Indian Foreign Policy Track -2010
The time has come for India to make a stand on the international stage and redeem itself for the absolutely novice-like muscle entry into Sri Lanka under the guise of the IPKF and the subsequent shameful withdrawal without having achieved a thing, other than bloody-ing over 70,000 troops in combat.
Loosing a Prime Minister to the same hordes, in a suicide attack that the entire Southern Indian Politician cadre was aware of – was in my opinion the nadir of our foray into extending ‘India’ into the South East.
The nation has another chance of redeeming itself once again and this time as well, with one of our own neighbours. However, unlike the presumed ‘dimunitive’ Lankans, this one is in Pakistan.
The blackmail game that the Pakistanis are playing with the US needs to end, and that nation brought down to its knees or better still a creation of independent states, much as the CIA and the ISI would have liked to see happen to India by 2020. The extreme beggar-like and prostrate behavior put up by the Pakistanis using their own cache of nuclear weapons and their own commanded Taliban- to extort money from the only country in the world that does not want to call their bluff, the United States- is so shameless that it really needs a bullet to the back of the head of that nation. Diversion of those US funds to support terror against/within J&K bothers us less, than the blatant game of chicken that they play- and what possibly irritates more is the fact that they are getting away with it.
Not to sound deliberate or insensitive, if our Nation did not punish the perpetrators of the Parliament attack, you thought we would attack Pakistan for harbouring and encouraging the masterminds and doers of the Mumbai 26/11? You surely must be joking. When the seat of power in this country was attacked, we rolled out the Army and recalled every course-going Young Officer, and disrupting holidays, wedding, honeymoons, bank loans- what did we achieve? A well meaning Corps Commander was sacked on the behest of the United States, who kept guaranteeing the Pakistanis that India would not attack them, and enable them to move two Divisions to the battle that the US was trying to contain in the West. Nice. After grinding the entire machinery of our armed forces for nine months, we were back to status quo- and this time around, I don’t think the ASC even flinched when the Mumbai Hotels and a Synagogue were turned into an abattoir. I am sure not one uniformed Officer thought that there was going to be any kind of retribution towards Pakistan for the carnage that happened.
Can you see how we have raped the ego and morale of our own? When Army officers sit back and laugh at the apathy of our Government, the lack of guts, the lack of decision, the lack of knowledge of the options that lie ahead of us… God forbid that there is a war with Officers like this believing in the countrys’ leadership.
Many a time some readers pre-empted the point of the article by chasing the lead, and rushing top praise our brave officers and men, and think that I belittle them- that is not the case. Battles are indeed won by individual and group shows of resistance, attack, defying death, and in unfortunate cases- delaying death to the point where victory came to us before the chariots of doom. Wars- are not won like this. Wars are won by Government giving directions to the Armed Forces leadership. Choices of how the war should end- Strike Corps aligned to the IB- such a waste, when you know that if Pakistan survives as an entity, we will have to taste the waters of the Indus and return with probably about 8000 causalties to show.
I am sure given the pathetic response to the Parliament attack, if there was a war, we are neither prepared for the our Strike Corps reaching the Indus, nor are we tactically thought out if a nuclear weapon of piddling magnitude be dropped on its advancing coloumns- or worse- if the garrisons at Sukkur and Rahimyar Khan make a corridor for the Strike Corps to move to the Indus, nuke the rear and entrap the entire Strike Corps and its entire support mechanism, you would have about 30,000 troops- within Pakistan. The bumbling fools who lead our country, and their sheer lack of depth of listing options are going to fail us again.
It is time to move to diplomacy and assault Pakistan in its very heart, and heartlands. The unending bluff of its nuclear weapons and the threat of the Taliban getting to them should be called on and its time that the United States realizes that its continual funding of the Paksitani state is only going to be prolonged by the wonderful act that the ISI and its entire puppet-political nexus is staging for them.
I tell our leaders, forget 26/11- we have not done a thing about it, and you as a collective soul are incapable of action- so just forget the assault on Mumbai, stop making it your war cry, as there is nothing more pathetic than a drooling nation crying over spilt milk, rather we look like the ‘rudaali’ who come to exhibit their professional talents at wailing at any funeral, any death that pays them to cry their heart out without even knowing if it was the worst village rapist who died at a victims sickle.
Reduce the LoC strength, to show solidarity with the ‘battle they are having to prevent the spread of the Taliban.’ Its probably the US that has ensured them, as they always do, that we will not take undue advantage of the reduction of troop strength- if the fools know that reduction of troop strengths along the IB is a meaningless expression of worry. The Pakistani Rangers man the IB, and they as a nation are free to move two Brigades around without the fear of loosing an square inch of territory. Indian leadership does not have it in them to launch a war, and therefore the US should just call in the Pakistani leadership to remove all their forces from along the IB and deploy them in the west and crush the Taliban, recover the Swat Valley and reinforce their command over the NWFP. But, my friends, in this giant charade, this will not happen. The US wouldn’t want India to get too strong would it?
India should now start asking for opening up four more axis’ of trade into Pakistan, and not just keep it to the song and dance that such openings get in J&K. Barmer- Mirpur Khas, Jaisalmer- Rahimyar Khan, Fazila-Okara, Firozpur- Lahore. Abandoned railway stations, silent bearers to the horrific slayings at the time of independence like awaiting in towns like Munnabao and await salvation that they may serve the people of what was once a united nation. Routes abound to open trade and start the business community of Pakistan thinking between the Taliban and India, we present a MUCH better alternative as one would choose a wife with lesser evils to spend ones’ life with.
Openly invite the Pakistani Armed Forces Officers to our Counter Insurgency schools, teach them lessons on use of own Artillery as we did in Op Sarp Vinash, offer to send our Officers as Instructors to their schools. Offer cheap technology to convert their dud 1000-pounder bombs to laser assisted munitions, help them fly their F-16s. Help them combat the Taliban. Its time to think like a Big Brother, and not the Bully-act that we did in the South, 25 years ago.
Opening trade in the middle, offering assistance at the north and their west, leaves them with little option to deride us, and it would reduce the India ‘bogey’ from their consistent public policy. Given our Arms-down and trade-up move, they would have to re-think the bluff on their India-front, and that would enable the US to move and isolate the nuclear weapons that the Pakistanis keep threatening the world- if you don’t keep us up as a nation, the Taliban will get the nukes.
The professional setup that the Pakistani Armed Forces are, I am sure that they have their safety features in place and their fall-back plan will always be that the parts the nukes are disassembled into, will be within hours of PAF bases that house the F-16s and Mirage-IIIs. Army Cantonments and PAF bases that can house/service and sustain these aircraft are not like 27 in number. I am sure that the CIA, the US DOD, and the Indian RAW and the Army’s MI can whittle that number to two airfields in that nation.
Target these two locations. Develop men or women who can take control of the Sind, and the Punjab into independent entities and create a buffer state that would thrive on trade and learn to enjoy the freedom that the Taliban threatens to take away from them. Give them work, give them hope, and give them something to look forward to, maybe just a truck carrying bicycle tyres or tomatoes that grow in abundance in the deserts of Rajasthan- if not the more exotic Basmati rice that we so happily export to any country with Dollars enough to buy them.
The Taliban, not contained, one day will take this farce run by the ISI too far- and eventually the north will collapse. And then the battle will come to our door step. Insurgency in J&K is currently sustained by the ISI, and when their prodigies reach the border themselves, then Kashmir, UP, Bihar, Bangladesh will be the corridor that they will start to carve out for themselves.
Buffer states, sustained by our trade, sustained by our military education, sustained by the taste of money and freedom will only be our help.
Its time to create a Sind, a Punjab and leave them as if they were our extended states. Let them be entities with a life of their own, and let them keep the advancing Taliban at bay.
If we loose this opportunity to intervene and protect ourselves with a ‘Commonwealth of Broken Pakistani States’ then we are faced with the Taliban at our doorstep within the coming 18 months.
And the real fear, is that our old politicians would have just gotten older, and the Armed Forces would still have no clue on what to do with these hordes on the fence.
Individual valour will continue to be expressed, and good men in uniform will continue to die- with Actors, Cricket players and businessmen contesting the current general elections in India, the article is to be read by the men who roam the dark corridors of foreign policy, and its’ upto them to educate, cajole and/or threaten the elected few- to act and lead them and our country to becoming a regional superpower and sustain our nation for atleast the next five decades.
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