Jiwan Kshetry, Kathmandu
As every other nation state, India too is preoccupied with its national security issue and trying hard to arm itself in face of persisting challenges. Is that attempt paying off? Few recent developments paint a grim picture of how India's defense is faring.
Birth of India and Pakistan
took place through a violent paradox. People there fought a protracted struggle
to see away the British. But even as the British were departing, the communal
strife had reached such an extent that a violent partition claiming hundreds of
thousands of lives was thought to be an option less evil than the potential
full-fledged civil war.
Ever since, both the
states have undergone through many spells in history when paradox of one kind
or the other has dominated the national life. While the economic misery of
majority of the people under the British rule was the major factor behind the
widespread resentment against them, little was effectively done to alleviate
the suffering of people on either side of border while the political issues
always occupied a center stage.
For Pakistan, as the
Generals eventually found it convenient to interfere in the day-to-day politics
with the excuse of 'inept and corrupt' politicians, a to-and-fro movement
between civilian and military rule became the norm. And particularly ruthless
version of military rule was applied during the tenure of Zia Ul Haq because
the geopolitical factors surrounding the Afghan-Soviet imbroglio fitted neatly
into the Zia's paradigm of using religious fundamentalism to legitimize an
otherwise illegitimate and brutal military rule.
When the ghosts of the
Taliban, so tenderly nurtured by CIA-ISI for anti-Soviet crusade, came to haunt
Pakistan after Musharraf chose to side with the Americans post 9/11, an era of
another paradox set in Pakistan: a country living with large number of poor and
illiterate people with economy never in good shape, yet fighting a war with a
power that was hard to define.
Over the past decade,
Pakistan is dogged in a kind of conflict that has escalated many times and eventually
receded but never subsided. As the elites in politics and the army have ruled
the country in rotation, their preoccupation has been either their own
precarious situation, an intensifying conflict with the arch rival India or the
sweeping rebels either assassinating a political figure or establishing Sharia
law in certain areas.
While India is now in a
historical position far different from that of Pakistan and the journey of
independent India to this point contrasts with that of Pakistan in many fronts,
the two South Asian powers share some important historic realities. First, the
infamous period of Emergency (1975-1977) was the expression of cumulative
failure of the electoral politics to solve the outstanding problems of the
time; a phenomenon seen recurrently in Pakistan.
Most importantly, the issue
of national security has dominated the public discourse on both sides of the
border so much that the anti-Pakistan sentiment in India and vice varsa in
Pakistan have recurrently reached boiling point. Not only the three major wars
between the two rivals fought mainly over the contentious border issues, but
also the larger geo-political alignments of the two states have reflected the
persisting rivalry.
