With neighbours like Pakistan, India’s sole option is to hit back hard

One more attack on India. Two more soldiers killed, their bodies mutilated. A brutal, vicious act, by all reckoning, carried out by the Pakistan Border Action Team. It is not the first time that Indian soldiers have been killed, and their bodies mutilated and desecrated, by Pakistani forces. Killing soldiers when you are not at war, and officially we are not, is possibly an act of war. In 2016, 60 Indian soldiers lost their life on the border with Pakistan. But, it is not just about unprovoked shelling and killings. It is also the way bodies are desecrated, and human heads are taken as the spoils of war, that is a violation of the Geneva Convention, and a war crime.

Between Kargil (1999) and now, Indian soldiers have been tortured, killed, desecrated, mutilated. We have all read about Captain Saurabh Kalia, and the way he was tortured and murdered. The following year, Ilyas Kashmiri, the Al Qaeda commander, took back the head of Jawan Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar, supposedly as a gift for President Musharraf. For a while after that, it was relatively less barbaric on the western front until 2008 — when a soldier who lost his way was captured, and his headless body left behind. There was a lull again, though the deaths continued, till 2013 when Lance Naik Hemraj was beheaded. Then last year, there were two beheadings, and this year two more.

Pakistan, of course, and as always, has denied all involvement. And as always, manages to portray itself as the ‘victim of terror’ while glossing over the fact that the terrorists were nurtured on their territory, by their largesse. Since 9/11, the world at large has seen what India had been experiencing since Independence: the involvement of Pakistanis in acts of terror on their soil. While the West is lucky, because geographically Pakistan is not next to them, but acts of terror by people of Pakistani origin have brought the problem up front and close to the West. India is stuck in an unfortunate space. We cannot change our neighbour, nor can we change our neighbourhood.

The question, therefore, is what does India do? At a very basic level, politicians of all hues and shades must give up the ghost of ‘we are all one people” and forget our historical links. They have to stop trying to bend over backwards to achieve peace in our times. Pakistan does not want peace with India. It has never wanted peace with India.

The persona that has been created by the Generals and that has permeated every aspect of Pakistani civil society, rejecting the past; and warping what little is acknowledged as a machine to foment hate towards India. The belief that successive Indian governments have, that the people like us, but the Government is against us, is not just naïve, but also a reading of the situation that is harmful to India and Indian interests. Seventy years of indoctrination has moved the situation beyond redemption. There will be no peace in our times. The best we can hope for is no war.

Finally, the Government of India needs to stop wanting to be liked by the world at large. Our foreign policy has traditionally been driven by a certain self-image, something akin to a nice and cuddly teddy bear, a friend to the world. The GoI needs to stop wanting to be liked, or seeking international approval, vis-à-vis its relationship with Pakistan. It is only when India acts in its self-interest, without worrying about what the world at large will think of us, in our dealings with Pakistan, will there be some cessation of violence from our neighbour.

The author works at the intersection of digital content, technology, and audiences. She is also a writer, teacher, and film-maker