Without going too far into the past, let us look at what the Indian and Pakistani counter-insurgency scenarios look like:
India is involved in counter-insurgency in three major theaters:
1. Kashmir
2. Maoist insurgency in six states in Central India
3. Various insurgencies in most parts of the hill states of the North East.
It is true that the Indian army's human rights record in many of these operations is not exemplary. There have been various instances of human rights violations. But if you see the overall picture, the writ of the Indian state still runs in these places, and the issue is contained locally. More importantly, it has not stretched the Indian army in the least; in fact for most operations they do not even use the regular army but para-military forces. It does not even register as a security challenge in India, actually, so confident are they of handling the situation.
Now let us compare this to Pakistan. Our armed forces have been involved in two major operations in the recent past - in KPK and Baluchistan. As for Baluchistan, I really don't know too much about what goes on over there. Media reports suggest that the Army is making significant gains but our history of deluding ourselves is so vast that nothing can be taken at face value.
In KPK, they were given a simple task - liberate areas captured by TTP and allies in Waziristan and halt their advance. What our army did initially was to simply surrender. They could not withstand the assault of a rag-tag bunch of hooligans carrying AKs and RPGs. They surrendered their posts and allowed the insurgents to capture Swat. They actually had to beg for a ceasefire with the TTP. Only after this breather did the Pak army manage to regroup and begin the push back. So basically, the Pakistani army could not even beat one faction of the Taliban. Mind you, this is different than the ambush scenarios that the Indians have to deal with, where insurgents carry out surgical strikes and then melt back into the forests or civilian areas before the full force of the Indian army descends on them. Our troops lost in open fighting - they were literally outgunned.
Battle-hardened, did you say? Look, the reason our armed forces are in such poor shape is because of deluded talk like this. Instead of asking what we get in return for the military grabbing a lion's share of the total Budget of this country, we launch into false and ill-deserved praise.
