India's 'Pakistan' headache

After the terror attacks on Mumbai last November, a lot of people in India are baying for Pakistan's blood. Some folks say, "look at Israelis and how they deal with any attack on them." The idea is that Indians too should get tough with Pakistan. Go to war. Or at least a few air strikes on the terror camps in POK.

Air strikes on what? Because all the camps have been removed from there. So what does Indian jets bomb? Rocks?

Things are not so simple. First of all, Pakistan is not Gaza. It is a huge country with a big army. And most important; it has nuclear weapons. India cannot recklessly bomb Pakistan. It might end up in nukes being dropped. Everybody knows nukes are horrible. Remember the pics of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Also the Pakistan situation is complex in other ways. Though it has a government, it really does not hold real power. The real power in Pakistan is held by the army. If India wants to stop terror from Pakistan, the army in Pakistan must be convinced to stop the terrorists.

That is not so easy. Whenever India is mentioned, most Pakistanis get jingoistic. Also many top Pak leaders, both military and political, still nurse a grudge against India for the carving of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971.

The mad mullahs in Pakistan hate the idea of India. They cannot digest the fact that Hindus and Muslims can live together like they do in India. It negates the very concept of Pakistan. Pakistan came into being because the idea was that Muslims could not live together with Hindus and thus need a separate country.

We come to the Pakistan army again. The sad part is that certain elements in the army are sympathetic towards the Islamists in the country. The very aim of the terror attacks on Mumbai was that it would lead to an Indo-Pak war and the Pakistan army would get an excuse to move its soldiers from the Afghan border and throw them on the Indian border. The Taliban-Al Qaida on the Afghan border would thus get some breathing space.

By not taking any military action India has not given the excuse that the Pak army wants to stop fighting the Islamists (that it itself gave birth to during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979).

So what can India do?

It can use US help to arm twist Pakistan to fall in line. US has the leverage over Pakistan. Pakistan lives on money given by the US.

The Indian government is doing just that.