Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Indian government should take firm steps against Pakistan' that was published in Newsband

Indian government should take firm steps against Pakistan

India replied to Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the UN General Assembly with some rather rough words, calling Pakistan a “terrorist state” that is now training “militant proxies” with a “toxic curriculum” at its “Ivy League of terrorism”, delivering a “hypocritical” sermon to the Assembly, having nuclear proliferation record, which is marked by “deception and deceit”, championing the Hizbul Mujahideen ‘commander’ Burhan Wani Sharif. He refused to speak of the 18 Indian soldiers killed in the Army camp in Uri in an attack allegedly carried out by terrorists from Pakistan.

The powerful language of India’s retort is followed by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj expression — the world has little time for a ‘low-intensity’ conflict that has stretched on for almost 70 years.

While there might be a case against terrorism, Pakistan etc, the fact of the matter is that our political, defense and intelligence establishment are definitely not up to the mark - we have not learnt anything from either Mumbai, Kandahar, Kargil, Pathankot and now at Uri - when you have repeated weak intelligence and are unprepared, you cannot blame if somebody else takes advantage of the situation. And it is poor management, all along. And, big arms exporters would not like this problem to be solved. We are at a loss to know as to what actually "government" intends or means or plans to do. India is stronger because of its fourth estate, its democracy, its people and not because of such breast beating non governance that we have now. Let us investigate out lapses in issue and make our territory strong and impregnable instead of wasting our resources in empty rhetoric.

Repeated terror attacks on India by the Pakistani patronized terrorist groups shall not be tolerated. India should launch a multi pronged attack by isolating Pakistan on international arena, scraping the MFN status and re-look into the Indus river treaty. Thus India can irk Pakistan from all possible directions.

The endless perpetuation of the Kashmir conundrum would only belittle India's standing in the world, particularly in view of the fact that India is now spreading its wings beyond south Asia. The recent history of Kashmir has shown that the more India delays its resolution, the more people are seen as becoming increasingly anti-Indian. The masses that gathered in Burhan Wani's funeral cannot give any other message to the world. We should get US and UN to our side and enable the people of Kashmir to live normal lives too.

One side Russia along with USA, is putting its good efforts for maintenance of peace in Syria. On the other side landing of 200 Russian Military troops in our neighboring country i.e. Pakistan for joint military exercises, that too in the back drop of recent killing of our 18 soldiers on the border at Uri, is not a welcoming step taken by Russia which is to be condemned by all nations. It is time for India to show its strength. It has to raise her voice and tell the world clearly about the source of terrorism. What our soldiers battling on the frontlines expect from the Centre are prompt steps to beef up our intelligence networks & plug loopholes in the fencing of LoC so as to thwart future attacks. As for the "strategic option", PM Modi should engage with the mass political movement in the Kashmir Valley.