When Ideology corrupts Strategy
http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=72147
It is increasingly apparent that the ideology of the ruling party and its supporting pseudo-cultural formations is contaminating thinking on national security. The national broadcaster carried live its by-now-annual fixture on Vijaya Dashami, the address of the RSS Supreme Leader, Mohan Bhagwat. Since 'shastra puja' is observed, in his speech apt for the occasion, Bhagwat surveyed the national security scene. He was naturally complimentary of the government, since the government engages in yearly accountability confabulations with his organization. 

The latest government, party and political parent - RSS - tête-à-tête was in end August. At the previous year's meeting in September last year, the prime minister had his report card written. Given these visible linkages, and the multiple subterranean ones that cannot but exist, the Volunteer-in-Chief's words serve as advice, if not guidance itself, for the nation's Pradhan Sevak. Therefore, if the Sarsangchalak discourses on security, it can be inferred that either he is outlining the government's security agenda or dictating it. 

Both possibilities are questionable. In case of the latter, it is a clear case of extra-constitutional authority wielding the remote; something the BJP in opposition untiringly pointed towards in the last administration of the UPA, referring to the power of the occupant of 10 Janpath. In case of the former, the security agenda outlined is so contaminated with majoritarianism (read upper caste supremacism) that strategic rationality is the first casualty, ethical policy the second and democratic norms the third. 

This brings up a third possibility: a combination of both. Not only does the RSS determines the government's strategic orientation but also propagates it. For conservative realism to inform the strategic doctrine of the right wing government is unexceptional. However, what is likely in place instead is religious nationalism on steroids. The Dussehra address must therefore be seen for what it is: our very own 'state of union' address, a rival to the prime minister's grandstanding on Red Fort ramparts and perhaps a replacement for the president's republic day platitudes. 

Three cases over the recent past illustrate the three consequences of ideological eclipse of strategy. First, let's take strategic rationality. India's perennial foe, Pakistan, has been described by former foreign secretary Nirupama Rao - not known as a hawk (yet) - recently as 'enemy', defined as someone to 'destroy'. (Apparently, an 'adversary' - China - is one to merely 'defeat'!) Destroy is what India might have set out to do to that state. The visit of the prime minister to the US over mid-year was followed by Trump's Afghanistan policy, the major plank of which has been the threat of destabilisation held out to Pakistan. This threat was implicit in Trump's defence secretary Mattis' remarks at the House Armed Services Committee hearings. It followed in immediate wake of his trip to India. While India's new defence minister was clear on not dispatching troops to Afghanistan, that India would do more has equally clearly been communicated to the US. Since the Trump administration is not going to allow India to free ride as is its wont, what India has signed up for will be clearer as the US begins to impose on Pakistan for the 'sanctuary' 'terrorists' - defined here as those intent on blowing up GIs Joe and Jane for trespassing on their native land. 

To expect Trump - who shall come up a cropper trying to clean up the 'sanctuary cities' of migrants in his own backyard - to do with 3000 additional troops what Obama could not with some 30000 additional hands is self-delusional. While this could otherwise be put beyond normal strategic expectations, in case of an ideology driven strategic establishment, this cannot be ruled out. Perhaps they are not interested in turning Pakistan round, as the US might be hoping to achieve with its threats, as much as goading the US into making Pakistan keel over. The strategic fallout for India and the region is easy to foresee, with India ending up at with a 'frontline' status, knowing full well what that means having seen Pakistan play the role for some thirty years. 

That domestic politics drives this strategic fantasy is evident. The polarization that could result would ensure an indefinite tenure in Delhi for the provincial chief from Gujarat. India can hardly count as a regional power if it allows a superpower to defecate at its doorstep. But if the US downs Pakistan, it would leave India as the last man standing, a regional power finally, fulfilling Bhagwat's Dussehra wish: 'In response to the activities of Pakistan on the Western front…, Bharat's strong and determined stand has been visible …on the borders as well as in international diplomacy. This definitely makes us realise about our strength and at the same time provides new international standing to Bharat.'

The second casualty is ethical policy. There has been the coincidence of the ongoing crackdown by the Myanmarese regime on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state in Myanmar and Modi's visit to that capital. The Myanmarese apparently read a tacit go-ahead for operations amounting to ethnic cleansing in the joint statement of the two countries at the meeting in which terrorism was condemned, with references to terror attacks by the Rohingya extremists in Rakhine and by terrorists in J&K finding mention in the same breath. The sense of impunity with which the Myanmarese regime has proceeded indicates its sanguineness with support from India, almost suggesting that more passed between the two during the visit than met the public eye. 

Whereas the UPA could be absolved to an extent of acceding to the Sri Lankan battle of annihilation with the Tamil Tigers due to India then being on the cusp of elections, in this case the crimes against humanity started off as the visiting head of the regional power, India, boarded the plane back to Delhi from his visit to the perpetrators. There can be two views on this: that India has no sway and the moniker 'regional power' is chimera; or that indeed it is a regional power that has winked and nudged the Myanmarese on. Neither of these options is acceptable; the former is unacceptable to strategists hoarse-voiced from proclaiming Indian arrival as a 'great power' and the latter is unacceptable from point of view of potential abuse in this case of any such power. 

The preceding vilification of the Rohingya refugees in India set the tone for the visit. In the Supreme Leader's speech, he claimed that Rohingyas were being 'chased out' of their land owing to their association with 'criminal separatist activity', calling for decisions based on 'national security and integrity'. As pointed out in this publication earlier - a reference to their terror links by no less than the Director General Assam Rifles, a leading counter insurgency outfit in the North East, in a strategic journal, the USI Journal: 'The Rohingyas are a likely security threat as they are turning out to be easy targets for Muslim Fundamental Organisations (MFOs). ISIS is also known to be reaching out to Rohingyas for recruitment. With countries unwilling to house the Rohingyas, joining ISIS may be an attractive option.' Lately, the intelligence agencies' conjured-up case for expulsion of the Rohingya refugees from India has now reached the Supreme Court. Their presence is seen through the lens of internal security, especially since the Rohingya plight, visibly aggravated over the past month, has understandably seen Muslims organisations scramble to their relief, including those with fundamentalist persuasion. 

The third casualty are democratic norms. This is evident from the RSS supremo's take on internal security, specifically J&K. He warns that the 'necessary Constitutional amendments will have to be made and old provisions will have to be changed. Then and then only, the residents of Jammu Kashmir can be completely assimilated with rest of Bharat and their equal cooperation and share will be possible in the national progress.' He has in one breath clubbed Articles 35A and 370 as up for revision. This would be the prize the BJP seeks once it has the upper house in its kitty and the 2019 hustings taped-up. The constitutional rewriting would be through the democratic route alright, though not quite democratic since democracy is not rule of the majority even if it is rule by the majority. The government is already preparing for the backlash. Bhagwat appreciates, 'the determination with which terrorist infiltration and firing from across the border is being dealt with;' and informs that, '(A)ll security forces, including the Army, have been given the freedom to do their respective duties.' The good part is that Bhagwat has snitched on what's coming up next. 

In effect, this dispensation is going to leave a mess behind. Not only will detoxification on their departure be a challenge, but reversing the damage done to Indian security will take a while. Ideology does not just make a mark, it leaves an enduring stain. 

http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=70289

In defence of Hamid Ansari

The erudite Hamid Ansari, who has served as vice chancellor of a national university, can be expected to defend himself. His delectable drubbing of the Hindutvavadis over their term at the helm of India indicates as much. The crescendo in their attacks on him today shows that they have not really been listening all through. They seem to have woken only last week when while demitting office, the former vice president Hamid Ansari referred to the (in)security of India's Muslims. 

Way back in February in his K. Subrahmanyam memorial lecture he had warned against 'religious majoritariansm'. Perhaps that was a bit cerebral for our Hindutva brethren to catch on to. They sugarcoat their ideology under the term 'cultural nationalism'. He should perhaps have said out loud that it is Hindu supremacism, but that would be reduce himself to their level. After all, not all Hindus are majoritarian and most - though currently in embarrassed silence - are possibly as aghast with the antics of their Hindutvavadi brethren as anyone else. The scholar and diplomat in Hamid Ansari was not quite heard out earlier. 

But he has done a signal service on departure from high office by setting the cat among the pigeons. This was necessary to do since for the foreseeable future the ones in high office are unlikely to squeal, leave alone say a critical word. It is no secret that the president is from the Hindutva brigade and to state this out loud is no longer disrespectful. 

For his part, the vice president has already done a hit-wicket even as he takes stance by being the first to discourteously shout down his predecessor, Hamid Ansari, opining that Ansari's take smacks of a 'political agenda'. It no doubt missed the vice president that keeping silent is no less striking as 'political agenda', and partaking of the majoritarian project - that accounts for his elevation to august office - is exponentially more so - and more dangerous. 

At the death anniversary of Mr. K. Subrahmanyam, once the long standing doyen of Indian strategists, Hamid Ansari had spelt out his fears, stating, 'The operative principle for this [national identity] is 'national-civic' rather than 'national-ethnic,' though a segment of opinion today would want to modulate or amend it and espouse instead an Indian version of 'cultural nationalism' premised on 'religious majoritarianism.'

Hamid Ansari spelt out his view of the dangers further. In his answer to Karan Thapar's question pertaining to the 'mood' among Indian Muslims, posed in a parting interview on Rajya Sabha TV on the eve of leaving office, he said that, 'there is a feeling of unease, a sense of insecurity is creeping in.' This phrase was lit upon by his Hindutva inspired detractors and trolls. 

He connected the thread between majoritarianism and Muslim perception of insecurity in his last speech as vice president, at the National Law School of India University in Bangalore. There he quoted Israeli thinker, Yael Tamir: '…the version of nationalism that places cultural commitments at its core is usually perceived as the most conservative and illiberal form of nationalism. It promotes intolerance and arrogant patriotism.'' 

Essentially, what Hamid Ansari is saying is that 'illiberal nationalism' in the form of 'religious majoritarianism' has created an atmosphere of 'arrogant patriotism', which has led up to the 'insecurity' of various sections of society, including within India's largest minority, its Muslims.

For his pains Hamid Ansari has been characteristically advised by RSS ideologue, Indresh Kumar, to go where 'he feels secure'. After the fashion these days, presumably, Kumar has Pakistan in mind. Or perhaps like they did with MF Hussain, they wish to banish Ansari. It is here that Indresh and his ilk err.

The country Hamid Ansari should head for instead is an India in which such elements are once again marginalized as they were earlier. As a democracy there is no reason to deny them their space, but it needs to be at the periphery and under the constraints of the law. They can be represented by the conservative party of their choice, the BJP. 

However, what has happened over the past decade is that they have emerged behind the chariot of their points-man in politics, Mr. Modi, to take over not only the BJP, but the center-stage of politics. Their minions have spread through society and eaten away at its vitals, including its tolerance, pluralism and diversity. 

The 'Modi wave' does not appear to have exhausted itself, with Bihar only recently falling in his lap. Even the ill effects of demonetization and the indignity and inconvenience it forced on people appears to have been forgiven. Within society, lynch mobs are rampant enforcing their cow related dictates, even at the cost of human lives. 

The country that Hamid Ansari should head towards is an India that shall emerge after the Modi tide has been reversed. It would not be easy. The middle class is still looking for the promised economic dividend. The country is latched down by its two rivals on either side and, therefore, there is always the call for national unity against these bogeys to fall back on. The institutions are being hollowed out. Even the redoubtable Economic and Political Weekly has suffered a setback to its reputation from seemingly tanking in to mere legal notice from a corporate house with links to the government. 

Rolling back this tide of hate would not be possible any time soon. The tide will first have to culminate in some dangerous and self-destructive climax. Arundhati Roy has prognosticated as much in her latest book. Though a work of fiction, she rightly takes India's current and ongoing hardline approach in Kashmir as symptomatic of India in a self-destruct mode and as precursor to such a denouement.

For sure, the insecurity Hamid Ansari refers to can only deepen. This would involve Muslims in their mohallas or in areas where they predominate such as in tracts of Bengal, Assam and in Kashmir. The Muslim predicament posed by lynch mobs across north India is well known. In the Deccan, the selective killing of a body builder was no doubt to send a message. The 'beef ban' law has one unstated aspect to it: that of defanging Muslims, better represented in the meat industry, and, therefore, better able to defend themselves, having the knives, the know how to use these and the stomach that does not turn on the sight of blood. A Muslim student of a premier university continues to be missing a year on. 

The Kashmir story is too well known to the readers of this to dwell on here. In Bengal, the BJP is reportedly growing inroads, using the communal tensions from incidents such as in Basirhat as they best know how. Of Assam, the Director General Assam Rifles, is emboldened enough to write in a respected strategic journal, the USI, thus: 'Districts of Karimganj, Hailakandi and Cachar are likely to suffer mainly on communal lines with noticeable increase in Muslim population, seeping in of fundamental ideas and support for Islamic Fundamental Organisations.' He goes on to say that the Rohingya refugees are falling to ISIS inducement. This perhaps explains India readying to send 40000 of them back, and allowing the refugee agency to cater for only 15000 of them. So much for India as a regional power. 

Ansari's pointing all this out led to a veiled attack on him by the prime minister in parliament. Modi more or less had it that Ansari's roots and professional confines in Muslim related issues and causes had constricted his thinking. Mr. Modi is either India's Nero or its pied piper. Both avatars do not bode well for India's future. Clearly, even though Ansari will not fetch up at an India with religious majoritarianism bottled up once again in this lifetime, it is equally clear that it is in this direction he - and all the rest of us in India - must head. If Muslim insecurity is an index of India's security, we need to heed Ansari.

http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=67487
Reading the Army Chief's words

Luckily for the army chief, the government had earlier let on that he was chosen for his operational experience, the subtext being that strategic acumen was not to fore in its choice. The chief in his recent utterance in an interaction with PTI has proven the government right. He averred that the morale of the army's junior leaders in Kashmir needed lifting and he had awarded Major Leetul Gogoi to help with this. His inability to rise above the operational level prevented him from seeing the strategic hit-wicket he has done in that the award was at the cost of regard for Kashmiris, the good Major having been awarded despite of his being under inquiry in the 'human shield' case. 

The chief did not end with that, going to rue that Kashmiris had taken to stones instead of guns. Their taking to guns would have leveled the playfield for him. His troops would presumably have been able to fire back, instead of waiting - in his words - to die; even though there has been no death on the side of security forces from a stone hit. On the contrary there were close to a hundred deaths on the civilian side and many going blind due to retaliation by pellet guns. 

What the public rumination of the army chief tells us is that almost nine years since full-throated stone throwing made its advent in Kashmir, there has been no doctrinal, organizational and tactical effort on part of security forces to meet it. Granted, the army has not been at the receiving end for most part, coming in with two brigades only for a while to pacify south Kashmir late last stone throwing season. Those in khaki uniforms have borne the brunt instead. 

It would be too much to expect of them - and their IPS leadership - to have come up with a suitable, people-sensitive strategy. True to form, the home ministry set up a committee to assess efficacy of pellet guns last year. Any other country would have turned out police forces suitably equipped with protective gear, trained in phalanx formation and with humanitarian law compliant weapons. The winter's respite has not led to any change of tack from their inheritance dating to handling the Quit India movement. The innovation if any is in the use of catapults to give a taste of their own medicine to stone throwers. They apparently miss Mr. KPS Gill and his tactics. 

All they needed doing was to look up on youtube.com the manner, say the South Korean riot police handles mob violence or even the statelet Kosovar police handles the opposition's Molotov cocktail charged challenge. Given India's advantages of manpower, such forces could have been deployed in each district for easy access to stone throwers in real time, dispersing them with a routine finality but with fewer casualties. Suitably deterred and with no casualties to appreciably boost their angst, stone throwing - reminiscent of the intifada - might have dissipated. 

With girls straining their arm in like pursuit this season, the army appears to have been placed on call. It has already - under its new chief with a wealth of operational experience in the Valley - reverted to tactics abandoned over a decade and half back: cordon and search sweeps. On the Line of Control it has walked back over a decade to the pre-ceasefire days. Whereas it is on comfortable ground on the Line of Control, in the by-lanes on the Valley floor, from the words of its chief, it appears at sea. 

What the army chief therefore is really saying is that the army is in a position it would rather not be in. Explaining his innovative solution to the tactical cul-de-sac he found himself in, Major Leetul Gogoi was worried that he might have had to drop a dozen stone throwers to break his way out of their siege. By rewarding him, the army chief has seemingly agreed with him. Even if the army wants a fight on its terms, it expects instead to have a people-centric fight as Ramzan gets along. 

Clearly, it has been left with the can. This is what its minister has put them to - washing his hands off by saying that military problems needed military solutions. For a minister who is also handling the finance ministry, this would be an appropriate tack to take since he really would not have the time to supervise the defence ministry left vacant by a predecessor absconding at the first opportunity to his home state. With a heart operation behind him - dating to his last stint at managing both ministries at the beginning of this government's term - he can be excused. The ruling party is so thin on talent that it has no one to substitute. 

The problem is that whereas operational freedom for the military is understandable on the Line of Control - where the army in its element can be expected to do its bit - this is not so in respect of the 'war among people'. The minister is obviously oblivious to the 'strategic corporal' concept that attends such environments. Major Leetul Gogoi's action is an illustration of what may be lauded at the tactical level ending up as a strategic disaster. 

But there is an even more significant aspect of the twin reflections in the press respectively of the minister and his army chief last week. This is of a piece with the typically Indian civil-military relations dating to the Sino-Indian war. India's foremost military historian, Srinath Raghavan, informs that the civilians learnt the wrong lessons from the war, believing that the military space needs to be left entirely to the military. He explores how the conduct of the 1965 war reinforced this false belief, even though the result of the war itself did not suggest that the civil and military domains in war are distinct and without overlap. Be that as it may, the nuclear age is here. Any verities held over from prior naturally need rethink. 

Yet two decades into the nuclear age, for the defence ministry to believe that the military sphere continues to be distinct is an abdication of responsibility. Both the minister and his army chief opined that there is little possibility of war. To the minister, the army's dominance of the Line of Control ensures this, while the army chief ruled out 'limited war'. It bears reminding that for his part, the air force chief in emulating General Sundarji sent a demi-official letter to his officers exhorting war readiness. Getting hold of a copy of this missive, the Pakistani air force activated its forward airfields and buzzed Siachen. Throw in a surgical strike or two, and there could be yet another India-Pakistan crisis, a throwback by a decade. 

Since this is all too easy to observe, this analysis opens up an interesting possibility. If all this gets to a shooting stage, either the army can fetch the government kudos - a'la the short term benefits 1971 and Kargil did for the political heads at the time - or in case the army messes it up, the 'military solution for military problem' thesis provides an alibi for the civilian national security apparatus. A short, sharp war might be good for Mr. Modi's image, lacking as it does warlord credentials currently. Navigating such political waters, the army chief needs to keep his head up and not look down, as appears to be his wont.

Kashmir's scenery makes its way to the 'hinterland' http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=66651

The head of India's land warfare think tank has this to say in his essay in the flagship product of the army funded center: 'The proxy war is one method of tying down the Indian Army, and it should be expected during any war, that this strategy will be escalated to choke the lines of communication and destabilise the hinterland (http://www.claws.in/images/journals_doc/1782942649_1031898166_BalrajNagal.pdf).' It is easy to see this in relation to Kashmir. The restive population would possibly hold-up Indian military convoys, enroute to battle by sporadic bouts of stone throwing. Even if not orchestrated by Pakistan, this can be inferred from the daily prime time display of their levels of alienation from India and from teenage girls joining the fray. While this explanation caters for the reference to 'lines of communication' falling in J&K, where about one third of the army is deployed, one wonders what is the reference to 'destabilise the hinterland'? A little further in the article, a clue appears: 'The religious colour given to the Mujahideen war in Afghanistan is being replicated in India, in the hope that Indian Muslims will get radicalised, causing communal disharmony.' Presumably, this explains the source of possible instability in the 'hinterland'. Clearly, into the proxy war sink - in which the J&K problem has languished for the past two decades - the security predicament of India's largest minority - its Muslims - is now being  likewise sunk. The think tank honcho explicates further ahead in the article in question the role such a proverbial fifth column could play in hostilities. He calls for engineering a Tibetan uprising in relation to the circumstance  of hostilities with China: 'The Tibetan people must be integrated into the overall plan to impose delay and attrition on forces inducted after the commencement of a war. The Tibetan resistance must also be used for  deep targeting and intelligence… The covert and hybrid war now in vogue, remains well suited to the TAR where Tibetan nationalism has been suppressed, and has been simmering for decades.' He perhaps visualizes this is the role Pakistan's ISI is setting up India's Muslims to play and some of India's Muslims might oblige. This is not an individual opinion. It appears to be collectively held in the military. Here is some anecdotal evidence. This author lives in a Muslim majority locality in a city with a large Muslim population. In the locality is situated  a military garrison. As with other military garrisons, it has been in uncomfortable cheek by jowl with its surroundings. This was unremarkable earlier, when cities were relatively laid back. With cities turning dynamic,  if not turbulent, and willy-nilly strangling the green military oasis in their midst, the garrison over time acquired a wall, topped up as is the fashion these days not only with barbed wire but concertina coil. Thereafter, as military budgets expanded, it gave itself guard towers two-storey high, to peer over the walls at every bend. Lately, it has set up at every hundred meters or so atop its boundary wall a set of sandbags, reminiscent of bunkers in J&K. Whereas I could explain away the wall as a natural response to the bustle around it, the guard towers appeared to be rather a pointed comment on what the garrison thought of its unruly and boisterous neighbours. However, I cannot but notice that there is more to it than mere military irritation. The guard towers acquired sentries with rifles. Some now have light machine guns. There is a bonafide bunker at the garrison's gates that can do credit to any Srinagar street. But what is a Muslim watching this garrison's transformation to make of the trench and bunker like toppings to the wall all along its length? Do the inmates of this garrison believe that they would be assaulted and that they might need to repel an assault in the midst of a city outside of J&K and India's north east? Why is the main gate so configured as to ward-off a fidayeen attack? Is the Muslim majority locality such an eyesore to this garrison? Would it hide jihadists who might wish to do a repeat of Kalu Chak?  Does it hide fifth columnists who might want to  interdict our brave soldiers setting off to a war with a Cold Start? One can imagine and excuse those holed up in the garrison to put in ear plugs and swear under their breath (or out loud as people are wont to these days) as the loud speakers in the seven mosques in the locality go off one  by one. But do they also really think that those attending those prayers can potentially scale the walls of the garrison to interdict troops on their way off to some borderland battlefield in the next war? What this suggests is that there is a considerable buy-in into the canard of susceptibility of Muslims to subversion - either by religious extremism or by our friendly neighborhood bogeyman. This has been a case long in the making. Every now and again there are news reports of some or other techie caught finding his way to Syria. The police in a southern state was exposed to be running jihadists websites so as to trap potential Muslim terrorists who stopped by too often or lingered at the webpage too long. In Bhopal, a BJP ruled state, eight under trials were  shot in cold blood. The latest news report had some jihad inclined Indian Muslims done to death by the Mother  of All Bombs in the caves of Nangarhar. (There is no talk on the environmental crime perpetrated in the use of a bomb on one of natures' wonders, no less blatant a crime than that of the Taliban knocking down the Bamiyan statues or ISIS doing away with Palmyra). The people who have bought into this either don't know or don't want to know or, worse, don't care to know, that there have been a spate of Muslims being let off by courts for want of evidence in cases of bombings attributed  to jihadists. They evince no knowledge of the exposé of the Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association of the police stories on some celebrated terrorism related cases as fabrications and figment of imagination. They are unaware of the many Muslims remain in prison with cases pending, even in cases so stark as the Malegaon case, where  extremist Hindus have been implicated for the bombings. They are perhaps happy that some courts are also letting off Hindu perpetrators for planting bombs in a 'bomb for bomb' duet with supposedly Muslim perpetrated terrorism mid-last decade. Whereas such a distorted worldview can be understood of ordinary people who are lied-to much of the time by mass media and subverted authority figures, how can institutions subscribing to this - such as our esteemed, secular and apolitical army - be explained away? Is it so apolitical as to be a political innocent or, worse, ignoramus? Retrospect makes it easy to see what has been engineered in India over the past decade and half. A careful hearing to a speech by the current day national security adviser at a nondescript locale back in 2010 -  unbelievably on Universal Brotherhood Day - provides some clues (http://vakmumbai.blogspot.com/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apEIuFEfvV0). The intelligence czar, though retired, lets on that there is a war on, with jihadists out to subjugate and convert India. (Thus, 'universal brotherhood' is baloney!) The terrorism  India was subject to all through the century's first decade made this believable. To him, (Muslim) invaders came  to India because it was 'weak' (and not because geography did not make it sensible for them to wonder off into the surrounding deserts on the three other sides). Now it needs to be 'strong' and under a 'leader' with a 'vision'. It is to his credit - and that of an ally the RSS - India has finally got there. While getting all the way to Delhi, it made political sense to lampoon Rahul Gandhi. Were he to say that the greater  threat to India is from saffronites, it would not be believed. But Mr. Gandhi got it spot on in his conversation leaked  at wikileaks. Now, if only the institutions of state provide the necessary checks and balances rather than buy-in into a strategic discourse contrived to capture and perpetuate a hold over power, India can yet be rescued.

http://indiatogether.org/the-parrikar-thesis-op-ed

The Parrikar thesis

Manohar Parrikar can be excused the exaggeration when speaking back home in his backyard in Goa. On that count and since by now he has a reputation for shooting from his mouth, we can let the macabre in his allusion to ‘gouge out eyes’ of the enemy pass. However, is his declaration that Pakistanis have thrown in the towel - a trifle premature?

The way the defence minister put it, the Pakistanis hurting from a bout of cross border and trans-Line of Control (LoC) firing, sought out our Director General Military Operations (DGMO) to call a truce.  They have reportedly kept their side of the bargain since. Perhaps Raheel Sharif wanted to retire with a blaze of gunfire in the background, lest the memory of surgical strikes plagues him in retirement. 

Nevertheless, this is all for the good, since civilian casualties were also being regularly reported on both sides. These were of levels beyond what might be reasonably clubbed as collateral damage. Pakistanis, while appearing responsive to the pleading of their border populace, are interested in turning down the heat so that their army is spared paying for what the jihadis wrought.

FOR FULL ARTICLE SEE http://indiatogether.org/the-parrikar-thesis-op-ed

The pitch is higher this time as evident from the surgical strikes, mutilations, attacks on military targets in the interior and the political rhetoric in India. Presumably for deterrence and as punishment, Parrikar threatens to give back double of what India receives. Does this help India in any way?

The terror attack in Nagrota is just another instance of a pattern of attacks over the past few years in which Pakistan has exacted a toll on our security forces. It has evidently moved away from targeting civilians in wake of the opprobrium it was subjected to post 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

The move is sensible from Pakistani point of view. Politically, it keeps the pot boiling in Kashmir, suggesting externally that all is not quite in Kashmir and internally to Kashmiris that they have not been entirely abandoned by it. Militarily, it helps tie down the Indian army in protective duties, thereby, tiring it out.

Then there is the culture of chowkidari in Indian army. The army throws manpower at every problem, ranging from warding of China (with a mountain strike corps) to grass cutting (with fatigue details). It can be expected to continue doing so as reflected in its recruiting and training systems.

FOR FULL ARTICLE SEE http://indiatogether.org/the-parrikar-thesis-op-ed

However, the potential for Kashmir to boil over at a crunch is clear from the 133 days standoff across the state this summer. While India has sufficient paramilitary adept at suppressive duties in such conditions, they would likely aggravate the situation in the circumstance of war. Pakistan can thus potentially tie down the Rashtriya Rifles too. 

The upshot is that the offensive forces India has for deploying against Pakistan cannot upset the status quo in Kashmir. As they say, ‘mountains eat troops’. Mr. Modi’s reference to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and Gilgit and Baltistan from the Red Fort ramparts is but chimerical.

Sure, India has offensive capability in the plains. While the offensive content of pivot corps can be blunted by Pakistan, India has locked up its offensive punch in strike corps, which can be unusable in the nuclear age. This has more to do with internal turf wars within the military than a war winning strategy . 

FOR FULL ARTICLE SEE http://indiatogether.org/the-parrikar-thesis-op-ed

The logical next steps from surgical strikes and demonetization is war. Pratap Bhanu Mehta calls this a permanent revolution. India can blame Pakistan for making it go nuclear. Even so, India has not come up with an answer to break out of  the Pakistani sandwich of its conventional forces with irregular  war on one hand and nuclear war on the other. 

Consequently, if probed, Parrikar would be hard put to explain his thesis that India can put Pakistan’s ‘gouged out eyes’ back in its hand.  Gouging out eyes can certainly be done. India has the kilo tonnage for that, but putting the eyes back in Pakistan’s hand would be a tall order. For in the bargain India would also be blind.

The Bhopal episode and the return of the hostage theory

The Milli Gazette Online

Published Online: Nov 19, 2016

http://www.milligazette.com/news/15086-the-bhopal-episode-and-the-return-of-the-hostage-theory

The killings of eight undertrial prisoners after an alleged breakout of a high security prison in Bhopal are a message. This message is internally and externally directed. In its external orientation, it is a message by the security establishment to Pakistan that Indian Muslims are hostage to Pakistani good behavior. In its internal orientation it is a reminder to India’s Muslims that they are at the mercy of the majority and had on that count better stick to the right-wing sanctioned view of the straight and narrow.

This is not the first time in which undertrial prisoners have been gunned down. In fact, there is a well-known culture of police impunity stretching back decades. This goes by the term ‘encounters’. All manner of challenges to the state and criminality have been met with such staged killings, be it in counter-insurgency situations as Kashmir, North East and Maoist areas, but also in law and order situations in which noted criminals are bumped off.

Such killings have included Muslims among victims, such as the case last year in which five undertrial Muslim prisoners in Nalgonda were gunned down in cold blood by their escort party of Telangana police under the implausible excuse that they were attempting to make good their escape. That Muslims are not the sole victims is clear from the incident the same week when 20 alleged red-sanders smugglers were killed by the Andhra police.

From this it might appear that the opening paragraph above is somewhat overblown, resulting perhaps from an emotional reaction to the incident in Bhopal. However, such an observation would be plausible if this article was written in the immediate wake of the incident when the video and audio footage from the scene went viral on the internet. A few weeks on the observation in the first paragraph, that was then at best a suspicion, has congealed somewhat and is worth examining for what it is worth.

In the light of the messaging seemingly immanent in the killings, the hostage theory needs a reprise. The hostage theory was propounded by Jinnah when he became an adherent to the two-nation theory. He was against the vivisection of the two Muslim majority provinces, Punjab and Bengal. He therefore felt that retaining the minorities in the Muslim and Hindu majority parts of India would ensure that the majorities ruling on the other side would mete out fair treatment to respective minorities.

In the event, the minorities voted for Partition with their feet, vacating their traditional homelands in wake of Partition in a wave of violence on both sides. The Nehru-Liaquat pact after the crisis in 1950 stabilised the situation resulting from Partition. Over time, the numbers of non-Muslims in the two Muslim majority states that emerged out of British India became fewer and fewer, mostly due to a perceived insecurity in these states.

In India, the situation was more habitable and Muslims not only chose to stay but have relatively been more secure than their Hindu counterparts in either Pakistan or Bangladesh. However, over the last quarter century, coinciding with the rise of the right-wing in Indian politics, the question of security of India’s Muslims has come to fore. The Gujarat carnage has been the nadir. With the country electing the then chief minister of Gujarat as its prime minister, it is a question that can only continue to linger.

In the official Indian narrative, India has attempted to reach out to Pakistan. The invite to Nawaz Sharif to Mr. Modi’s swearing in ceremony and Mr. Modi’s susrprise visit to Pakistan are taken as evidence. However, since the military calls the shots in Pakistan, India has not been able to make a dent on Pakistan’s policy of proxy war in Kashmir and support to terrorism in the rest of India. This has led to firmer action on India’s part lately, best exemplified by Ram Madhav’s call for a shift from strategic restraint to strategic proactivism. The results are already visible along the Line of Control with the army engaging in surgical strikes and almost daily fire assaults and the paramilitary force, the BSF, also joining in with fire exchanges along the IB in J&K.

If the matter had rested at this, it would have been but a return to the situation as existed in the nineties and restricted to J&K. However, there is the wider Muslim agenda of the right-wing that needs unfolding.  BJP has gone a step further in proposing amendments to the citizenship bill which will enable non-Muslim minorities in the neighbouring countries to gain Indian citizenship. This measure, among others, heralds the creation of a Hindu state in the image envisioned in the Hindutva philosophy adhered to by the ruling party. For the Muslims living in India, the prime minister, recalling the injunction of his ideological mentor Deen Dayal Upadhyay in a speech in Kozhikode this past September, proposed ‘purification’.

It is clear that in the right-wing world view it is at the interstices of India’s external and internal security planes that Indian Muslims are located. The external factor is their association with the two nation theory and with Pakistan. This explains the oft-used term, ‘Go to Pakistan’. The internal is that Muslims are to lead lives as dictated by the right wing. In the words of one of its leading lights, Golwalkar, Muslims constitute an internal security threat, who, in his words, ‘may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, for less any preferential treatment, not even the citizen's rights.’

This is the context of the Bhopal incident. The killings have come in the backdrop of a worsening regional security situation, with Pakistan’s terror attack in Uri having been responded to by Indian surgical strikes. The killings were on Diwali, when there is a heightened expectation within the intelligence agencies of terror incidents. The killings can thus be interpreted as a warning to Pakistan not to indulge in any terror action in India. Internally, they serve to warn off Indian Muslims who the intelligence community perhaps believes are susceptible to Pakistani overtures for creating trouble in India. In effect, Indian Muslims are to be held hostage to Pakistani good behavior.

This interpretation of the Bhopal encounter killings suggests that the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon. In the near term the ruling party requires the polarization since it is faced with polls. Its latest demonetization misstep indicates that it would be paying a price in the UP elections. Therefore, the status quo on the Indian Muslim security question is likely to persist till the national elections. The unfortunate and inescapable conclusion is that Muslim insecurity can only be alleviated once the nation, in particular our Hindu brethren, show the ruling party the door at the next democratic opportunity. 

After left-liberals, Muslim are next

The Milli Gazette Online

Published Online: Feb 23, 2016

http://www.milligazette.com/news/13822-after-left-liberals-muslim-are-next

The ongoing fight for India’s educational spaces is easy to explain. Placing the left-liberals on the back-foot is essential for the RSS combine and the ruling party. For the RSS combine it is to wrest the intellectual space and for the ruling party to silence embarrassing questions and observations on its governance. For both, subduing this constituency is a necessary step in the shaping of the battlefield for the application of Hindutva to changing India yet to come.

For readers of this journal, who shall be subject of the ‘yet to come’ Hindutva measures, the pertinent aspect of prime time news today is the wearing down of their first line of defence. India’s Muslims are safe in India owing to liberal Hindus. Their standing up to the right wing extremists is a trench line behind which India’s Muslims breath easily. Reckoning as much, the Hindutva brigade is out to wrest them from their holdouts.

Obviously, India’s Muslims cannot be bystanders, for it is their own fortifications that are being whittled. They will surely be the next targets, once the conscience of the nation in the form of left-liberal opinion has been deterred into silence. This is not to say that Indian Muslims are already not facing the brunt. The various campaigns of beef ban, love jihad and ghar wapsi are testimony. The fact is that these and plenty of Hindutva to come yet will be further emboldened.

The left-liberals through their fight back on campuses across the country, return of awards and constant red flagging of Hindutva initiatives were punching above their weight. Not only was this hurting Mr. Modi’s aura, projected abroad, but also the electoral prospects of his party within. It is not as if Rahul Gandhi’s following of his political instincts by turning up at campuses likely scares the regime. However, with both the economy and polity being more demanding than a talent-challenged cabinet could deliver on, there was a need to stifle the constant sniping by left-liberals from the educational spaces and the media.

The well-worn principle of the intelligence game - impose on one to frighten the rest - is in play. Teesta Setalvad, Arundhati Roy and now Kanhaiya Kumar are examples. It is not for the first time Mr. Modi busies himself inaugurating the likes of Make in India and Rurban initiatives even as he maintains his telling silence. To believe that there are two scripts at play in face of such consistency would be naïve.

Clearly, making sense of the happenings is easier than thinking through what to do about them. The events in Patiala House courts bring home the predicament of the Muslim youth accused of terrorism elsewhere in provincial and lower courts where there is little reach of the national media and where media is present it is of the Hindutva persuasion. There are dozens of Vikram Singh Chouhan equivalents with their ties, as those of Chouhan, extending up the political food chain of the far right. There also are OP Sharma-like legislators, waiting to exult in impunity. India is now replicating Modi’s Gujarat.

Only awaited are national level Maya Kodnani look-alikes and these would not be long in coming once the UP election comes into view. The tactics are already bare. The attempted sullying of Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar with a terrorist and Pakistani connection makes this clear. The allegation of ABVP serving as agent provocateurs in their ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ chants shows how easily a case can be manufactured for a crackdown.

There is no cause for alarm that the left-liberals will go under easily. Currently, they are on a roll in a counter attack that is seeing their ranks swell from Delhi to Jadhavpur. If the levels of fight back sustain and translate into electoral roll back of the BJP, begun in Delhi and impelled further in Bihar, into the forthcoming elections in east India, it would decisively push back the enemy at the gates. However, till then, which means till year end, there is reason for being alert.

Both the academia and media are now divided. The push back from the right wing cannot be too long in coming. The newly appointed VCs in both Hyderabad University and JNU have right wing backing. To counter the Sardesai-Dutt-Varadarajan camp, there is the one-man-army, Arnab Goswami. The manner the Delhi police over-reacted indicates the levels to which officialdom is ready to stoop. The liberal intelligentsia is only a fraction in terms of numbers and shrillness of devotees of Messiah Modi. The latter want the Gujarat model, warts and all. The Left parties are in hibernation and the Congress searching for a leading light. This brief survey of relative strength suggests that even in case the left-liberals win this round, they would stand exhausted for the multiple fights on several fronts yet to come.

What is the state of play on the Indian Muslims front? They stand divided. The Barelvis are being propped up in state-funded gatherings to rile against those perceived as Wahabis. A Modi acolyte is Chancellor of a university. The two great universities, AMU and JMI, have been outflanked by the Center’s changed stance on their minority status. Muslim electorates are being enticed by communitarian parties such as the MIM, which for its relative gains appears willing to overlook absolute gains by the right wing party at the cost of regional and national parties. While the Vice President has on occasions voiced his concerns discreetly and courageously, there is little efficacious word from the Muslim political spectrum on the latest controversy.

Finally, there is the pull of the strategy argument that staying out will keep the right wing from maligning the liberal-left spectrum as Muslim ‘appeasers’. Staying out would keep the right wing from playing the religion card. This is a battle for the soul of Hinduism as a tolerant religion much as it is of India. Therefore, the Hindus need to expose and marginalize their home-grown extremists and wrest Hinduism back to safety.

In summation, it can be said that yet another episode in the expansion of right wing’s control of India is ongoing. This time round the stakes are rather high since silencing the left-liberals would be to mute a critique itself. This for India’s Muslims could prove an existential loss, since they serve as our shield. It stands to reason then that a view needs to be taken of our involvement, levels of this and proceeding expeditiously with its rolling out.

Ram Madhav's Akhand Bharat and Modi’s Pakistan policy

http://www.milligazette.com/news/13543-ram-madhavs-akhand-bharat-and-modis-pakistan-policy



In his appearance at Al Jazeera’s Head to Head programme with Mehdi Hasan, Ram Madhav has let on that the RSS agenda is Akhand Bharat. By way of explanation, he had it that this would be a cultural or civilisational reunion, a willing one and not one by force or conquest.

While on the surface there is little to take umbrage in such an aspiration of regional integration, the devil as they say is in the details.

Indeed, this analyst had made a case for a regional union in an earlier piece in this publication, arguing that this would be beneficial not only for the larger good, but also for Muslim security. Security in numbers would be feasible with the addition of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims sharing a regional affinity and affiliation with India’s Muslims; and therefore restoring the original balance between the communities in the subcontinent. Hindus for their part would be preserved from a takeover by the ideology of Hindutva, that, according to Madhav posits, ‘one culture, one people, one nation’, putting paid to the time-honoured notion of ‘unity in diversity’.

Since the RSS is the power behind the ruling party in the government today, it can be understood that the government would be doing its bidding on this front too. Such action need not be up front and may be sequenced behind other priorities such as ushering in ‘acche din’, but cannot be overlooked as a potential lodestar for the government.

The RSS is already clearly at it in what is called its ‘Semitisation’ of Hinduism. The emphasis on the Bhagwad Gita; the return of Brahmanical rituals which even foreign visiting heads of state are now subjected to on the banks of the Ganga; turning up of bricks at Ayodhya to provide Hinduism its very own Mecca; return to the ‘give us three mosques’ formula through their Rasputin, Subramaniam Swamy, etc. are examples.

Ram Madhav takes this a step further in his sometimes comical performance at the Oxford Union.

With an India centralized along Hindutva lines, the next step would be gaining control of the subcontinent. To Madhav, it would be a return to 1200 years ago. He referred to the manner the Balochis and Sindhis allegedly view Pakistan. It appears he believes they are ripe for insurrection, leading to a break up of Pakistan. This would then perhaps yield up the Akhand Bharat of his dreams. Presumably, the Hindus united under a saffron flag and Muslims ethnically at each other’s throats, would enable Akhand Bharat.

It is apparent that there are differing versions of Akhand Bharat. One is institutional along the lines of the European Union in which the sovereign states get together voluntarily to increase their collective prosperity and security through agreed upon rules, laws, procedures and institutions. There is little to argue in this, with SAARC serving as a proto South Asian Union for the future. The second version is that of the RSS as articulated by Ram Madhav, in which accession to an Indian (read Hindu) dominated region state is brought about by the dismemberment (for a second time round following the first one in 1971) of Pakistan.

Given that the ruling party in the government may be sharing the RSS view, if covertly, it bears discerning if this is so and to what extent. There is little doubt that the SAARC is currently the least effective regional organisation in the world and South Asia is the least integrated region. The India-Pakistan rivalry is at the root of this, and much of the blame can easily be laid at Pakistan’s door. For instance, it denies India MFN status; prevents its access by land to Afghanistan; and is the fount of terrorism in the region. India for its part is the core of South Asia and not wanting to be ‘big brother’ allows for a leisured pace in regional integration, lest any haste on its part is misinterpreted by its smaller neighbours who may then renege or bandwagon with China. Nevertheless, India is staying the course, best evidenced by the possibility of Mr. Modi heading for Islamabad come September for the SAARC summit, given life by his flying visit to Lahore for Nawaz Sharif last Christmas. That is indeed the way to go in so far as a measured way to a regional identity goes.

However, in case this is complicated by Hindutva’s ideological shadow over India’s motives, reaching further would be unlikely.

To what extent is there an ideological shadow over India’s Pakistan policy? From the contretemps surrounding the Pathankot terror attack early this month, it is not entirely certain that the latest twist in India’s Pakistan policy is uncontaminated by ideology. While well wishers of peace would like to believe that Mr. Modi’s initiative is in the tradition of Vajpayee’s politically bold reaching out, the initiative must nevertheless be subject to hard-headed analysis as to motives, next steps and potential outcomes.

Mr. Modi has gone overboard in courting Mr. Sharif. In doing so he is opening up a schism between ‘official’ Pakistan and its ‘deep state’. Whereas in this round of détente between India and Pakistan, there are all indications that the Pakistani army is on board, the pace of this and seizure of initiative by Mr. Modi on this would lend it pause. In India’s establishment version of the Pathankot terror episode, the deep state has struck back. Using the opportunity, India at the time of writing has indicated that it would not proceed with the foreign secretary talks until Pakistan cracks down on the Jaish-e Mohammad, which India says is behind the attack. This tough line enables India to open up yet another schiIn his appearance at Al Jazeera’s Head to Head programme with Mehdi Hasan, Ram Madhav has let on that the RSS agenda is Akhand Bharat. By way of explanation, he had it that this would be a cultural or civilisational reunion, a willing one and not one by force or conquest.

While on the surface there is little to take umbrage in such an aspiration of regional integration, the devil as they say is in the details.

Indeed, this analyst had made a case for a regional union in an earlier piece in this publication, arguing that this would be beneficial not only for the larger good, but also for Muslim security. Security in numbers would be feasible with the addition of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims sharing a regional affinity and affiliation with India’s Muslims; and therefore restoring the original balance between the communities in the subcontinent. Hindus for their part would be preserved from a takeover by the ideology of Hindutva, that, according to Madhav posits, ‘one culture, one people, one nation’, putting paid to the time-honoured notion of ‘unity in diversity’.

Since the RSS is the power behind the ruling party in the government today, it can be understood that the government would be doing its bidding on this front too. Such action need not be up front and may be sequenced behind other priorities such as ushering in ‘acche din’, but cannot be overlooked as a potential lodestar for the government.

The RSS is already clearly at it in what is called its ‘Semitisation’ of Hinduism. The emphasis on the Bhagwad Gita; the return of Brahmanical rituals which even foreign visiting heads of state are now subjected to on the banks of the Ganga; turning up of bricks at Ayodhya to provide Hinduism its very own Mecca; return to the ‘give us three mosques’ formula through their Rasputin, Subrahmanyam Swamy, etc. are examples.

Ram Madhav takes this a step further in his sometimes comical performance at the Oxford Union.

With an India centralized along Hindutva lines, the next step would be gaining control of the subcontinent. To Madhav, it would be a return to 1200 years ago. He referred to the manner the Balochis and Sindhis allegedly view Pakistan. It appears he believes they are ripe for insurrection, leading to a break up of Pakistan. This would then perhaps yield up the Akhand Bharat of his dreams. Presumably, the Hindus united under a saffron flag and Muslims ethnically at each other’s throats, would enable Akhand Bharat.

It is apparent that there are differing versions of Akhand Bharat. One is institutional along the lines of the European Union in which the sovereign states get together voluntarily to increase their collective prosperity and security through agreed upon rules, laws, procedures and institutions. There is little to argue in this, with SAARC serving as a proto South Asian Union for the future. The second version is that of the RSS as articulated by Ram Madhav, in which accession to an Indian (read Hindu) dominated region state is brought about by the dismemberment (for a second time round following the first one in 1971) of Pakistan.

Given that the ruling party in the government may be sharing the RSS view, if covertly, it bears discerning if this is so and to what extent. There is little doubt that the SAARC is currently the least effective regional organisation in the world and South Asia is the least integrated region. The India-Pakistan rivalry is at the root of this, and much of the blame can easily be laid at Pakistan’s door. For instance, it denies India MFN status; prevents its access by land to Afghanistan; and is the fount of terrorism in the region. India for its part is the core of South Asia and not wanting to be ‘big brother’ allows for a leisured pace in regional integration, lest any haste on its part is misinterpreted by its smaller neighbours who may then renege or bandwagon with China. Nevertheless, India is staying the course, best evidenced by the possibility of Mr. Modi heading for Islamabad come September for the SAARC summit, given life by his flying visit to Lahore for Nawaz Sharif last Christmas. That is indeed the way to go in so far as a measured way to a regional identity goes.

However, in case this is complicated by Hindutva’s ideological shadow over India’s motives, reaching further would be unlikely.

To what extent is there an ideological shadow over India’s Pakistan policy? From the contretemps surrounding the Pathankot terror attack early this month, it is not entirely certain that the latest twist in India’s Pakistan policy is uncontaminated by ideology. While well wishers of peace would like to believe that Mr. Modi’s initiative is in the tradition of Vajpayee’s politically bold reaching out, the initiative must nevertheless be subject to hard-headed analysis as to motives, next steps and potential outcomes.

Mr. Modi has gone overboard in courting Mr. Sharif. In doing so he is opening up a schism between ‘official’ Pakistan and its ‘deep state’. Whereas in this round of détente between India and Pakistan, there are all indications that the Pakistani army is on board, the pace of this and seizure of initiative by Mr. Modi on this would lend it pause. In India’s establishment version of the Pathankot terror episode, the deep state has struck back. Using the opportunity, India at the time of writing has indicated that it would not proceed with the foreign secretary talks until Pakistan cracks down on the Jaish-e Mohammad, which India says is behind the attack. This tough line enables India to open up yet another schism in Pakistan, between its ‘deep state’ and ‘rogue’ elements out to wreck the emerging bonhomie with India. India in one fell swoop has created two schisms between three actors.

If Pakistani hardliners are to be believed, India is behind some of the disaffection in Baluchistan and even behind some of the terrorism Pakistan has been subject to. One Pakistani analyst outshouted even Arnab Goswami to claim that the handlers of the terrorists who attacked the school in Peshawar spoke in Hindi.

In so far as all this is ‘normal’ intelligence work and is to pay back Pakistan in its own coin, it is unexceptionable. However, in so far as India’s intelligence activity is outside of checks and balances of democratic governance, such as parliamentary and executive scrutiny, then there is a problem on hand. The generation of instability in Pakistan can then be seen as the initial part of the Ram Madhav’s way to Akhand Bharat. Indeed, India’s proximity with Israel, set to grow with Mr. Modi’s impending visit there close on the heels of the President’s last year, indicates that India is borrowing from Israel’s strategy copybook of keeping its periphery in turmoil for its own security. While Israel is using the Israeli lobby in the US to make US continue generating instability across the Middle East, India is relying on its own resources. A Pakistan down the tube is in this perspective taken as in India’s interest since it would leave India without a regional irritant, if not a strategic competitor, to deal with.

This implies both Ayodhya and Lahore are interlinked. Hindutva renders India’s domestic politics and foreign policy seamless. Even as India is transformed by Hindutva in its own image, South Asia is made ripe for a takeover by such an India. Neither of the two possibilities – increasingly distinct by the day – is heartening. Though Ram Madhav has raised a spectre, he needs being thanked for prematurely letting the cat out of bag.sm in Pakistan, between its ‘deep state’ and ‘rogue’ elements out to wreck the emerging bonhomie with India. India in one fell swoop has created two schisms between three actors.

If Pakistani hardliners are to be believed, India is behind some of the disaffection in Baluchistan and even behind some of the terrorism Pakistan has been subject to. One Pakistani analyst outshouted even Arnab Goswami to claim that the handlers of the terrorists who attacked the school in Peshawar spoke in Hindi.

In so far as all this is ‘normal’ intelligence work and is to pay back Pakistan in its own coin, it is unexceptionable. However, in so far as India’s intelligence activity is outside of checks and balances of democratic governance, such as parliamentary and executive scrutiny, then there is a problem on hand. The generation of instability in Pakistan can then be seen as the initial part of the Ram Madhav’s way to Akhand Bharat. Indeed, India’s proximity with Israel, set to grow with Mr. Modi’s impending visit there close on the heels of the President’s last year, indicates that India is borrowing from Israel’s strategy copybook of keeping its periphery in turmoil for its own security. While Israel is using the Israeli lobby in the US to make US continue generating instability across the Middle East, India is relying on its own resources. A Pakistan down the tube is in this perspective taken as in India’s interest since it would leave India without a regional irritant, if not a strategic competitor, to deal with.

This implies both Ayodhya and Lahore are interlinked. Hindutva renders India’s domestic politics and foreign policy seamless. Even as India is transformed by Hindutva in its own image, South Asia is made ripe for a takeover by such an India. Neither of the two possibilities – increasingly distinct by the day – is heartening. Though Ram Madhav has raised a spectre, he needs being thanked for prematurely letting the cat out of bag.