Should India wage war against Pakistan?

The Twitterati is going berserk in ire against the government for its ‘inaction’ against Pakistan following the killing of 18 Indian soldiers by terrorists in Uri recently.

The exasperation is justified. We must admit the killing was utterly condemnable. We have borne the brunt of Pak sponsored terrorism for decades and decisive action against Pakistan is something we all dream of.

Expectations from present government were high so the drastic disillusionment for lack of strong action is natural. People want strikes against what India calls “terrorist infrastructure targets,” the reported militant training camps inside Pakistan.

But we must hold on and think in the light of reason for a while. What exactly can India do? If it goes for an all out war with Pakistan, pandering to the public emotion, the losses will be unimaginable, be it economic, logistic or by way of precious civilian lives.

Both are nuclear states and Pak’s nuke establishments are certainly not safe in the hands of its maverick army which largely controls the affairs of the country. There is almost a breakdown of a civilian government there; the army doesn’t listen to the civilian dispensation.

That’s the long and short of it. The second option is dialogue. To be fair, bitter as it may sound, dialogue is not taking us anywhere. We can talk with the government there, but when the army is not in the hands of the government, there’s not much we can expect from government treaties and resolutions.

Even if the government there tries to tame terror activities, the bigot army won’t make it a success and it will drive its own agenda. We have had dialogues for decades, but we still have the same picture of bloodshed today. We have fought several wars, but we still remain on the verge of it. It is a truth that Pakistan is a pain in the neck for India and it will remain so.

War won’t solve the entrenched hatred for India the army of Pakistan in particular harbours. They can die in the name of jihad. The zealots don’t care even for their own people. For their stupidity, millions of civilians will die on both sides. Pakistan has as wonderful men and women as we have.

India’s emotions are misplaced. We always celebrate the fact that we Indians are very emotional people. But diplomacy doesn’t rest on emotions; nor does strategy. They rest on practicality and studied weighing of options in the light of political sagacity. We are a part of a civilized global society and cannot take rash actions for we are bound by certain conventions and ethical traditions.

Emotions are volatile only when there is lack of education and the lack of ability to make informed choice. People who are crying hoarse to teach Pakistan a lesson by giving a free hand to the forces have no idea of the horrors of war and holocaust.

We should not provoke or do any such thing in a hurry that leads us to weep over million bodies tomorrow should the worst happen.

One nuclear bomb over Hiroshima, which was half the strength of today’s bombs, is showing its deadly effects even 70 years after it was dropped. Today if there is a nuclear war, half of the world may perish. This is why South Korea cannot do much despite North Korea’s threats and aggressive military policies. Pakistan is a much smaller country than India, its losses too will be smaller.

India has hopes and a future it cannot stake for Pakistan. Let alone a nuke war, even a conventional full scale war will tangle the situation, with the US and China coming in to play different roles. We know of China’s traditional support to Pakistan and the US too has been off and on an ally of Pakistan as much as it has been of India’s.

So the end result may not be as fruitful for India. Only the losses will set her back by two decades. There are several other tactical ways to corner Pakistan though. One is diplomatic isolation, which India is already working at. Several countries are with India in condemning Pakistan and reconsidering military and diplomatic ties.

That is something going to affect both Pakistan’s military and civil administrations. The other ways to check Pakistan’s audacity is to sever economic and logistic ties.
But more importantly, it is high time we spruced our intelligence gathering and also enhanced our border security through an invincible fencing framework.

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It is very shocking and surprising how a group of terrorists enters our territory unchecked and ambushes a guarded high security army camp without our having any prior information of the movements to take preemptive steps. And this is not the first time such a daring attempt has been made and we haven’t learnt. This is where our main failure lies and our emotions should be directed at finding our own lapses and efforts should be directed at correcting those.

-WTN

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