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India Caught in Throes of Three-Front War
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Sudip Talukdar | Date:24 Nov , 2021 2 Comments
Sudip Talukdar
is an author and strategic affairs columnist.

Pic Courtesy: ADG PI – Indian Army

India is actually battling not one or two but three different fronts comprising China, Pakistan and some of its own citizens—the internal subversives who happen to be the most diabolical of the triad, because they are indistinguishable from the masses and so escape scrutiny! The faceless fifth columnists and home grown inimical elements are now peddling the cause of hostile neighbours with even greater energy and focus, as if destabilizing the system were their paramount goal. Lately, their morbid reliance on social media forums as a tool to vilify the Republic, institutions and individuals has degenerated into sheer licence and is a deadly variant of guerrilla warfare. 

It is the story of a nation virtually caught in the throes of a sinister subterranean campaign.  Never before in more than 70 years of the nation’s life, has public discourse sunk so despicably low, with most of the social media and mainstream news channels virtually jumping into the fray to defend grave transgressions, if they are committed by rich and powerful figures, especially those with an unmistakable anti-national slant. For instance, a bigwig, meant to protect the law has allegedly turned out to be its biggest violator and is absconding. Yet he is tacitly defended for his misdemeanours, by those who are enjoined to uphold the Constitution. He continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons and seemingly out of the reach of intelligence agencies, with all their vast reach and resources.

Some public figures have virtually turned into hate mongers, outdoing one another in targeting the inclusivity of Bharat, turning a ‘progressive’ western state into a virtual battleground, planting hatred and a sense of victimhood, through social media platforms. They have imparted an ugly face to the contours of ongoing civil war. The region was in the news last year for committing some of the most sordid acts against honest journalists and public spirited individuals, standing up for transparency, truth and national interests. Recently, Gurumurthy, the editor of Tamil journal Tughlak, advocated a ban on social media as anarchic, which he described as an impediment to an ‘orderly society.’  

Break India gangs have trampled on the idea of Bharat and its millenniums old culture of tolerance with impunity, certain in the knowledge that they won’t be called to account by a soft state like India, defending their toxic narratives in the name of free speech and liberty. Their presence on TV channels has only magnified their power to do greater damage in the garb of ‘healthy debates.’ This diabolical variant of proxy war has vitiated the atmosphere unthinkable until five years ago. There are reports of the ISI merrily spawning thousands of fake social media handles, to prey on the vulnerabilities of India and create a heightened sense of deviousness and acrimony that is only aggravating the inherent antagonism between the two communities, as part of its ultimate design, the Ghazwa-e-Hind, or the conquest of India.

The ceasefire with Islamabad, brokered by a President Biden’s America, has also tied New Delhi’s hand from retaliating against countless acts of terror perpetrated by the western neighbour. The political dispensation, perhaps out of a sense of misplaced helplessness and passivity, could not reject the proposal at the very outset, as being extremely inimical to its own interests. Washington is always known to have sided with Pakistan for the right or wrong reasons. What could have been more humiliating than its refusal to share the locations of infiltrators sitting on mountain tops during Kargil, even as the US proclaimed everlasting friendship with India? Unfortunately, India has learnt no lessons. 

Now India has an additional enemy in Afghanistan, a conglomeration of drug lords and mass murderers masquerading as the Taliban. It could be no mere coincidence that the group’s conquest of the landlocked country on August 15 this year has literally opened the floodgates of narcotics into India, as amply borne out by seizures, besides creating a host of other security challenges for New Delhi. In September, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence seized a consignment of heroin weighing three tonnes, worth a staggering Rs 21,000 crore from Gujarat’s Mundra Port. Next the news of recovery of thirty kilos of drugs in Uri broke on airwaves and lastly reports of star son’s arrest on drug related charges surfaced. Reports have also materialized about other major drug hauls.

Drugs hold centre-stage in India, after having ruined the lives of tens of thousands of youth in Punjab, where it has struck deep roots. The vast profit generated by the clandestine business goes into funding terror activities and keeping the proxy war alive. However, any attempt to checkmate the narcotics mafia is frustrated by internal enemies. How else would one explain the recent bid to derail the ongoing inquiry into sprawling drugs racket and thereby cloak its nefarious activities, which appears to bear the signature of ISI masterminds?  After all, the spy agency had vowed to get even with India following the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A; a resolve that has only strengthened with the Taliban takeover.

Islamabad’s hostility towards India shows no signs of abating. A significant factor completely missed by analysts is the timing of the jihadi depredations in Kashmir, beginning on October 3 and continuing for a full fortnight. Were these premeditated onslaughts in retaliation for massive drug seizures, which cost the lives of nine army personnel and a couple of workmen from Bihar, besides the execution of a principal and a teacher? Lately Pakistan has been merrily sitting on a 50,000 tonne consignment sent by India to feed millions of starving Afghans on humanitarian grounds. Yet it does not shrink from describing the nation as ‘intolerant,’ or ‘oppressing the minorities,’ while denying its own complicity in every act of terror on our soil. 

Regarding the Dragon, soldier-blogger and strategic thinker, Colonel Rajan Srinivas, who commanded the 182 Engineer Construction Company during the 1971 war, has sounded the warning bells: “Seeing India bolster its defences at a frenetic pace with Chinook Helicopters, M777 Light Howitzers and the attack Apache Helicopters and drones all from USA; and, our placing orders for delivery of 36 more Rafales, a squadron of old and refurbished Mirages from France and 30 Su-31 fighter jets and 70,000 assault rifles from Russia; and the impending delivery of S-400 surface to air missiles (SAM) by Russia in Dec 2021, I have a feeling that China is not going to wait too long to attack India all along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) from Eastern Ladakh to Sikkim to Arunachal Pradesh.”

“This attack by the Chinese,” he elaborates, “is going to test the mettle of the Indian Armed Forces. And this time it will be a two front war; as Pakistan will definitely not let go of this opportunity to attack India in tandem to gain control of Jammu and Kashmir. And the war with China and Pakistan will be on Land, Sea and Air. Their primary objectives would not only be to quickly overpower Indian Army on land; but, also to destroy our airpower by going in for a pre-emptive strike and send their long range bombers and their attack submarines to sink our aircraft carriers INS Vikramaditya that would get deployed in the Bay of Bengal and INS Vikrant that is still undergoing sea trials.”

Beijing merrily continues with its provocative acts. An annual Pentagon report revealed how China built a100 homesteads in the Upper Subansiri district, lying between the Tibet Autonomous Region and along the Arunachal frontier, developing it as a village. Although described as ‘disputed,’ the territory on the Indian side has been under People’s Liberation Army occupation since 1959, after it overran an Assam Rifles post there. Playing true to itself, Beijing sought to blame India for provoking the standoff by developing new infrastructure near the LAC.

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2 thoughts on “India Caught in Throes of Three-Front War

  1. Aphorism 146
    Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

    Translation: He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

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