A_Gupta wrote:KLNMurthy wrote:WRT TSP and retaliation, concrete goals are needed for concrete actions, true. But the sleight-of-hand here (as well as in India at large) is that we take the ready unavailability of beyond-debate concrete goals (a physical impossibility in any case) and magically turn that into an outright repudiation of taking on a hostile attitude towards our asuric enemy and instead adopting an appeasing attitude which is, in fact, a product of cowardice. The giveaway here is that our energy goes to debating away concrete goals and not at all for positively developing such goals, starting with a sense of moral responsibility to assert our national soul by destroying our enemy--who is not just our "rival" as westerners write and many of us believe, but is in fact our moral antithesis.
No, what we have had too much of on BRF is crybaby strategy, punching the "coward" rhetorical device, which escapes the necessity of showing how being "uncowardly" produces anything useful for India. Along with that comes paranoia, where India is the victim of forces and conspiracies hidden in plain sight (in other words, BRF is too much like a typical Pakistani TV news show).
I for one am not asking for beyond-debate concrete goals. Any goal will come with risks, and part of the analysis will be understanding the risks. But we don't have any goals described here, except a few honorable mentions. With no goals, only vague purposes like "punish Pakistan" there is no way to evaluate whether the desired outcome is in India's interests; what actions are needed to achieve the outcome; what means/resources will be needed; what is the cost; what are the risks; what is the worst-case scenario one should think about; what alignment of external forces will be needed - zilch.
If Pakistan is our moral antithesis and needs to be destroyed, then the average kind of writing on BRF is a major moral failure. It cannot be excused away as time-pass and "chill, this is just people venting". At least let people contribute to the other mission, which is to serve as a aggregator/summarizer of information about Pakistan.
If it wasn't serious, then the hobbyist approach to Pakistan, and the BENIS thread is all we need.
India cannot rely on a messiah-like PM to arise and do the right thing. There has to be a strategic culture and its habits of thinking among some of the public. And "Yatha Raja tatha Praja" dates from before the printing press and all the means of mass communications. Now it is that we get the leadership that we are willing to pay - in campaign contributions, in effort, in education, in public awareness.
At a minimum it will put an end to Shiv's annoying-but-necessary-since-no-one-seems-to-get-it posts, that correctly object to the "India cowardly, US brave" meme that infects this place. It doesn't matter if the average American is Superman and Hanuman rolled into one. The only relevant question on BRF is whether the US is working towards outcomes that suit Indian interests or against them.
Well. What we have here is a failure to communicate, as the saying goes.
Sometimes it is useful to remind ourselves that we are in a "blind men and the elephant" kind of situation. It is extremely hard for the blind men to listen to each other and consider it in a positive light, taking time out from proving one's own correctness (which is also important and valuable), and find a consensus. Even then, the consensus will be some weird beast, not an actual elephant.
It could be a challenge to even agree on terms and their meanings. Words like "goal" (implicitly good), "cowardly" (implicitly bad) might connote different things and hold different values to different people. Shiv has ably pointed out that "cowardly" isn't necessarily a bad thing at all times. Let me point out that "goal" is nothing sacred either. In fact, I contend that at the present juncture, focussing on "achievable, valuable, goals" wrt TSP is doing us actual harm. I used the term "sleight-of-hand" previously. Let me spell this out a bit:
The way I see the AVG (achievable, valuable, goals) logic going is this:
* We should think of some action--military, diplomatic, trade etc.--that we can carry out against TSP that will either
(a) force TSP to do something useful for us; e.g., hand over Dawood Ibrahim, torture-and-kill Kiyani, disband ISI, give up POK etc., OR
(b) does nothing to influence TSP behavior but mainly sends a message to the world in general and to our self-image that we cannot be messed with, without attracting consequences. e.g., targeted assassination of Dawood, bombing terrorist camps, cold start, doing something with indus waters, etc.
* Whether it is action of type (a) or type (b), we should clearly define a concrete goal, calculate its potential risk or costs, and consider our capabilities etc. in a rational way, and then come to a decision as to what to do, if anything.
* Very quickly, the calculation leads up the escalation ladder to either
(i) TSP attacking us with nukes, or in an alternative chain,
(ii) US putting a crimp in our development goals--denying tech, issuing "travel advisory" during Parakram, increasing our cost and risk by aiding TSP etc.
(i) and even (ii) are,
very sensibly, determined to be unacceptable risks and costs at the present juncture.
* We therefore conclude that we can't really do anything meaningful right now that we are comfortable with. We withdrew from Parakram, we didn't hit TSP after 26/11. Jingos shout that it is cowardly etc., but (the reasoning goes) that is childish thinking (it is even more childish if we whine that US would have been more macho about it); we are actually merely being prudent and sensible.
* So far, so good; most reasonable people can probably accept the broad outlines of this line of logic.
* Now comes the sleight-of-hand, leap of logic, whatever:
Since we can't do anything meaningful wrt TSP right now, might as well be friends with them. This is a major qualitative leap in the thinking, which constructs, out of whole cloth, the delusion that there is no fundamental incompatibility between the survival and prosperity of TSP--as presently conceived and constituted--and that of India. In specific terms, this fiction, which is ultimately untenable, precludes a whole range of options.
- keeping diplomatic and trade relations to the barest minimum.
- stolidly, repeatedly, and loudly demanding that TSP do the following:
1. hand over Dawood et al's head on a platter.
2. Hand over heads of the torturers of Kalia & his men on a platter.
3. Behead Kayani in the middle of Hira Mandi
4. Stop teaching hatred of India and Hindus in their schools
5. Remove separate electorates from their constitution, as well as the requirement that the head of govt be a muslim.
6. Declare officially that Jinnah was a genocidal criminal against humanity and use his mazar as a toilet.
7. Declare March 25 every year as a day of Atonement, when each female citizen of TSP will personally slap a soldier of TSPA, like Rakhi Purnima but different.
8. And oh yes, please vacate POK ASAP.
Of course, our goal-oriented sages will cleverly jump on this list and point out that TSP will do none of these things, but that only matters if you care about achievable goals in this context. I don't. Rather, my goal at this time is to simply confine my communication with TSP to these and similar words. I just want to keep saying these words, and for the time being, not that much more to TSP and the world. (I will also inflict opportunistic pinpricks on TSP, while repeating these demands). TSP and the world will make fun of us, call us SDRE, smelly Hindu banias, purveyors of "literature", even try to cajole us by saying, "but why don't you want to talk, we are brothers only." Or maybe just mock us, remind us of their nukes. Or maybe continue or increase terrorism. I wouldn't be moved by any of this; just stolidly keep repeating these demands and telling them I will discuss nothing but these demands.
What is the actual harm to us, then? It is in the wholesale adoption and internalization of the delusion that our nature and destiny are not incompatible with that of TSP. We must accept the incompatibility, and do what we can at this time about it. What I have listed above is just words--which are as powerful or as powerless as words can be. When we put away our natural enmity with TSP (the existence of which enmity I have reluctantly accepted after decades of resisting the concept), we lose our essence as a people, and we won't prosper in any meaningful or sustainable sense of the term. That is the harm I see.
P.S. There is a school of thought that holds that we are just biding our time with TSP--Bhima eating while Bakasura is hitting. I like that, but I worry that Bhima is forgetting that Bakasura is to be killed--or to shift the scene a bit, in the ultimate battle with Duryodhana, Bhima needs Krishna tapping his thigh to remind him that he is not there to enjoy a fair fight, fought in respectful rivalry, but to fulfill his destiny by destroying the moral antithesis of the Pandavas.
