IN DEFENCE OF MY EARLIER THESIS AS TO THE INADVISABILITY OF A FULL-SCALE WAR AT A SEMINAL MOMENT IN INDIA'S PROGRESS AS AN ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE, ESPECIALLY WHEN I SUSPECTED IT TO BE A CAREFULLY CRAFTED SINO-PAK DESIGN TO HALT IT AND WEAKEN INDIA---NOW THAT THE CONFLICT IS ON, SUCH DELIBERATIONS WILL HAVE TO BE CAST ASIDE AND VICTORY SEALED ON THE BATTLEFIELD WHICH AS AN UNCOMPROMISING PATRIOT I WHOLEHEARTEDLY SUPPORT AND WILL IT

IN DEFENCE OF MY EARLIER THESIS AS TO THE INADVISABILITY OF A FULL-SCALE WAR AT A SEMINAL MOMENT IN INDIA'S PROGRESS AS AN ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE, ESPECIALLY WHEN I SUSPECTED IT TO BE A CAREFULLY CRAFTED SINO-PAK DESIGN TO HALT IT AND WEAKEN INDIA---NOW THAT THE CONFLICT IS ON, SUCH DELIBERATIONS WILL HAVE TO BE CAST ASIDE AND VICTORY SEALED ON THE BATTLEFIELD WHICH AS AN UNCOMPROMISING PATRIOT I WHOLEHEARTEDLY SUPPORT AND WILL IT

Wars are always counter-productive in the long run and ought to be at all costs avoided but if the enemy forces it on one, then it must be fought to defend oneself and to deter future aggression. Pakistan, backed by China, most certainly has led India into a catch-22 situation where proportionate military response from India to ensure deterrence has become an imperative. That, however, does not nullify the said thesis that many an analyst has rightly forwarded. 

After war will come peace and then peace will be followed by war. This cycle can be stopped only if India hugely builds up the arms differential with respect to Pakistan for which positive steps in regard to economics, academics, high level research, national health, standard of living, a proper population policy, absolute separation of religion and divisive casteism from statecraft and election campaigning along with the building up of a highly modernised offence and defence system, and a powerfully manned sophisticated huge armed force must be brought into being. Jingoism is not effective warfare. The defence budget has to scaled up, corruption in politics rooted out and children brought up valorous and virtuous for nationalistic and humanistic attributes to develop in them adequately. 

Mere warfare with a rogue nation whose roguery has been supported and fuelled by the West, beginning with the Anglo-American partitioning of India to thwart Soviet expansionism via its eastern border with Afghanistan, and post Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the creation of jihādi networks across Pakistan and Afghanistan which later developed into the notorious organisations that have wreaked havoc across the world, and China feeding the rogue state now to check India's growing might, not to forget the madrassas legion within India preaching and teaching jihād against the kafir---all these must be duly considered, contemplated, comprehended and countered before India hopes to achieve lasting peace with Pakistan and now the malevolent minnow, Bangladesh. Jihādi ideology has to be rooted out. Had such an ideology never existed, Pakistan and Bangladesh would have remained peaceful integrated provinces of undivided India. These are the real issues, complex indeed, with demography turning dangerous and threatening to go fissile within or overwhelm India wholesale in the coming decades to turn it into an Islamic state. 

Theory, Marx said, was a material force and must grip the masses before revolution may be rife. The Islamic ideology of jihād is one such theory that easily grips the indoctrinated Muslim, a fact which historically has been utilised by the western powers to their advantage. If these things of momentous geopolitical significance are not understood and jingoism replaces wise moves in defence and offence, chances are that the subcontinent will be reduced to cinders. Therefore, discretion is the better of valour, as the old adage goes, and due defence in measured degree may only be resorted to and not all-out war which will destabilise the entire region.

Pakistan has always been the initial aggressor and has been so this time as well with the dastardly Pahalgam terror attack. Thereafter, India put into abeyance the Indus Water Treaty to dry up and flood Pakistan in quick succession alternately which will hit its agriculture hard. Pakistan responded as always by cross-border heavy firing ever since. India was forced into retaliation by the launch of #OperationSindoor which hit nine terror targets in the POJK and in Pakistan proper. Pakistan responded with drone and missile attacks, targeting civilians and militarily installations in India. India made a proportionate response to it yesterday hitting multiple targets in Pakistan. The conflict is escalating. It will ruin Pakistan which fate its militarily establishment is yet again thrusting upon it. India also bleeds as any war has its inevitable damages to pay. 

Where does this all lead to? Certainly not a nuclear holocaust which looms at the end of the escalation ladder. Much before it ceasefire will be forced upon the conflicting nations by the international community. Then? Will terrorism stop? Have 9/11, 7/7, 26/11, the Danish cartoons' case, Charlie Hebdo, Dhaka Cafe, October 7, to name only a handful out of the 44,000 plus attacks since 11 September, 2001, not happened despite western intervention, invasion, bombing and sanctioning Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, to name only a few rogue Islamic states? Unless the West and China stop propping up terrorist states, empowering them with money and munition to serve their own geopolitical and economic interests, will these terrorist states ever stop creating fresh incidents of terror? 

What steps are we going to take to tackle Islamic indoctrination in India which produces internal agents of national disruption and allies in terrorist activity with alien agencies whose heart is in Pakistan but whose head is in Deoband, India? What about the hundreds of sleeper cells within our country that aid and abet terrorism exported into India from Pakistan? 

As a nationalist I stand firmly in war and in peace with my motherland. But as a discerning man of fair judgement, I am deeply worried about the implications of war with Pakistan alone as the means to resolving this phenomenon of Islamic terrorism that is scripturally decreed on the momin against the mushrik which the Hindu is. The Pahalgam attack conducted in the month following the sacred one of Ramzān was more or less in accordance with the Sword Verse of Surāh At-Tawbā (Qur'an, 9.5). The same forest cover, the same ambush, the same offer to recite the kalimāh, the separation of the mushrik from the momin and the shooting in the head as the modern variant of the severing of the head---all these have been duly enacted following scriptural injunction. How does one tackle it ultimately with war alone with Pakistan? 

I am one, absolutely one, with the armed forces and our government but I wonder how with passing time, Pakistan growing stronger in war-technology and with Bangladesh on the eastern border also developing likewise into a malevolent Islamic nation, we will be able to tackle this terror menace unless we obliterate the jihādi ideology from our own soil with a strong hand once and for all. Else, Pakistan, Bangladesh and rising Islamisation within our motherland pandered to by political parties to secure electoral advantage will consume India despite a prospective victory in the current conflict should the escalation go on to the level of an overwhelming Indian dominance. 

My earlier observation had not been made by way of a passing comment, compromising and cowardly, but had deep implications which failed the attention of my critics perchance. Nevertheless, elucidation has now been made and clarity perhaps rendered as to my stated stance. Vande Mataram! Jai Hind! 🕉 

Written by Sugata Bose