‘Revenge’ against Pakistan

I am amused to see people tweeting and shouting ‘revenge’ against Pakistan. Some of us are posting an old clip of Modi and Amit Shah’s false bravado about dealing with Pakistan. These were immature statements made to please voters. As CM, Modi could afford to take a militant stance against Pakistan. Who really cared what he thought as a CM? As a PM, to execute what he said a few years ago will be suicidal.

There is no point in retaliating with military action against Pakistan, the soldier killings notwithstanding. This is precisely what Pakistan and Pak-supported terror groups want. We will play into their hands. The attack on our army base is an intelligence failure. You cannot stop such attacks by attacking Pakistan. They will only increase by the dozen. A war will excite Pakistani fidayeens, because more funds will flow into their coffers to fight India.

I like the Baloch strategy played by India. Hit where it hurts the most. Press the raw nerve. Look how Pakistan has gone mad at us. And look at the way the Balochi leaders have responded to one statement from our PM. Support to Balochistan is just a trailer.

Wars in modern world are fought with economic might, not military firepower. Modi has built an international circle of friends through his foreign visits. These relations need to be used now to cast economic/terror funding sanctions and diplomatic & political pressure on Pakistan. We can’t make jingoistic statements like what Ram Madhav said – “For one tooth, the complete jaw. Days of so-called strategic restraint are over.” It is not only irresponsible, it is also wrong English 😉

I am not a defence expert, neither am I a foreign affairs or finance expert. But common sense tells me that a guy who drives a BMW should never take on a tempo or an auto rickshaw on a busy crowded street. Repairing a dent on a BMW will cost more than the price of an old tempo. India is the BMW. So it needs to be careful.

A single surgical air strike on Pakistan and the share markets will tumble beyond repair. A surgical airstrike would cost India 15-20,000 crores of market wealth – Rupee will fall, FIIs will get nervous, new investments will be put on hold. In 1999, during the Kargil war, in 4 days, the market fell by 10%. Today, that would mean 3000 points fall in stock markets. Can India afford this?

Why can’t we rather spend this 20K crores to buy advanced surveillance equipments like drones and satellite monitoring systems? Every soldier’s life is precious to us. I would handover these 20k crores to someone like Israel. They will tape up our borders beyond recognition. They hate Islamic terror outfits themselves, so they will do it with a lot more focus and passion 😉

What will surgical airstrikes achieve? In the larger scheme of things, it will achieve nothing, except making us feel good as a nation. What use is such feel good feeling? It’s a mirage. Tweeting for revenge sitting in our homes is an easy thing to do. Today 17 soldiers are dead, tomorrow 170 soldiers will die because the nation wants “revenge”. Who will we hold responsible then?

I fully support Modi’s measured stance in retaliating back to Pakistan. He is right and we should allow him time and space to decide what is best for the country. Allow him to calibrate a response and not react because we want him to.
Last night in talk show with Arnab Goswami Tariq Fateh suggested Our Army should have one Baloch and one Sindh regiment and allow them to take on Pakistan army as they just need support from us and they are capable of giving fitting reply to Pakistan’s all types of nonsense. I fully support this.