Why no One Respects A Soft State?

– R.K.Ohri, IPS (Retd)

“As soon as fear approaches you, attack and destroy it.”
– Acharya Chanakya
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Time has come for the Indian Nation to ask itself which period of its history makes us feel most proud and evaluate who was historically our most adored ruler? Possibly the answer will be the era of Chandragupta Maurya, or Gupta period, as our golden era and the most loveable ruler might be Chandragupta Maurya, or Shivaji or even Jhansi ki Rani. Although our political dispensation have placed the peacenik Ashoka on a high pedestal, the glitter of his glory is fading fast among the Indian youth. The reason is not difficult to seek. In today’s jihad-infested world no one has high regard for a weak ruler who may be a good poet like Bahadur Shah Zafar or Shah Alam II whose eyes were gouged out by his own small time courtier Ghulam Qadir.

Just place your hand on your heart and answer why in the contemporary history Indira Gandhi is highly regarded as a brave leader, or why Narendra Modi is held in high esteem across the country. How is it that in recent times Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad have acquired a more hallowed status in the hearts of Indian youth ? How is it that in sharp contrast to the ruling humpty-dumpty political dispensation of today, Indira Gandhi has come to be perceived as Durga, the slayer of demons!

Weren’t the Mumbai Massacre of 26/11 by jihadis and the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 to Kandhar in December, 1999, two most shameful moments of our shame and ignominy? But no strategic lesson has been learnt from those disastrous episodes and unfortunately our ruling politicians keep on committing similar blunders ad nauseum. The truth is that the world continues to laud a strong-willed and powerful leader – someone who is brave like a lion and has the vision of an eagle. And that is what makes the Israelis stand out as inrepid fighters in the eyes of most Indian nationalists.

We Indians (read Hindus) are known to be a people lacking a sense of history who inanely keep eulogising the phoney glory of Gandhian non-violence. The world, however, no longer values the virtue of ahimsa — certainly not our West-side neighbour that claims to be the ‘land of the pure’. It will not be an exaggeration to say that as a people, we have always been lacking a strategic insight into the historical perspective which is by far the most important tool for ensuring future security of any nation. We must wake up to the truth that the international community showers accolades only on those who have sharp swords and stout hearts. The key mantra for success continues to be the ’survival of the fittest’.

Everyone is aware of the valour of Captain Saurabh Kalia and five other soldiers of the 4 Jat Regiment, who were captured alive by Pakistani soldiers at the beginning of the Kargil war and killed after being put to brutal torture. Subsequently, the mutilated bodies of Captain Kalia and five soldiers, with eyes gouged out and private parts savaged, were returned to India on May 15, 2000.

The braveheart father of Captain Kalia deserves a salute for his dogged campaign to get justice for his martyred son. After going to the Supreme Court, Dr. Kalia is now taking his fight to the International Court of Justice. The most despicable aspect of the tragic narrative is that the Government of India appears to be unwilling to support the case of Captain Kalia in the International Court at Hague. What is worse was the unwillingness of Union Minister for External Affairs Salman Khurshid and Union Minister for Home Affairs, Sushil Kumar Shinde, to raise the issue with Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik during the latter’s recent visit to India. The casual response of the Indian Home Minister was reflected in his laconic reply that the Pakistani Minister was coming to India on a romantic tour — perhaps alluding to Rehman Malik’s proposed trip to Agra for seeing the Taj Mahal which somehow did not materialise.

Unfortunately, the barbaric treatment meted out to late Captain Kalia and his colleagues is not the only instance of the perversity of Pakistan’s Army. Frequent recourse to acts of barbarism against captured Indian soldiers have become a regular feature of the Pakistan’s jihadi strategy. The intention of Pakistanis through torture of valiant soldiers and mutilation of their bodies is to instil terror into hearts of Indian soldiers, as enunciated in the doctrine of jihad and elaborated by retired Pakistani Brigadier S.K. Malik in his tome, The Quranic Concept of War. Brigadier Malik has repetitively emphasised the importance of terrorising the enemy and cited in extenso, the scriptural command contained in Verse 8.12 of the holy Quran advocating recourse to instilling terror into the heart of enemies.

In February, 2000, the notorious jihadi Ilyas Kashmiri had raided an Indian Army post in Kashmir and captured alive Sepoy Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry. After beheading the Indian soldier, Ilyas Kashmiri had presented the hapless Indian warrior’s head to the then President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, who had given him a reward of Rs. 1 lakh for his grisly crime. The photograph of Ilyas Kashmiri carrying the head of the brutally murdered Indian soldier was published in a Lahore newspaper. That clearly showcased the official approval of beheadings of Indian soldiers by no less a person than the former President of the Islamic republic. Official reward of Rs. one lakh to the notorious jihadi militant was a big monetary incentive for promoting more beheadings of Indian soldiers (read kaffirs).

Yet another act of barbarity of the Pakistani jihadis was published in the India Today, on August 6, 2011, about the capture and beheading of two jawans of 20 Kumaon Regiment in Kupwara district of Jammu & Kashmir. According to the widely read journal, that incident had happened around the visit of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to India. The martyred soldiers were identified as Havildar Jaipal Singh Adhikari and Lance Naik Devendra Singh, both residents of the hilly state of Uttarakhand.

In 1965, during my posting as Commandant of an Armed Police battalion on Indo-Tibet border, I had heard from another police officer, a similar instance of barbaric treatment meted out to a detachment of the Punjab Armed Police who had been deceitfully invited for a dinner by Pakistani Rangers but were beheaded after the deceptively-friendly dinner and their genitals were found mutilated.

The rank and file of Indian soldiers as well as Indian citizens must be educated and informed that historically the beheading of the so-called ’kaffirs’ has been a strategic tool of Islamic jihad for centuries. Historically the countless beheadings of innocent kaffirs carried out by jihadi invaders across India, the Balkans and several other victim countries bear testimony to the cult of beheadings promoted by Mujahids.

A glance at the tactics used during the ongoing jihad in Afghanistan, Chechenya, Kashmir and Thailand reveals that beheadings and mutilation of the bodies of enemies has become a standard practice, sort of a trade-mark technique, of jihadi campaigners. Their aim is to instill terror into the hearts of infidels, as highlighted by retired Pakistani Brigadier S.K. Malik in his strategic book, The Quranic Concept of War. On page 57 of his tome S.K. Malik has specifically referred to the Prophet’s command in Verse 8.12 of the holy Quran to the use of ‘terror’ as an effective tool for achieving victory in war. Elaborating the Quranic military strategy Brigadier Malik exhorts the Pakistani soldiers “to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, known or hidden, while guarding ourselves from being terror-striken by the enemy”.

The gory blitz of murder and mayhem perpetrated for 3 days by ten jihadi commandos of Lashkar across Mumbai, the corporate capital of India, was a grim reminder of emasculation of the Indian State. The utter collapse of governance in Mumbai was relayed by 24/7 television channels to the merriment of militant groups in Pakistan and Pak-occupied Kashmir.

Unfortunately, our ruling political dispensation has failed to understand that what we are facing is the same gory jihad which had savaged the sub-continent for centuries in middle ages.

Tolerating such barbarism is a sign of gross timidity which will further encourage commission of the kind of brutality unleashed by the Pakistani Army on Captain Kalia and his detachment.

The abiding shame, however, was the ungentlemanly and undiplomatic response of Rehman Malik, whose contemptuous remarks about the cause of death of Indian martyrs should have received a stern response from the supine Indian Government. When will our Prime Minister learn that abject tolerance of this kind of aggressive stance of Pakistanis will invite further jihadi attacks and expose the Indian nation to international infamy ? Interestingly the stony silence of the Prime Minister for nearly one week on this highly sensitive subject of national honour was matched by the dumb rhetoric of our External Affairs Minister, Salman Khurshid pontificating, “We’re not going to be pressurised by wild calls of revenge and reaction”. Another cowardly volley fired by Salman Khurshid was : “When you make an enormous investment in the peace process, you don’t do it just because it sounds good. You do it because there is objective and practical need for peace, because the cost of not having peace is much greater rather than the cost of investing in peace.” Obviously for Salman Khurshid the wonky political investment in the widely lampooned “peace industry” is far more important than the lives and dignity of Indian soldiers, even more important than the honour of the Indian nation! His wishy-washy statement marked a new low in our morbid diplomacy. This indifference to insults and humiliation heaped by Pakistan on us runs like a suicidal trait throughout our 66 years long narrative of dealing with our hostile neighbour. Tolerance of barbarism and repetitive insults is a curse, a sin, thoroughly condemned by Shri Krishna in the Gita. Excessive tolerance of tyranny drives iron into the soul of a nation and destroys its self-confidence and moral fibre. The Jews, who were once regarded as gutless and meek traders have now evolved into a tough and vibrant community. Despite being surrounded by multiple hostile neighbours, Israel has emerged as a brave nation whom no one can easily venture to insult, pillory or pillage.

The saga of the valiant rescue in 1976 by Israeli Stealth Warriors (members of their crack unit Sayaret Matkal) in freeing 103 Jewish Air France passengers held hostages at Entebbe in (Uganda) reads like a ballad of heroics. The rare feat was achieved by a commando team of Stealth Warriors (members of the crack Israeli unit called Sayeret Matkal). Not many people remember that the Stealth Warriors were led by Jonathan Netanyahu, the elder brother of the present Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. The daredevil Israeli commando, Jonathan Netanyahu, who led his team from front was the only Israeli soldier killed in the Entebbe rescue operation.

Equally educative is the narrative of avenging by Mossad and Sayeret Matkal of the kidnapping and assasination of 11 Israeli athletes during 1972 Olympics of by a team of Black September operatives – a notorious splinter group of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

For sheer survival the Indians must learn the complex art of defeating jihadi monsters by studying the aggressive combats undertaken by Mossad and Sayaret Matkal – a special operations brigade of the Israeli army.

Our soft nation of 120 crore people became a butt of ridicule and subject of international ignominy during the three-day long siege of Mumbai by ten jihadis sent by our hostile neighbour, Pakistan. We must put to stop all future talks and attempts at politico-economic détente with Pakistan till the culprits of 26/11 Mumbai massacre and tormentors of Indian Jawans are brought to justice. There can be no ‘Aman ki Asha’ with the likes of Rehman Malik raining insulting potshots at us. Pakistan has turned the much-trumpted ‘Aman ki Asha’ on its head by beheading and insulting hapless Indian soldiers on the LOC that bluff of ‘Aman ka Dhoka’ (i.e., a fraud called ‘peace’). In one single stroke of Pakistani perfidy the phoney philosophy invented by the so-called ‘ peace industry’ has been consigned to waste paper basket.

The politics of repealing Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (abbreviated as POTA) , in October, 2004, by the UPA to please its Muslim votebank, soon led to the raining of a torrent of serial terrorist attacks in several parts of India. The jihadi epidemic, previously confined to Kashmir, north India and north-eastern states, soon enveloped the entire country. In April, 2006, an ominous forecast was relayed by Stratfor, a globally admired strategic thinktank, forewarning that a “ring of fire” was being created by ISI of Pakistan to Islamicise India’s northeast and then yank it away. It was studiously ignored by the Indian government. No wonder, last year there was massive outbreak of communal violence and blood bath in Assam between the native Bodos and Bangladeshi infiltrators. And tectonic tremors of that violence soon travelled to Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai leading to flight of thousands of innocent Indian citizens. There were riots by fundamentalist mobsters in several cities, including Ranchi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Lucknow.

The worst example of pusillanimity of the Indian government was the inordinate delay of six long years in hanging Afzal Guru, who was the Kashmiri kingpin of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba for attacking the Indian Parliament on 13th December, 2001. The unparalleled enormity of vote bank politics was witnessed when the government did not agree to execute Afzal Guru, even after the traum-drenched family members of seven security personnel killed by Afzal Guru and his team mates, publicly demonstrated the angst in their hearts by returning their gallantry medals to the President of India.

Across the world there is no instance of such apathy and indifference by the State towards its martyred soldiers who laid down their lives in the line of duty. In any enlightened democracy most of the members of Parliament would have resigned and gone home if the disappointed kin of their martyrs had returned the medals awarded posthumously to braveheart soldiers !

Unfortunately most of our secularised intellectuals pride themselves on the fact that though the history of India is replete with instances of several invasions by foreign marauders, we the eternally non-violent Indians, never attacked or invaded any country. And that self-adulating statement is further supplemented by paying tributes to the great Buddhist (not Hindu) virtue of tolerance — unlimited tolerance even at the cost of disrespect to women and loss of self respect, mirrored so vividly, though unfortunately, in our 900 years long history of abject slavery.
The repetitive overdoses of the mass opiates, called endless tolerance of tyranny and non violence plus the double dope of Bollywood and Cricket, have made the Indian political leaders smug, timid and incompetent.

The silly statements made by some prominent politicians and soulless chatterati after the hanging of Afzal Guru further proved that India has truly become the most soft state across the world. In this context the statement of Omar Abdullah, the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir was not only shocking, almost bordering on treacherfy. As reported in The Economic Time, New Delhi, on February 11, 2013, he pontificated that the “long term implications of Guru’s hanging are far more worrying”. “The new generation of youth in Kashmi may not identified with Maqbool Bhatt who was hanged in 1984, but they will identify with Afzal.” In other words, the Chief Minister considers the jihadi terrorist Afzal Guru as a role model for Kashmiri youth! Could any Chief Minister say anything more silly ? Indirectly it was a clumsy effort to provoke the Kashmiri youth to emulate Afzal Guru by walking the path shown by the notorious terrorist.

But the worst scandal in our post-independence political history has been the grant of passports and government permission to visit Pakistan to notorious Kashmir separatists, including Yasin Malik, against whom more than twenty criminal cases are pending in the ‘softy’ State of India infamously derided all over the world.
Mera Bharat Mahan. Period.

Copyright @ R.K. Ohri