Crap

Indians, when overcome by irrational and momentous hate against Pakistan, tend to lash-out and warn about how India is militarily (and otherwise) superior to Pakistan and could nuke it out of existence, and that Pakistan should not dare trouble India, if it knows what’s best for itself.

There are so many things wrong with that statement ..I won’t care to elaborate, purely out of lack of time\intent. Primarily, Pakistan as a nation may prove to be a thorn for India, but it’s peoples do not deserve the hate that is so-often showered upon them. So let’s not threaten the entire peoples of the country. It makes us (Indians) look like gloated muscular buffoons who want to pointlessly (and selfishly) throw our weight around on people much too nice to warrant such show of force (in short, it makes us look like a certain Mayawati).

Here goes –

10 years have passed since the Kargil War came to an end.

Being a citizen of India, and having been subjected to Indian propaganda for all of my years, i ought to classify today as the decade-anniversary of India’s victory in Kargil. Forgive me for not doing so, for, this blog-post is not about winning and losing. Rather, it’s about a virtue that often lies forgotten – generously evaluating how we’re living.

As as all these years passed, we continually witnessed Pakistan deteriorate – in action, and also, in being. The recent turmoil in the country has been visible to everyone. Additionally, when Bombay was attacked on November 26, 2008 (better known as 26\11 to most), several Indians – me too, for an impetuous moment – could be heard making calls for war. After all, there could be no time better than this to finish Pakistan off, no? Pakistan was weak and dis-co-ordinated. The army, the ISI, the government, the peoples, the militia, and every other piece of soceital machinery seemed out-of-place. Pakistan itself was convinced that it was going to come under fire (figuratively, and more). India (i suspect) did carry-out contingency plans for the same too. It would be foolish to think the opposite. I remember writing this down, during the days following the ordeal:

Nothing [sic] can justify War. The imminent loss of lives, the economic impact, the crumbling of international decorum; all weigh down upon a state while it contemplates violent aggression against an enemy state. Let’s focus down to the current context; India-Pakistan. [December 23, 2008]

And so i sat down to chart out (my-own) reasons for whether we(\India) should attack Pakistan or not. I’m basically just converting the points i listed down (back then) into sentences, for the sake of making it worth reading through.

What is NOT an issue for (this) War

Kashmir: The state of J&K had recently (in 2008) gone to vote, with a >50% voter turnout. Surely, a majority of it’s peoples want some semblence of peace. There’s no pressing need to drag Kashmir into the Indo-Pak issue, for, as it stands today, the confrontation has permeated into several other fronts that can be deemed more pressing.

The fact that the attacks happened on the heart of the country: This is not an issue for war either (though, emotionally, it may seem to be so). War is not based on which part of the country is under attack. If we were to attack Pakistan just because Bombay was attacked, this would be an insult to the Kashmiris who’re as much citizens of the country, and yet, attacks on them never invoked India into gunning Pakistan down. So well, if India was to use Bombay as leverage for attacking Pakistan, it would prove Pakistan right (about how India doesn’t care about Kashmir) and make India look silly. No, i think we can look for better reasons than ‘they attacked Bombay, so i’ll shoot them down’.

Why India may want to attack Pakistan

The ‘terrorism’ for almost 20 years. We’ve been at the receiving end of a lot of trouble that seems to (and does) originate from Pakistani territory. Yes, other forces can be blamed for the funding (such as SaudiArabia\USA\China\etc), but for the sake of this article, let’s just focus on the way in which Pakistan is (at the very least) an ‘instrument of discord’ that needs silencing.

Though, i would not always like to use the term ‘Terrorism’. I think it’s a term that some people have used unworthily, and today, riding on public emotions, label general non-terroristic aggression also as terrorism, in order to lauch publicly-supported wars on non-terrorist nations, for their own selfish reasons (am not referring only to USA here, for, there are forces that drive propaganda in a means much too virile, to have only one nation bear the blame for all the mis-propaganda that’s injected into us).

Pakistan’s incessant peevishness is also an attack on India’s dignity.

The above point may seem unneccessary, but, do notice that the heading of this section is “Why India may want to attack“ – and as Freud might say, We do what we want to do and not neccessarily what we need to. Thus-with, i’m including some emotion-centric aspects under this section too, for, they do contribute to what Indian’s might want to do.

Pakistan’s frivolous nature, and current idiocricy. In-short, post-26\11 seemed like the best time to attack Pakistan. Often, it seems righteous to attack, when essentially it is easy to attack (take the example of bullies in schools as a parallel).

India wants all of Kashmir back ..well, atleast the bit that Pakistan has [am unwillingly compelled to leave China's occupation of J&K out of this discussion]

And mostly, India might want to attack Pakistan.. Because Indians hate Pakistan [though, hopefully, not all the Pakistanis]

Why Internationally, India can’t expect much help (if it were to go on the offensive)

China won’t help India. Why? Because well, uhm, aah.

USA has interests in Afghanistan, and Iraq. If it supports India’s war, then Afghanistan may collapse.

Also, it cant openly support Pakistan. If Pakistan loses (almost certain), and crumbles, then terrorism (that USA seems to want to defeat) will expand explosively. Pakistan surviving is the only [though minimal] safeguard that the world possesses, and so, USA might as well stay neutral and milk two cows while it can.

And in-general, no one wants be dragged into a nuclear war. So everyone will just sit by and watch the two monkies implode. It’s always easier to watch the match – maybe stadium tickets are cheaper in times of turmoil :D

Why India actually Just Can’t afford to attack

Terrorism is surely going to spiral out of control – and the whole reason behind attacking will be lost – if (more like, when) Pakistan’s existence as a nation is vanquished.

An economic crisis. If we don’t attack, we can use this period to survive as-usual, and we can economically outclass most of the world by the time the international economic crisis comes to pass. If we attack, then ‘poof’ goes the dream of economic awesomeness.

Obviously, i’m only painting a rosy picture here. There are certain elements (a term called Politics easily comes to mind, and so does Corruption, and a few – no, lot of – other things) that are so efficiently ingrained in the underperformance, ineptitude and utter-fragmentation of this nation – and these terms (and the people\abjects responsible for them), obviously, disapprove (albeit silently) of any hopes that i may express unto this country’s rapid progress.

We’re talking about a nuclear war here, damn-it. Let’s not forget that.

Even a successful war will go on for too long, in-order-to to contain the non-government-controlled-forces in Pakistan (both, inherent-in, and, operating out-of). Thus, no matter that we like it or not, it will drain India in a way greater than now, for many years to follow, and still not bring us closer to what we went to war for. Take Afghanistan’s example, and observe USA’s failure to crush activists there.

Albeit one may argue that USA never intended to leave Afghanistan, and just allows small miscreants to live-on and label them as terrorists and then use the public support (thus generated) to continue pillaging the country even more. And thus invoking the vicious circle of “I pillage, so you revolt, so i call you a terrorist and pillage more, and then you revolt, and blah blah”. Then again, a counter view is that leaving quickly is genuinely difficult, and that terrorism (as prophesized) does actually exist.

The Long and Short of it all

Basically, all sane people (in India) would agree that we should not crush Pakistan, so that terrorism does not balloon out of control (more than it has). But even then, the current Pakistan (who we’re being so benevolent to) refuses to co-operate, and might actually deserve a chiding.

So what to do?

I’ll only list the points here. I think the consequences of each option ought to be easy to observe by now.

Attack, Win and Return. And leave Pakistan to collect it’s pieces.

Attack, Win and try to reconstruct Pakistan as a nation.

Attack, Win and coalesce Pakistan into a re-united India.

Attack, only retake Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) and instil fear into Pakistan’s heart to keep it shut.

Sit tight and indulge in Proxy War.

This needs to be elaborated a bit more (albeit in a loose fashion, just so as to lend a hint):

- Internationally, sufficient pressure doesn’t seem to be building on Pakistan

- We can break all economic ties with Pakistan and work on our own economy :)

- Along-with, we can pressure Pakistan’s economic partners to give in to us (well, try to)

- Attack Pakistan’s international markets with our own exports (our markets can’t be all that different, no?!)

- Indian terrorism – why haven’t we been practising it (albeit silently)? Surely, morality doesn’t exist in our society anyway (need i elaborate?), so why prophesize it? Just screw Pakistan up in the same way it’s been screwing with us.

As evident, the above argument is a weak one, with far too many loopholes, and completely based on emotional crappy-ness. However, it’s surely worth a thought, and maybe someone can shed light on this issue. I myself know that doing this (the last point) is morally (if such a term exists) incorrect. However, let’s not enter a debate on what is morally correct, or what morals are. The issue at hand is about how to put the Pakistan menace to rest – and sometimes any means is justifyable, if propaganda moves enough public to back it (and in-order to gain this public backing, propaganda sometimes uses the same old phrase, “if the end merits it, the means may be permitted to be morally incoherent”, and sometimes, propaganda uses other means, as long as it can convince the public to support the cause, and ultimately, drive it too).

Just for formality’s sake, let me ask

What if we attack AND we’re thwarted by Pakistan?

Notice, the term is ‘thwarted’ and not ‘defeated’. I’m not considering the latter case. I believe that it is logically implausible (cant help it, i’m an Indian)

Then that would, almost certainly, have been due to a nuclear attack, and we will have suffered considerable damage Economic, and otherwise – like, psychologically, emotionally, et cetera). Not something that’s fun, eh.

Then again, let me close this point with the common mentality of “Ah, it’s NEVER gonna happen. If we feel like Pakistan is resisting us more than we’d like, we’ll nuke Pakistan out of the map and not bother about it’s peoples. There’s no way we’ll let ourselves lose, no matter how large our own losses!”

Yes, this point is lame, but as far as my (limited) prognosis is concerned, i can’t see Pakistan defeating India, come-what-may.

Though, the commonly understood result of such a thought is that both nations will get destroyed\crippled beyond a point worth recovering from, with neither bowing down before it gets too late for either.

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These were the points i’d noted back then.

The fact that India didn’t attack Pakistan could be attributed to several causes; obviously the folks (who make the country’s decisions) perceived more than i do, and knew much more about the way the word runs, and about the nitty-gritties of diplomacy, than myself. That said, i think i ought to summarise too:

It is easy to want to attack Pakistan and hope that this will end all the trouble India faces. Waging war might even be okay. Alas, it’s the stuff that follows it that is not-so-okay. Give it a thought – and think of all possible outcomes of ‘if India were to attack Pakistan’ – and you’ll notice that even the favourite (“attack, win back PoK and then sit pretty”) is not feasible because doing so will not shut Pakistan up. And running over Pakistan will only lead to much-worse. Even though our leaders keep on saying that they want peace, the fact is that Peace is a fictitious quantity, and doesn’t actually exist – all we can do is find the right kind of a balance between the prescence and relative-absence of discord, and live on. And not let ourselves be fooled (by politicians, and worse) into believeing that war is the only route to peace in this case. I don’t know what the route, then, is, but, i do know that war isn’t.

Reminds me of how Socrates agreed with the Oracle at Delphi who labelled him as the wisest man in Athens, simply because he was the only one who understood that he knew nothing, whilst everyone else staunchly believed that they were wise and knowledgeable.

That said, i have to state that even though 2008\2009 was not the best time to attack Pakistan, i can’t understand why the Indian armed forces were not allowed to chase the retreating Pakistanis in 1999 and retake PoK even though the opportunity had presented itself. I am also aware that i am a near-nobody and no leader is ever going to come to me and tell the truth just because i wrote this blog-post. And frankly, i shouldn’t care either. Maybe we have to stop mulling over why some decisions were (and were not) taken back then (or maybe, whenever) and move on. Live the present, and just try to remember that no matter how much we hate Pakistan, we ought to try and love the Pakistanis, for they’re only human :)

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Disclaimer: I’m no expert.

I’m simply someone who’s read and seen as much as any other common person (who’s not a Defense Minister or something), and am not really endowed with any special powers of reason, that ought to make my articles worth respecting. It’s just that i have thoughts, and as all thoughts and impressions, they may change over time. They get refined (sometimes for the better, and sometimes not). This post reflected a few organised thoughts, and that’s all. Everyone has them – i’m just writing mine down. By all means, i may have missed a point or two. I’m sure i can be informed about them, if so deemed neccessary.

Also, the listed points were based on my views at the end of 2008. Do bear with the slightly mis-timed references to events that seemed relevant at that point in time (such as, more pressing referencess to Afghanistan, et cetera).