Whether India Should Attack Terrorism

The deliberation on the war option should not be viewed as our weakness to attack. One thing needs to be figured out that the war with nukes is not the same as fighting with bullets. No doubt we will fight and give a befitting reply to the enemy if a war is thrust upon us, but the enemy is not raging a war; rather it is clandestinely supporting terrorist activities carried out by nefarious people in our own homeland.

We further need to understand that Pakistan is facing a civil war. Its economy is on the verge of collapse and is only supported by the benevolence of the US. The terrorists and extremists from Afghanistan and Pakistan are uniting and fighting to take control of the beleaguered nation. If India takes an isolated and unilateral action then situation can go out of control and jehadis could take rein of Pakistan and if that happens it could jeopardise the peace and security not only of Indian Peninsular region but of the entire world.

Before pulling ourselves into a war we should consider the pros and cons of such an action and also learn lessons from the American misde-manours in Iraq which has had the entire Muslim population rallied against America in addition to incurring billions of dollars in war money and loss of many of its men. We need to ask ourselves : do we have the financial, political and social resources to fund a war ?

We need to acknowledge that India is not America, we are a country of close to a hundred billion people plagued with poverty, illiteracy, inef­ficient leadership, rusted bureaucracy and separatist factional religious politics. We are a country in which a significant portion of population still lives below the poverty line, where many children still do not get even basic education, where women’s representation in mainstream politics, business and education is low and female foeticideis on the rise. We are a country in which every action is viewed through communal lens. We are still a developing nation and with our past experiences of three wars with Pakistan and one with China we very well understand that getting into a war is not as simple as asking the forces to attack. The after-effects of war are felt even long after the war ends in the form of over-burdened economy, devasted homes, orphaned children and widowed women.

Before we get manipulated into war hysteria by our very own leaders who have failed yet again to protect us we need to ask ourselves why it is so easy for any armed religious extremist to come into our country, kill hundreds of people, cause mayhem and attack the very idea of India.