Why War and At What Cost?

"yūnān-o-misr-o-romā, sab miṭ gaye jahān se
ab tak magar hai bāqi, nām-o-nishān hamārā"

When faced by the onslaught of the invading armies in the eighth century, both the ancient cultures of Egypt and Persia were completely wiped off the face of the earth, while the Hindu culture somehow survived. Surely there is some redeeming quality in our culture which other civilizations lacked.

The above couplet is from the well known tarana-e-hind by Allama Iqbal, penned years before he changed his mind about co-existence with infidels.

A lesser known fact is that Pakistan's first national anthem was written by a Lahore based Hindu, Jagan Nath Azad who later migrated to India when his personal safety could no longer be guaranteed by his Muslim friends and well wishers. The interesting thing is that Jinnah himself insisted that Pakistan's Qaumi Tarana be written by a Hindu. This was in line with his view that with time, Pakistan would mature to become a secular nation. Those were his exact words: "Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State."

The Pakistan that exists today has receded back to the mentality that pervaded the various invaders of our subcontinent throughout the last 1400 years. This is not the Pakistan that Jinnah envisioned. The entity which exists today and calls itself Pakistan is one which thinks in terms of Jihad and Taqqiyah.

We are not concerned with how this came about. What we are concerned with is that this state will and is using all available options at its disposal to first weaken and ultimately dismember our nation. We are at war, whether we like it or not, and neither the battleground, nor the tactics are of our choosing.

The terror spree at Mumbai is just one facet of the war that is forced upon us. The other facets are evident in our troubled North-Eastern States and the Sikh unrest of the eighties which was armed and funded by Pakistan as well as the constant trouble in Kashmir.

Our much maligned father of the nation is on record as saying that "I WOULD risk violence a thousand times rather than risk the emasculation of a whole race." and "I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor."

The question that we are faced with now is when we are at war, whether declared or undeclared, should we retaliate or not? I think Mahatma Gandhi has answered that question for us. And this is no ordinary war, it is a war of survival because the enemy’s sole objective is to destroy us as a nation and dismember us.

The political climate in our country is not conducive for a war at the moment because we are headed for a general election soon and the army needs a few months to prepare for a sustained war anyway. Our diplomats too need time to build up international opinion. So I expect the war to be a few months away, when the army is fully prepared and if there is a willing coalition at the center.

This war has to be taken to its logical conclusion of forever eliminating the threat that we face, by dismembering Pakistan. because there is no middle way left. We simply cannot fool ourselves by talking about coexistence. It has to be a sustained war till our objectives are achieved. There is a high possibility that there will be heavy casualties and not just military. The civilian death toll is going to be high as well. Because when it finds itself in a corner, Pakistan is bound to use its nuclear arsenal. But should that deter us in our duty to eradicate the threat to our way of life and to our right to exist as an independent nation? I would say that no price is too heavy to pay when it comes to that.

The whole essence of the BhagvadGeeta for me is summed up in this shloka "karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachan..." which translated in English would be:

"You have a right to perform your prescribed action,but you are not entitled to the fruits of your action.
Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities,and never be associated to not doing your duty."