Greek Dramatist Euripides’ maxim: “Those, whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” may be applicable to our eastern neighbour; but the Indian fits of insanity is seasonal. Its recent outburst alleging Pakistani incursion across the LoC, is attributable to "monsoon madness", which pertains to a frenzy of delight, which Indians feel when the rains cool their sizzling brains but lead to delusions of grandeur and jingoism. Whatever the season, there is a definite method to the Indian madness. The post-partition six and half decades’ old history of the Indian subcontinent is replete with examples of Indian outbursts of madness. Immediately after the Indo-Pak Independence, owing to an unrealistic Partition Plan, ignoring majority population demography, there was a mass exodus of humanity from both sides for the relocation of around eight million Muslims, and a similar number of Sikhs and Hindus, across the Indo-Pakistan borders. This has been recorded as the largest refugee movement of the 20th century, but was aggravated by communal violence and atrocities committed on all sides of the religious spectrum, commenced by Sikhs and Hindus, followed suit by Muslims, resulting in a death toll of approximately one million.
In accordance with its method in the madness agenda, India forcefully occupied Kashmir and the1947-48 Kashmir War between Pakistan and India broke out, ending with the Indians calling for a UN sponsored ceasefire. In 1965, Pakistan’s adventurism in Kashmir provoked India to attack Pakistan, which was repulsed. In 1971, India sponsored insurgency in East Pakistan and later launched an invasion resulting in the creation of Bangladesh. India has never allowed Pakistan to stabilize; its fits of madness remaining focused to a heinous plan. Each time there is a high level visit to India, terror attacks have been orchestrated on its own citizens pinning the blame on Pakistan to put it under international pressure. In the recent past, the attacks on Indian Parliament building at Delhi in December 2001 and the Mumbai carnage of November 2008 were also carefully choreographed by the Indians so that Pakistan could be placed in the dock. Since 2004, Pakistan and India were engaged in a serious composite dialogue process, which was nearing fruition but India scuttled the peace talks using the Mumbai attacks as an excuse. Evidence is available in the form of sworn affidavits by high level Indian officials that both the assaults were carried out by India itself.
In the near past, Pakistan has been proposing the resumption of dialogue for peace but its efforts have been spurned using fictitious episodes as an excuse. In January 2013, Indian forces violated the LoC, killed three Pakistani soldiers in cold blood and then to add salt to injury, claimed that Pakistani soldiers had beheaded two Indian soldiers. The Indian propaganda machinery went into top gear to whip up anti-Pakistan sentiment and plans for a Pakistan-India rapprochement were ditched.
Since June 2013, Islamabad has a new government, which is keen on improving ties with India. Its overtures to the Indian trade and mercantile community to increase the stakeholders in the peace process were bearing fruit but have now been foiled in the wake of the alleged attack by Pakistani soldiers across the LoC. In its usual rage of madness, Indian media stirred so much fury that an irate mob attacked the Pakistani diplomatic mission in New Delhi while the “Friendship” bus from Pakistan to India was stopped near Amritsar and its Pakistani passengers were harassed and hassled.
Such lunacy cannot be treated in any mental asylum but the international community needs to take cognizance of it. Unfortunately, blinded by India’s size and potential market for international goods and services, they turn a blind eye to Indian shenanigans.
Now that monsoons are waning, seasons will change and a new fever of madness will grip our eastern neighbour, if “Peace with Pakistan” is mentioned. Like the motto of the Starks in the popular TV serial, ‘Game of Thrones’, “winter is coming!” and we need to brace ourselves for worse bouts of Indian madness like the 2012-13 winter.
The solution is that Pakistan should stop trying to appease India, and cease bending backwards to accommodate its blackmailing pugnacious demands before peace talks can even commence. Diplomatic niceties are lost on Indian hawks, who dominate the average Indian, who like his/her Pakistani counterpart, yearns for peace. It is high time; the majority of the peace-loving citizens across both sides of the divide take charge to impede this insanity and give peace a chance, lest Euripides’ prophesy is proved correct.
The writer is a former group captain of PAF, who also served as air and naval attaché at Riyadh. Currently, he is a columnist, analyst and host of programme Defence and Diplomacy on PTV.