Indian Defence Review

A vicious full blown proxy war has already broken out against India following the abrogation of articles 370 and 35A, on a scale and intensity seldom experienced by the nation in more than 70 years of its independence.

Unfortunately, the official response has been just as subdued, fumbling and defensive as it had been in the past decades, despite the legitimacy of the audacious political move and the surgical strikes in Myanmar and PoK, besides the air attack on Balakot. However, the western neighbour remains as defiant as ever, planning greater devastation on our soil, besides co-opting fifth columnists to subvert the idea of India. There is no effort to dismantle terror camps, proliferating like malignant cancer cells under its watch.

The deluge of shrill protests by left leaning ex-ministers, separatists and human rights groups, Lutyens media and their overseas associates, has shown no signs of abating, but is only getting worse as the rogue state threatens the nation with dire consequences. The ‘Tukre-Tukre gang’ has now taken centre-stage, hurling unsubstantiated allegations against the Indian Army, based on hearsay and aggressive advocacy of separatists and terror groups, duly played up by the press. Unfortunately, a defensive government has done nothing to refute such utterances, emboldening such entities to launch even more outrageous attacks on the system.

The political dispensation seems doubly hesitant about employing the Chanakya Neeti of ‘Saam, Daam, Dand, Bhed,’ against anti-nationals, considered legitimate in the business of statecraft. Is it restrained by the fear of antagonizing vote banks? Why do those repeating damaging lies against the nation and its institutions by invoking the right to free speech, always go unpunished? Shekhar Gupta, for one, stands out as the most conspicuous example of its kind. He allegedly fabricated the story on Army coup and planted it as a banner headline on the front page of an English daily, as fallout of political turmoil.

The then government, the cabal of left liberals and the Lutyens media acted as if the most abominable fiction of the day happened to be the gospel truth, in a bid to demonize Gen VK Singh and discredit the magnificent organization that he headed. Gupta has openly called for lifting curbs in Kashmir, as an incitement to facilitate more protests, and help Pakistan internationalize the issue, a video clip of which is doing the rounds in the public domain. It is now time to act resolutely against rabid anti-national elements and tell them it does not pay to work for inimical forces. India should follow the lead of countries like the US and France, which clamps down on such seditious agents with the severity that it deserves.

The Lutyens brigade, uncompromisingly hostile to national causes, has jumped into the fray, opening yet another front to malign the government and propagate a spurious ISI sponsored narrative on Kashmir, where surprisingly not a single shot has been fired after the removal of article 370. The Hate India gang, has questioned the country’s secular credentials and the alleged incidents of mob lynching, conveniently overlooking the fact that half a million Kashmiri pundits were driven out of their homes by the fanatical jihadis at gunpoint. Where were they when many of those pundits were lynched and their womenfolk violated. Or of the tens of thousands of soldiers, civilians and security men felled by bullets and bomb blasts in the highly volatile state.

The self-righteous gang, backed by the Bollywood and bleeding hearts fraternity, remains blithely oblivious of the Congress sponsored mass lynching of more than 3,000 innocent Sikhs in 1984, the ugliest blot in the history of independent India and the massacre of three million Bengalis by the Pakistani army in 1971, a horrific genocide second only after the execution of six million Jews during the last World War.

The barbaric mutilation of Captain Saurabh Kalia and his men find no resonance with them, because it is not a part of their sinister agenda, dictated by their mentors sitting elsewhere. This same self righteous fraternity continued to remain oblivious of the Pakistani sponsored and terrorists engineered exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of the Kashmir Valley. Even the judiciary took no cognizance of the butchery of Sikhs on its own, but responded only when petitions were filed. Will they be able to explain why the judiciary, which is extremely proactive otherwise, maintained a deafening silence when Emergency was imposed?

Ever since its birth in 1947, Pakistan has become an albatross around India’s neck, pulling it down deeper and deeper into the quagmire of hatred and hostility. A horrible curse borne passively by the Republic all along, one which keeps it on the back foot and at the mercy of vote banks, a dire outcome of the Nehruvian legacy still deeply ingrained in the ‘secular’ political class. The supreme irony is that a puny Pakistan has reduced a country of India’s size and heft to abject helplessness, employing every bit of subterfuge and duplicity at its command. India is enjoined by the double faced global community, more particularly the US and Europe, to stick to a bogus narrative of tolerance and peace, by invoking the names of Gandhi and Buddha, even though they have behaved like passive spectators when Pakistan inflicted a thousand and one cuts on India.

The political establishment, too, has failed the nation miserably, ever since its rebirth as a Republic. The first prime minister questioned the necessity of maintaining an army. He insisted that the police alone could ensure the country’s safety and security, against all logic. Accordingly the Nehru-Krishna Menon duo not only wilfully marginalized the Army, but also committed one strategic blunder after another, even with eyes fully open, which culminated in the unprecedented debacle of 1962. The mighty Indian Army, which had won laurels on the battlefields of Europe and Africa during the two world wars, suffered the ignominy of a massive Himalayan defeat at the hands of the Chinese PLA, after being dumped on the sub-zero terrain without an iota of acclimatization, preparation or equipment.

However the perfidy did not end with Nehru’s departure. Most unfortunately, the next prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was mislead into believing that India could not carry on a war with Pakistan in 1965 because of depleting stocks of munitions, even though the Army still held 80 percent in reserve! The diabolical twist virtually robbed the bold chief executive of a decisive victory over the aggressor and paved the way for Soviet Union’s intervention. Prodded by the United Statesand the Russians, on 22 September, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that called for an unconditional ceasefire from both nations. The war ended the following day. Russia brokered an agreement at Tashkent to save Pakistan from meeting its nemesis and restore all the captured territories. Selfish geopolitical compulsions lay behind the move, more than any act of altruism, which ended with Shastri’s mysterious death.

If Pakistan flexes muscles today as a nuclear power and threatens India, then the responsibility must squarely be borne by a prime minister who headed the coalition government post Emergency, known more for his love of urine therapy than any real achievement. This ageing, arrogant politician ripped the cover off the most audacious undercover operation undertaken in Kahuta, which housed a super secret facility to make the A bomb, by informing president Zia-ul Haq about it in one of his more whimsical moments, sealing the fate of the RAW operatives with a summary execution.

Those selfless men had risked their very lives to breach the ironclad security at the facility to set up a barber’s shop and collect hair samples of scientists working on the project, which bore traces of radiation. They identified the lab and confirmed the presence of a nuclear device in the making. Did the political class ever question this act of infamy on the part of an ‘eminent’ Gandhian and a peacenik? Had India acted then, it could have easily nipped Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions in the bud and saved itself subsequent troubles. What is more, a Pakistani agent on RAW payroll even offered the blueprint of the nuclear plant for $10,000. But the request for money was instantly shot down by the self-same politician. Islamabad merrily went ahead with the nuclear project.

Paradoxically, India became the unwitting victim of a catastrophic folly committed by one of its own prime ministers. What is more, Islamabad even honoured Morarji Desai with its highest civilian award, the Nishaan-e-Pakistan. Another prime minister strangely, overcome by some misplaced sense of morality forbade covert operations in the country of his birth, Pakistan!! Reportedly, the two groups based there, one with the host country in its cross hairs and other targeting Khalistani assets, were practically taken down, setting back intelligence operations by decades. Undercover work is now believed to be outsourced to local agents and mercenaries, who cannot be trusted with sensitive operations, such as the destruction of terror camps.

Cumulatively, politicians in power have so severely compromised intelligence work that its effect was most visible during the Kargil engagement. The Indian Army, fighting with one hand tied behind its back, did not know where the enemy was located, how many of them were up there, with what kind of weapons and backup. Consequently it suffered heavy casualties. In a goodwill gesture, the then prime minister took a bus ride to Pakistan, which backfired with Gen Musharraf engineering the treachery on hill tops. Even after open betrayal, he went out of his way to cultivate the rogue dictator, inviting him over for talks and investing him with a legitimacy he did nothing to deserve.

One more prime minister of Pakistani origin very nearly gave away Siachen until checkmated by saner voices in the country. The Army’s Technical Services Division, a lethal intelligence agency mortally feared by the ISI, was also disbanded under his tenure. How can the political leadership, unlettered in strategic matters, ever protect national interests, which have been borne out time and again? There are allegations that the Break-India gang is being bank rolled by the ISI through the Dubai hawala route, a report quoting Subramanian Swamy said. These elements are believed to comply with the Pakistani dictates in furthering their agenda, under the threat of exposure if they don’t.

In this context what Abdul Basit, former Pakistani envoy to India told blogger Farhan Virk becomes significant. He said he had prevailed on a “very prominent” journalist, to advocate the “Kashmiris’ right to self determination,” post Burhan Wani’s killing. She (the columnist) accordingly wrote a piece in a leading English daily, dated July 17, 2016 concluding with the sentences: “Let’s see if the present government has the guts to go ahead with a referendum to resolve the Kashmir crisis once and for all. Let’s end the lingering pain in the region and allow Kashmiris to live in peace, with the dignity and harmony they are entitled to.”

The columnist, a former editor of the defunct Bollywood’ gossip magazine angrily denied meeting Basit and dismissed his claims as “dangerous, malicious and unfair to truth,” which may or may not have been true. But when the senior ex-diplomat has specifically named the person, then the matter cannot be dismissed out of hand. Nor can her writing be merrily wished away. It is also being speculated that the ‘expose’ on the columnist is the tip of an iceberg, to serve as a warning to others on the ISI payroll, to be more proactive in damaging Modi’s image and reputation, or else face the music. Pakistan must not be allowed to dictate where India must place its drawing room or the lounge when it is restructuring a part of its own house in Kashmir.