By Shazia Cheema
Regional peace-lovers express their grave concerns that South Asia that is hanging between Nuclear War and promising Peace is tilting towards possible limited wars either between India and Pakistan or between India and China.
The disputed valley of Kashmir has been in the spotlight trigging possibilities of war in the last two years but sanity prevails in Beijing and Islamabad hence South Asia avoided adventurism.
The situation in India indicates that the radicalization is driving the Indian media and politics led by the BJP government is too hawkish and aggressive to bargain any peace initiative.
There is no doubt that New Delhi for the last six years has been trying to lock Pakistan into some kind of warfare engagement to gain political ends. Moreover, the year 2019 reported the Indian adventurism at Nepal-India borders and China-India borders. However, facing the incompetency to handle decent diplomacy, the BJP-led government decided to wage war within India over its own population to satisfy its greed for power. There were Delhi Riots, a quest to crushed matured, impartial, and seasoned Indian media, Jamia Islamia situation and now Kisan Morcha placed India at international headlines and satisfied war-mongering of BJP for the time being.
Regional observers believe that there must be a war—-at neighbouring borders or within India for the Modi government to survive politically.
The war, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed on his own population, indicates that difference of religious thoughts is not a reason for waging war so hatred against Pakistan using the religious cards is not as useful as it was in the past. It is not only the Indian Occupied Kashmir or Assam, Tripura or Nagaland but it is now Punjab, Haryana, Uttrakhand other Uterpardaish States that have become areas under Modi’s “surgical strikes”.
Whatever the Modi’s corporate government is doing in India indicates that power hunger has nothing to do with religion and boundaries. The power hunger is a psychological state of subjugating people irrespective of who are they? So hate for Pakistan in BJP minds is not due to the religious background because Pakistan is a Muslim State and India is a Secular State having the biggest population of Hindus. Now the majority of the Indian population may understand that hate is nurtured because sowing hate brings more opportunities to divide the people and more division of the people brings more opportunities of ruling them and subjugating them.
Whatever went wrong in Delhi Riots against Muslims, was that because BJP hates Islam? Whatever actions are being taken against Punjabi farmers, is that because BJP hates Sikhs? Whatever was done against Bangalis in Assam, was that because BJP hates Bangalis? The barbaric brutal laws are being used against the population in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura, is that because BJP hates low-caste people of Northeast India? No, in fact I believe war-like aggression against any country, group of people, religion, caste, or creed does not need any justification rather it is a self-assumed decision and state of mind that can make anyone a victim without any reason.
Anger, belligerence, vehemence, and violence are different kinds of aggressions and the people who are psychologically weak prefer to opt for this behavior to show their presence when they live with more mature, reasonable, confident, and skillful people. They also feel inferiority and this Inferiority Complex brings Superiority Complex as a Defence Mechanism.
The German novelist and short story writer Paul Thomas Mann who won the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature says:
“War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace”. Bringing peace or bargaining peace need a specific level of intelligence and valor rather war is just an announcement and decision —–simple and abrupt. Hawkish mindsets usually overlook that the strongest of all warriors are two — “Time and Patience” and it looks that BJP leadership lacks both.
Why War hasn’t yet started in South Asia?
One of my friends who is a serving senior diplomat believes that war has been knocking at the door of South Asia since the BJP government came into power in New Delhi but it is still being avoided by the leaderships of China and Pakistan because both are dodging agenda loaded adventurism of the Modi government. I may not agree with my friend but there is no doubt that messages of rationality and sanity are still coming from the Indian neighbours and normalcy can be achieved if India has a desire to live peacefully and let its neighbours live without the danger of possible horrific nuclear war.
Let me give you a recent example. The Chief of Pakistan Army General Qamar Javed Bajwa recently again offered India to resolve the longstanding issue of Jammu and Kashmir in a dignified and peaceful manner to end human tragedy being faced by the population of Indian Occupied Kashmir.
“Pakistan is a peace-loving country that has rendered great sacrifices for regional and global peace,” the COAS said while addressing at the Graduation Ceremony of 144th GD (P), 90th Engineering Course and 100th AD Courses held at PAF Academy Asghar Khan in Risalpur on February 2, 2021.
His offer to New Delhi would definitely help nobody but can help everybody if it is taken with rationality.
An Indian writer Amit Kalantri says that an aggressive nation will spend and sacrifice to win a war; an amicable nation will do the same to prevent a war.
This is an ages-old discussion that what would be the impact of any possible war in nuclear loaded South Asia having the largest population per square kilometer, therefore, I will not indulge in this discussion and data sharing—for me it is important to show that we should seize every possible opportunity that can (at least) avoid war if cannot bring the ideal harmony and peace in South Asia.
If I comment on the mindset of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his quest for war and aggression towards non-BJP voters, then I would be called a biased Pakistani writer, therefore, I suggest my readers follow impartial Indian writers and journalists like Human Rights activist and novelist Arundhati Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai and others who also believe that BJP is out for hate-spree for everybody who does not believe in BJP’s viewpoint.
“PM Modi in the Indian Parliament called those who talk about peace-lovers as Parjivi that in English is equitant to “parasites” in English. “They (all those sensitive souls who are supporting basic human rights) are like parasites who feed off protests,” believed PM Modi.
I think the BJP leadership is believing “you’re either with us or against us” and this narrative is a very dangerous and lethal weapon to cut society into small pieces. This mindset depicts the situation as being polarized and forcing others unaligned with some form of pre-existing conflict to either to become allies of the speaking party or lose favor.
“I believe Modi is losing sensibility and becoming dangerous not only for India rather for the entire region. I remember the worst dictator of the human history Adolf Hitler said that Jew was only and always a parasite in the body of other peoples. Now Modi is using the same ideology for non-supporters,” said a Sikh professor while talking to BBC Punjabi recently.
Should international Think Tanks not work on this aspect of aggression launched by the Modi government against the Indian population and neighbouring countries?
Yes it’s bravery, it’s strength, it’s courage
it’s pride and utmost valour.
It’s also the moans, the sobs, the teary eyes
and an old lady’s deathly pallor.
Everyone had their chest swelled up with pride
with the grand salute of 21 guns.
Yet some women wept for their brothers and husbands.
Some still longed for their nephews and sons.
There’s more to the meaning of a war
than just what it appears.
It’s beyond just winning or losing it
It is also some blood and some tears.
~Khyati Tuli
