Most Indians have laughed off President Donald Trump’s claim that India and Pakistan have been fighting for “many decades, centuries actually, if you think about it…”
Does he not know, we have wondered, that there was no Pakistan a century ago?
Chances are, Trump is not really aware of the region’s history. But his remarks are no laughing matter because, unfortunately, they sum up many Western reactions to the recent tensions between India and Pakistan. If you read Western commentaries on the subject, you will find that they are all about Kashmir and how Pakistan disputes that it is an integral part of India. The massacre of civilians in Pahalgam is treated as just another episode in a long-running conflict.
This is a perspective that may suit Pakistan. But it totally misrepresents India’s position and ignores the real reason we had to launch strikes against Pakistan.
Our problem with Pakistan is simple: terrorism.
It is certainly not about Kashmir
Rare is the Kashmiri who thinks the state would be better off as part of today’s troubled, collapsing Pakistan. Nor is the problem historical baggage. Until a fortnight ago, Pakistan had almost completely disappeared from the consciousness of most Indians. Pakistan may be obsessed with India and with Kashmir (it’s so-called “jugular vein,” if you believe their army chief), but India is too busy carving out a place for itself in the global order of the 21st century to worry about a neighbour crippled by economic problems and distracted by a political system where jailing every former Prime Minister at the military’s behest is standard practice.
The only reason we care about Pakistan is because it has become a state that promotes terror and sponsors terrorists who murder Indians.
If you look back over the past 25 years, the only times we have had to concern ourselves with Pakistan have been when it sent terrorists to India to kill our people. The bloody hijacking of IC 814 was an ISI operation aimed at freeing murderous terrorists who then found safe haven in Pakistan. Nobody, including the US, disputes that terror groups based in Pakistan were responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, in which innocent civilians were slaughtered. It is just as clear that the Pulwama massacre was the work of Pakistani-sponsored terrorists. And the Pahalgam killings were carried out by terrorists trained and armed by Pakistan.
None of this has anything to do with any dispute over Kashmir. How does it affect Kashmiris any differently than other Indians if Pakistani terrorists shoot hostages at luxury hotels in Mumbai or open fire on innocent commuters at a Mumbai railway station?
This is terrorism aimed only at murdering Indians. Like most major terrorist attacks around the world (think of 9/11, for instance), it is motivated only by hatred and a lust to kill. What political purpose is achieved by slaughtering Hindu tourists in Pahalgam? Just as Osama bin Laden justified 9/11 as a way to kill Americans — a desirable outcome in itself, from his perspective — Pakistani terrorists justify their attacks purely as a way to kill Indians, which they regard as a desirable objective. (Can it be a coincidence that after he had delighted in the mass murder in New York, bin Laden found safe haven in Pakistan?)
Also read: After Operation Sindoor, why India must keep an eye on Bangladesh too
India’s many 9/11s and yet…
There are two ways to view the current tension between India and Pakistan. You can see it as an ancient battle over Kashmir that still carries on — which is how Pakistan wants the world to see it.
Or you can see it for what it really is: India fighting terrorism by going to the source and trying to end it.
Once you see it that way, India’s responses seem remarkably restrained, especially when compared to America’s. After 9/11, the US asked the Afghan government to hand over bin Laden. When the Afghans refused, America launched a full–fledged military invasion and took over the country. Since then, whenever the US has seen a threat to American lives and interests, it has cheerfully violated the sovereignty of other countries — launching military attacks or using drones to assassinate those it regards as enemies.
Contrast that with India’s responses. We did nothing after the IC 814 hijacking, when we should have tracked down and eliminated the terrorists who were freed from Indian jails and then sheltered by Pakistan. After 26/11, we let the Americans persuade us not to retaliate, thereby sending a message that India was a soft target. After Pulwama, we launched a limited strike in which, even the Pakistanis admit, hardly anyone was killed. And this week’s strikes were a carefully calibrated response to Pahalgam, targeting only terror organisations, with no Pakistani military sites touched.
The truth is, this limited response will not be enough. The Pakistani state will re-arm and reorganise its terror groups. As its Defence Minister admitted in an interview with Sky News, Pakistan has a long history of organising such groups (though he insisted that Pakistan was merely doing the West’s “dirty work” as a proxy).
A single set of attacks will not be enough to dismantle Pakistan’s terror machine or to keep India’s citizens safe. And yet India has acted responsibly, offering only a measured and limited response — because it wants to avoid a full-fledged war that Pakistan may threaten to escalate to a nuclear level.
Also read: Lines not crossed even during Kargil War have been crossed with Op Sindoor. The gloves are off
Trump needs history lessons
Our problem is that much of the Western world remains stuck in superficial explanations and outdated cliches. Our fight to keep our people safe from terrorism is still being viewed through the prism of the Kashmir dispute and old rivalries.
In reality, it has very little to do with any of that. It is a battle against terror — nothing more, nothing less. And we are fighting this battle with far more restraint and responsibility than the US has ever displayed.
So perhaps it’s time for President Trump to take some history lessons. Not just about our history, but about the history of his own country — and the maximum force with which it responds to any terror attack.
That might help him understand what India is up against — and how maturely we have responded.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist, and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)
Don’t take Trump seriously. No one does.
Wrong Vir.
You are obfuscating, misdirecting and whitewashing as usual.
This is not about terror.
It is about civilizational hate and Hindu hate — right from the words of Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir – that preceded the Pahalgam attacks by just a few days. Genocide and Jihad — directed selectively on Hindus of India.
The Pakistani public would not put up with decades of terror on civilians of Muslim countries.
This is simply terror used as a weapon on Hindus.
Either you are a fool or you think your readers are fools or you are deliberately vomiting nonsese.
Those who are comparing with election are traitors
Trump does not know what he is talking about
Its a war on terror, no doubt about it. Question is, would the bjp win the Bihar Assembly elections that it hopes to, after this successful operation.