27 august 2024 : In his Independence Day address from the Red Fort this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi articulated that Bharat is the birthplace of Buddha and emphasized that “war was not our path.” He asserted that India does not represent a threat to the global community and that Bharat has never instigated wars.
While PM Modi acknowledged India’s readiness to face challenges during the same address, he has previously stated that Bharat has never sought to acquire even a fraction of foreign land or harbored any imperial ambitions.
However, this stance has not deterred adversaries such as Pakistan, its western allies, and China from creating new obstacles to Bharat’s progress. Since Independence, Pakistan has engaged in four wars aimed at seizing the Kashmir Valley, while China initiated the 1962 conflict to reprimand Jawahar Lal Nehru for his perceived naivety regarding the ‘Forward Policy.’ Since then, China has gradually encroached upon Indian territory and has executed significant incursions along the Line of Actual Control in East Ladakh since May 2020, intending to alter the existing situation. Additionally, cross-border terrorism persists in Jammu and Kashmir, with Pakistan and its western supporters attempting to incite political unrest in India to undermine the Modi administration.
In light of these circumstances, a pertinent question arises: do India’s national security strategists and political leaders experience strategic disarray? Has the pacifist philosophy of Buddha genuinely benefited India?
This strategic uncertainty that clouds the judgment of Indian planners has rendered Bharat susceptible in the eyes of its adversaries. It may still be viewed as a nation lacking a definitive global objective or an understanding of its rightful position on the international stage.
India today is a major military power with a functioning nuclear triad and a high survival second strike capability. It will be a four trillion US dollar economic power next year and possibly a third biggest economic power by 2029 if not early. It will soon have military theatre commands with a powerful sub-surface nuclear deterrent. The question is does India have the military doctrine or tactics for the heavy ticket platforms it has. After all, maritime diplomacy cannot be the doctrine for the Indian Navy and its two aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines.
While PM Modi has talked about decolonization of the Indian mind, the Indian national security planners are still to craft military tactics that cater to the topography and geography of Bharat. Instead, what we see is both the planners, diplomats, armed forces and intelligence in India regurgitating western think tank language and concepts. Indian planners have lost the way when it comes to new military tactics or strategic vision.
One has to go through Jadunath Sarkar’s seminal work ‘Military History of India’ to understand that Bharat has lost wars to technology and unified strategic vision of the conquerors over the past centuries. Even today neither the Indian private sector nor the public sector has been able to come up with path breaking technology with the armed forces more than happy to purchase off the shelf western technology.
If India aspires to be ‘Jagat Guru’, then it has to create a military-industrial complex that challenges the world in dual use technology and has to craft military doctrines to suit it’s strategic interests. It cannot do so by ordering a caste census and causing a Hindu societal implosion for political power or throwing merit out of the window for the same. If craven politics was a sport in Olympics, India would definitely win a gold medal as national parties now want restoration of Article 370 as part of a regressive political mindset sweeping the country.
The ‘chalta hai’ concept that PM Modi talks about must be dumped and so should be this so-called pacifist mindset as it is causing confusion among the youngsters. India’s neighborhood is a cause of serious concern with Bangladesh virtually in the hands of Islamists and a weak western prop like Ashraf Ghani as a ruler, Sri Lanka is yet to stabilize and Maldives staring at an economic abyss. Pakistan’s policy towards India remains the same notwithstanding who is in power and the Modi government should be talking about Occupied Kashmir as the bottom line for dialogue if and when it happens with Islamabad. It is now more than four years since the Indian Army deployed against 100,000 Chinese troops in East Ladakh with no signs of any de-escalation from either side. Chinese naval activity has increased in the Indian Ocean. What to talk about in the Pacific Ocean. Unless ‘Pacifist mindset’ is just a posture, one should remember that history has no time for losers.