WHAT TEMERITY!
| Date :17-Sep-2019 |
THAT nearly two dozen terrorists have arrived in Srinagar and are threatening shop-keepers, is the latest news from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). If this is inside Kashmir, then on the other side of Line of Control (LoC), Pakistan has started a massive military build up in a display of aggressive mood. The signs suggest that Islamabad may be itching for a serious confrontation with India. The suspicion gets strengthened by the talk of a possible conventional war with India by Pakistan Prime Minister Mr. Imran Khan. Obviously, Pakistan does not want to recognise its own limitations or is not intelligent enough to know those. For whatever the reason, Pakistan has continued to needle India, beyond which it rarely has the capacity to go. Yet, instead of seeing a practical sense and keeping quiet, it is trying to kick up an anti-India hysteria. This temerity is surprising, to say the least.
There is another side to this story as well. Mr. Imran Khan does say that Pakistan is more likely to use a conventional war. Naturally, without uttering those many words, he may be suggesting that in case the conventional war is lost, Pakistan may be forced to think of the nuclear option. This is nothing but a threat, which India is naive not to understand. But this very attitude of the Pakistan Prime Minister is reprehensible, since he is almost seeking to wage a nuclear confrontation with India. This stance of Mr. Imran Khan has come in for a massive criticism inside Pakistani media and intellectuals. All of them are warning against any confrontation with India in conventional or non-conventional modes.
They are afraid that the terrible strain on the economy would cripple Pakistan forever. If this is on a practical ground, the some Pakistani intellectuals are talking of morality of waging a nuclear confrontation with India. Despite this, the Pakistani establishment has refused to see sense and has continued to issue veiled or open threats to India. In addition, it has continued to send into India terrorists who are now creating trouble in Srinagar. When a country has attained a rogue status, like Pakistan, anything and everything has to be watched carefully. Even as they talk openly of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability, many Pakistani ministers are suggesting they have miniature N-weapons that will cause great havoc when deployed. This is, of course, utter nonsense, and irresponsible and even childish.
Yet when a State indulges in such behaviour, it does raise the levels of threat perceptions on the other side of the divide. Thankfully, India is a responsible State and its Government would never yield to temporary provocation and respond stupidly. It has never talked of nuclear option. It has never talked of war, though Army Chief General Bipin Rawat has expressed full readiness to go into Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) if the need be borne out of the Government’s order to do so. But even in the statement of the Army chief, there is a sense of restraint, which the Pakistan leadership has not demonstrated ever. It is against this background that Pakistan’s effort to push into Kashmir terrorists to needle India.
This low-intensity engagement has been Pakistan’s tool of its State policy for the past thirty years. After abrogation of Article 370 from Kashmir, Pakistan has felt frustrated as all its designs stand exposed. That is the reason it is now thinking of using both options -- of an open war and also of insurgency -- to engage India is a conflict. It is doing this at its own peril, which Islamabad does not realise. In the next some time, the internal measures by the Government will crush terrorism and also earn people’s support to its good intentions. In that case, Pakistan will realise that it has got isolated all the more. However, marching invariably towards its own doom, the Pakistani leadership is less likely to realise the truth.