Indian Council of World Affairs

Distinguished Panelists, Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Students and Friends! 

Six months ago, in January, ICWA organized a Panel Discussion to assess the ongoing crisis in Pakistan. The Discussion focused on the trends of the last fifteen years or so, especially post-President Musharraf, in Pakistan’s domestic political, security and economic environment, and their external implications. It expressed the view that Pakistan polity since its inception has provided fertile soil for the breeding of religious radicalism and ferment, military adventurism, deceit and has pursued a unifocal policy of hate towards its larger neighbor defining its existence and external relations as well as the indoctrination of its people on that basis. Pahalgam was yet another brutal instance of Pakistan’s consistently errant and demonic behavior which received the response that it ought to.

With the rising severity of terror attacks since the past decade and a half and learning the lessons of 26/11, there has been a compelling need for India to alter its geo-strategic posture in response to Pak-sponsored terrorism – opting to escalate its response to terror attacks – an approach which was avoided in the past. Initiating with the surgical strikes on terror pads in PoK after the Uri terror attack, striking terrorist camps post Pulwama terror attack in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Operation Sindoor is a natural progression of India’s evolving new posture. Operation Sindoor saw the taking down of nine terrorist infrastructures, including the JeM and LeT Headquarters and numerous terrorist camps, and eleven military air bases inside Pakistan. Operation Sindoor showed to the world the nuclear bluff and rhetoric that Pakistan banked on till date, and the general weakness of Pakistan’s military defence, even in protecting its own military infrastructure, including its nuclear arsenal. Operation Sindoor was a resounding military success backed by the full support of the people of India.

India has long spoken about the connivance of the Pakistan military with terror groups in international and bilateral fora. Operation Sindoor has not only exposed the ineffectiveness of Pakistan’s military but has also reinforced its perception as a parasite on Pakistan’s society with its strong linkages to terror and unlawful activities, and its deep-seated rent-seeking behavior.

Our discussion today is meant to focus on starting a new narrative in our approach to Pakistan beginning with Operation Sindoor. What must be the elements of this new approach? The following come to mind –

1. Inflicting punishment for conspiratorial behavior politically and economically.
2. Using full state machinery to counter Pakistan’s evil designs.
3. Full demonstration of India’s might.
4. Zero tolerance to terrorism implying destroying hard-core terrorists and terror infrastructure within Pakistan accompanied by credible threat of use of force for every act of terror on Indian soil.
5. Inflicting pain where it hurts the most viz., suspending the Indus Water Treaty.
6. Firm policy of no talks.
7. Puncturing Pakistan’s nuclear blackmail tactics.
8. Exposing the insincerity of Pakistan’s strategic restraint regime as also of its international exponents.
9. Calling the bluff of nuclear flashpoint theorists within and outside Pakistan
10. Obliterating Pakistan’s dubious distinction between state and non-state actors serving as fountainheads of terror and nuclear proliferation emanating from Pakistan.
11. Destroying any linkage between Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and terror.
12. Rethinking and reviewing the existing CBMs matrix with Pakistan in the backdrop of India’s evolving new posture.
13. Continuing to expose Pakistan’s compulsive hostility to India.
     

With Operation Sindoor, we finally stand de-hyphenated from Pakistan. When I joined the Indian Foreign Service nearly three decades ago, we were told at our training school, our Alma Mater, that Pakistan is India’s Achilles Heel. Today, that sounds totally anachronistic. We can firmly say that those days are well past us. Pakistan’s misdemeanor, dishonesty and conspiracies have been completely vanquished by India’s rise, its resilience, its civilizational strengths and the honesty, sincerity, capability and hard work of its people. No force in the world can keep us boxed in South Asia and locked into persistent hostility with Pakistan and this really is the true meaning of de-hyphenation from Pakistan. The world is India’s oyster and Pakistan a mere speck, an irritant.

And yes, India has only just announced a strategic pause in Operation Sindoor.

I look forward to a thought-provoking discussion and I wish all the Panelists all the best.

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