army.

The beheadings were seen to serve the important purpose of "encouraging" separatists and jihadis in the Kashmir Valley. The brutal acts were to indicate that the Indian Army is vulnerable and that violence in the Valley will be stoked to the maximum extent possible.

The Pakistan army seems to calculate that India's military options, including surgical strikes, are limited and it will not want to raise the temperature at a time when the Modi government is looking to consolidate the economy. The extremist upsurge in the Valley with Islamic State being an inspiration gives Pakistan's generals the opportunity to pump the insurgency irrespective of the huge human toll it is inflicting in Kashmir.