Current status: Bharat’s strikes on Pakistan on hold as Pakistan weeps for water and countries place their bets on who is a better strategic, stronger, economic warhorse for the future. Decades after the crushing defeat inflicted on Pakistan in 1971, a terror state, now backed by China and in cahoots with Bangladesh constantly conspires against Bharat
It was in 1971 that people in Shillong went about pasting pieces of newspapers on window panes. Carefully cut to size to fit those tiny windowpanes common in the hills, no bit of light was to slip out, no matter what. Nightfall would be about shrill sirens that would echo off the hills that surrounded the valley of Shillong, followed by quiet, candlelit dinners and worried huddles, and thoughts of bombardment by Pakistani forces. Public places in Shillong were pockmarked with Z-shaped trenches,
while Shillong’s women knit sweaters for refugees who had poured in from East Pakistan, crowding public spaces in what was then the capital of Assam. The stories that did the rounds were grizzly, of people maimed, people dead in the hundreds of thousands, of Shillong fishsellers finding gold ornaments inside fish that had fed on the dead in rivers that flowed in from East Pakistan… Mukti Bahini had become a term to be revered. As Pakistan was defeated, Bharat Ratna Bhupen Hazarika would sing his ‘Joi joi nobojato Bangladesh, joi joi Mukti Bahini…’ that became an anthem of sorts in new-born Bangladesh. That photograph of Yahyah Khan signing the instrument of surrender to Gen Jagjit Singh Arora would be etched on our minds forever.
Come to think of it, that 13-day war with Pakistan never really ended. For perspective, ask anyone from the Northeast of Bharat and he or she will tell you that this is an endless war this region has lived through, in some form or the other. And that while the West and central regions of the country faced terror attacks from Pakistan given the geographical proximity, the East faced it from Bangladesh.
And these past decades down the line a subservient, servile Bangladesh that was dragged through one of history’s most terrible genocides is once again tied up with their enemy state. The War of 1971 thus never really ended and continues to this day in however covert a form, and will do so in future unless Bharat makes changes on a war footing. Add to that the wayward ways of a dying state called China, desperate in both economy and regional dominance, and it tells us just how long Bharat’s enemy states plan on sustaining an illegitimate war.
With the advent of Islamic terror and countries such as Pakistan and their cohorts becoming the breeding ground for such terror, the war has only got dangerously covert and constant, with the world now no longer able to predict a strike or its direction, and whether it comes from trained specialists beyond a country’s borders, or those indoctrinated by them within. Operation Sindoor, for example, while being fought by our forces, saw a large number of people having to be locked up by state police after making pro-Pakistan statements. Some media channels, always inimical to Bharat, reared their ugly heads once again.
For Bharat’s enemy states, and enemies within its borders, this war has no honour, no ethics, no laws, no sanctity of that red plus sign of the International Red Cross, no international covenants. This war does not confine itself to soldiers drawing the blood of soldiers. In this war, supply lines are fed through the Internet, through mobile phones and personal computers. And through a network of tunnels, be it under civilian areas and hospitals in Gaza, or across the border between India and Pakistan.
In their terrorist doctrine, victories are counted on the amount of media attention they can draw through their acts of terror; the more gruesome the act of terror, the wider the media publicity. That is what terror states of the world war game in their war rooms.
It is across unseen battle lines that countries across the world now find themselves dragged into wars they never signed up for. Unable to win wars on the battlefield, these are the wars of attrition that terror states inflict in the belief that they will one day achieve a decisive victory. In all of this, they find solidarity in a set of people who will stay silent in the aftermath of a terror act but will denounce an ethical, open war that victim states are then forced to wage.
In all of this, Pakistan must be brought to its knees for whilst we deal with the enemy on the western borders, they have a coalition here with Bangladesh and China.
The China Nexus
Despite the fact that at least 70 per cent of the Brahmaputra’s water comes in from its tributaries within Bharat, the fact that China mulls building the world’s largest dam yet across the Great Bend of the Yarlung Zangbo is disturbing as this tests India’s resilience in terms of fighting off China’s attempted hegemony in this region, where it is courted both by Pakistan and Bangladesh. Rainwater harvesting, increasing forest cover and working out an intricate and effective irrigation system in the states of the Northeast is now essential. While our military presence in this part of the country has increased substantially especially over the past weeks post Md Yunus’s attempt to market this region to China as a prospective access to the ocean, extra caution now needs to be taken given the proximity to these countries.
Experience tells us that China’s involvement in the region has been substantial. This has had a long history. A drive from Kohima towards Imphal, on the road that the Allies took to Burma during the Second World War, reveals graves that now lie partially in ruins. The epitaphs though are striking, speaking as they do of ‘Officers of the Naga Army’ who had trained in China. While the graves are many decades old (the Naga National Council had declared Independence on August 14, 1947, the movement then spilling into a prolonged insurgency spearheaded by the NSCN(IM) and NSCN(K)), weapons recovered by security forces from militant groups in the Northeast still are, by and large, of Chinese make. The China-Pakistan-Bangladesh nexus only makes things worse.
Here one would do well to consider the fact that most of the bigger militant groups in the region are in ceasefire. While that status may have continued for many years now, fact still remains that with a long list of issues that need to be sorted out with government across the table, these rebel groups are still in ceasefire with the government, and have not been disbanded.
While the Northeastern region has also seen a remarkable rise in connectivity we must also consider that, unlike Wagah which is a ceremonial border, the border here with China at Nathula in Sikkim is an active one. A visit to Nathula tells a story of conflict: of our soldiers trudging up the mountain to various posts, armed to the teeth, carrying their mortars with them. The front is armed and ready. The Chinese cannot be trusted, just as we cannot trust the Pakistanis, and now the Bangladeshis. Add to that the desperation of the Chinese in so far as their dream CPEC project is concerned, the freedom fighters of Balochistan laying to waste their attempts to get through to the Gwadar Port, their trade war with the US, their biggest trading partner, and Prime Minister Modi’s new Swadeshi thrust in Bharat, and the frustration of the Chinese can only grow stronger.
Add to that the fact that a large portion of the border with Bangladesh still lies unfenced because of the survival strategy of certain political groups, and the passage of both drugs and arms across that border, and one thing becomes clear: that despite relative calm, the dangers on the eastern border have only grown, both in dimension and the number of fronts that enemy states attempt to open.
Breaking the Pakistani-Bangladesh-China nexus is now essential to ensure long-term peace in this part of Bharat, not to mention the country at large. The only way that can be done is by breaking Pakistan’s back militarily and economically, cutting off all access that Bangladesh has to the country through thousands of migrants, and thwarting China’s attempt to use Pakistan and Bangladesh against Bharat like pawns on a chess board.