How should we handle Pakistan???.....is this the most important question for India for 2009. As the investigation progresses in the 26/11 Mumbai terror operations, it is becoming increasingly clearer that the ghastly attacks on the socio-economic fiber of India were carried out by terrorist based in Pakistan with the tacit support of actors (read top ISI and military officials) on whom there is little control by the state of Pakistan.
As is evident by the rise of Taliban in Pakistan and the failure of NATO and US forces in the region, Pakistan would be slipping further into chaos with time. This chaos would be marked by increased violence, possible civil war, change in government, increased intervention of US forces and if worse comes true disintegration of Pakistan. All this is bad news for India as the weaker the state of Pakistan, greater would be the chances of terrorist organizations using Pakistani resources - land, port, military training, unemployed and directionless youth, to launch deadly attacks on Indian soil.
So India should assume, for all practical purposes, that there would be attempts of terror on the Indian soil in 2009 and possibly with even greater intensity. If 2008 was bad 2009 could be worse and even then may still look better in comparison to 2010. This is not even taking into account of the resources waiting (or I should say getting trained) in Bangladesh to launch terror offensive in India.
There is a very old saying in India – ‘Bhagwan/ Allah bhi usi ki madad karta hai jo khud ki madad karta hai’ – ‘God help only those who help themselves’ (through right means of course). The big question is would God help us after seeing and analyzing with what we have been doing for all these years. Have we been helping ourselves enough to claim for any help from God?If India is considered as one body and one soul, actions of which is summation of all the actions of every citizen of India, then the question is - Is India helping itself in moving in the right direction or is it helping itself to get out of consideration of God’s help. This is a big question, answer of which is known only to the all mighty.But when I see what happens on the streets (and not the politicians on TV), people’s attitude towards their civic and social responsibility, their behavior towards public property in public offices, ever falling moral standards, the pride in being able to get things done through corruption and false means; I fear that we would be out of favor of God.
26/11 has severed a deadly blow to the confidence of Aam Aadmi in the security infrastructure of the system, but what about the moral infrastructure of India. It has been taking a body blow every time we cross the line of morality and honesty. It’s a shame that we never even get to know that some thing has happened, something that might get things done at that point but would hurt us in the long term.
Till we are able to connect the dots and realize that each act of bribery, unfair practice provides the militants and other evil forces an opening to attack India and us, we would never be able to root out terrorism from this country.
Here’s wishing everyone a Happy and peaceful New Year!!
