Pompous rhetoric

It would appear that the Indian army has been starved for a good cup of tea. What else would explain the zeal with which Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh wants to send troops across the border? Singh is an enigmatic figure. After serving as India’s home minister from 2014 till the elections this year, he was appointed defence minister to make way for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Gujarat pogrom co-conspirator, Amit Shah. A few weeks back, he was speaking of making India a superpower when its military is barely strong enough to kill a few trees at the expense of a multimillion-dollar aircraft.

The truth is that India is not, and will probably never even be a regional superpower — not as long as it continues to cower before China. Unfortunately, with the Hindutva-powered rewriting of Indian history well underway, an ever-increasing number of people actually fall for the lies coming out of the Indian government and being parroted by their pliant media. But what can one say of a country so desperate for a military hero that they make one out of a pilot with zero kills whose only achievement was being shot down, captured, and repatriated?

While it is reassuring that Pakistan has repeatedly taken the high road in the face of belligerent rhetoric emerging from what seems to be every member of the Indian government, it is worrying that these BJP leaders keep getting away with their rhetoric without being checked by the ‘real’ world powers. As we saw post-Pulwama, the irresponsible behaviour of this Indian government can cause every citizen of the world, not just Pakistan, to sprout a few new grey hairs.

Threatening war against a smaller country is usually seen as bullying — a practice common among some hawking nations. But even those nations know that threatening war against any country with nuclear weapons is sheer stupidity. Singh would have known that if he had some understanding of military tactics. But even without such a background, as a former physics professor, at least he should understand what inviting nuclear war would mean to India, if not the world.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th, 2019.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.