Feel The Pain, India!
Wg. Cdr. (Retd.) Sunil Sawant

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To survive and prosper, a body must be hardy. In addition to dealing with the normal stimuli, it must be able to recognize and handle minor and major threats. It must deal with each type of threat appropriately. The body must be able to adapt itself to minor irritants, and not let them divert it from its mission. It should also be able to identify major threats as such, and act accordingly. If it treats minor irritants as major threats, it would be wasting resources and worse. But if it mis-diagnoses a major threat as a minor one, it may not survive the danger.

In the real world, the number of lucky chances is finite. Repeated mishandling of major threats will sooner rather than later prove to be the end of an entity.

Living entities learn from their experience and that of others, and formulate appropriate responses to threats. These can be reflexive, instinctive or deliberate, depending on the type of the threat. The first step in dealing with any threat is to sense and categorize it. In India's case, it is becoming obvious that this threat-sensing mechanism is either defective, or is being ignored. This primary failure in India's security apparatus is a critical one, and may prove fatal. India has been repeatedly mishandling and under-reacting to major threats, and now faces multiple crises.

There are numerous examples of even weak nations rising up to defend themselves, taking appropriate actions. China, UK, Cuba, USA and even Pakistan have shown at various times that timely corrective action can eliminate a threat. But India is content with absorbing blows without trying to aggressively protect itself. When it defends itself, it is always reactive and insufficient. The continued ceasefires in Kashmir against the Pakistani Islamic terrorists are made out to be an end in themselves. They are portrayed as a winning strategy. Ever since the late 1980s when the trouble began, what was the Indian army firing at to stop and call it a ceasefire? The patient was suffering from severe infection.

He needed immediate doses of antibiotics. The bacteria breeding in his filthy surroundings needed to be eliminated to prevent recurring bouts of infections. But the doctors in New Delhi have been prescribing barely enough medicine to keep the patient alive, without both caring to finish off all the invading bacteria inside the body or cleaning up the enemy nest in the neighborhood.

On Feb 27 2001, L.K. Advani said "[The] prime minister has never said that it was cease-fire, but the government has only instructed the defence forces not to open fire but respond to militant attacks...". This basically means that our forces were made to be target practice for the terrorists! What kind of thinking leads to such suicidal decisions? Advani continued "The peace initiatives by the government have isolated terrorists and our neighbour is under pincer pressure to stop aiding and abetting terrorists." "Our neighbour is under pincer pressure from both the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the international community. This pincer movement has helped the peace process considerably," Advani said.

Let us tackle the smaller issue first - the veracity of this claim that Pakistan is under pressure today. Pakistan's nuclear and missile power was built up by China. The latest CIA report says China is still continuing this support to Pakistan. Saudi Arabia has been a big benefactor of aid and ideology to Pakistan. It continues to be so. The USA was a cold-war partner of Pakistan. In his recent letter to Musharraf, President Bush spoke about the need for a dialogue between Pakistan and India. That is no sign of pressure. Rather, it puts pressure on India - to start talks with Pakistan - which it has refused to do unless Pakistan abjures violence. But the Bush letter does not put that condition on Pakistan, in effect negating the Indian position.

Pakistan was and continues to be a big voice in the Organization of Islamic Countries. In fact no amount of verbal criticism of Pakistani terrorism is enough to change its ways. But even that has not been forthcoming from the international community. In short, not a single nation has actually done anything that deters Pakistan ! from its terrorism! Instead of forcing Pakistan to stop its terrorism, continuing aid and support from countries like China has in fact emboldened Pakistan.

As far as the isolation of terrorists is concerned, all they have ever needed is active and critical support from Pakistan. Advani himself admitted that crucial Pakistani material support to Islamic terrorists has not subsided. The Indian government statistics show that more of the Islamic terrorists are active in Kashmir, and that more of them are from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sudan and even China. Thus, far from being isolated, the Islamic terrorists are building up. Because they are practical, determined and rational, they are utilizing the ceasefire to regroup and rearm, and are even making allies within the civilian populace.

The talk of Pakistan under pincer pressure is delusional and ridiculous. In fact it is India which is under pincer pressure because of the policies of the Vajpayee government. The self-imposed unilateral ceasefire and its extensions have become a self-propagating phenomenon. By initiating this process without physically defeating the terrorists, our government has created an unjustifiable sense of expectation in the international community that it so cravenly looks up to. Having convinced and committed itself to this course - and ignoring the regressing ground reality - the Vajpayee government has created a trap for itself. Now the international community will keep pressurizing it to maintain unilateral ceasefire, and the government will not be able to counter it with any argument. The terrorists are thriving because of absence of threat to them, catching India in a real pincer movement of unrelenting terrorist activities on one hand and escalating international expectations of peace on the other. The Indian army will be caught in a second deadly pincer movement when the snows melt, with the entrenched terrorists on the inside and the Pakistani Army of Islam on the outside. The policies of Vajpayee government would have been solely responsible for these dual hazards of diplomatic and military pincer crushers.

Now let us get to the bigger issue. Why is the Indian government obsessed with international opinion in the first place? If a country X was harming a country Y, then a third country like India could probably depend on the international opinion to turn the situation around. International opinion ought to be the primary defense only when our vital interests are not at stake. Pakistan - through its Army of Islam - seeks to dismember and devastate India, nothing less. In the short term, there can be no greater danger than this. Yet our leaders are relying exclusively on the international opinion to solve our problem. They naively presuppose a friendly and just world. They are blind to the reality that India and Pakistan are two gladiators waging a fight unto death, and the other nations - led by Emperor USA - are opportunist spectators enjoying the show. No outsider is going to intervene on our behalf and for our benefit.

Any self-respecting, rational government would have held Pakistan accountable for every Indian casualty, and would have imposed effective and deterrent punishment. Here we have the Cabinet Committee for Security describing our military and civilian deaths as 'acceptable losses' and 'minor setbacks'. By involving the world in our security affairs, instead of like a sovereign nation, the Vajpayee government acts like an aggrieved individual going to the courts seeking justice against a criminal. They forget that even individuals have the right to self-defense, and don't have to wait for the courts to intervene if a criminal is intent on killing them. Of course, nations have the right - nay, the duty - to protect and defend themselves. A government which relies on foreign powers for its defense is by definition a tributary government, a vassal state.

The inadequate Indian response to the mortal threat from Pakistan indicates that our government has failed to realize the gravity of the situation. And we have not even scratched the surface. The Supreme Court, in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), recently stated that continued illegal immigration from Bangladesh is a national security threat. It took a PIL by a private citizen to publicize an issue which our governments should have addressed and solved decades ago! The mother of all threats,

China, is in the process of boxing India in a tight corner. The threats India faces are terrible; our laxity is incomprehensible.

If India doesnt shake itself up from this mess soon, it will eventually be subsumed into a Greater Pakistan. Obviously, there would be no Indian-ness left in this resultant entity. Not only would we have lost, we would in fact morph into our enemy! Ironically, a Greater Pakistan, because of its missionary zeal, will almost certainly earn for itself the mantle of a great power which rightfully belongs to the Indian heritage. The bad guy would have won spectacularly simply because of his determination. History will have proved again that if one wishes for something badly, one usually gets it. Countries like Pakistan and China have repeatedly shown that their word is the father of their deeds. India is on the path of proving that hard talk unaccompanied by prudent action results in disaster.

Wg. Cdr. (Retd.) Sunil Sawant
Pune