Who’s winning/losing? (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 4: Internal Security
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Role of external state and non-state actors in creating challenges to internal security.

Context

•  After Pulwama, a suffocation has gripped India is looking not for solutions, but for someone to blame.
•  Pakistan has won to carry out such acts of violence with impunity.
•  No international pressure, no diplomatic response, no surgical strikes seem adequate to the task of deterring this behaviour.

Pakistan involvement in radicalization

•  Pakistan has won because while we have the right, and arguably the duty, to retaliate, we have not built the capabilities kind of intelligence, covert operations, and technological capabilities.
•  Pakistan has won because the radicalisation in Kashmir is real and the alienation pervasive.
•  Pakistan has won because our responses make India look more like Pakistan citizenship.
•  Pakistan has won because in the war we are alone.
•  It is even more important to keep Pakistan’s friends nearer to us than its enemies.
•  The world has its own interests in propping up the India-Pakistan divide.
•  The aftermath of Pulwama is not just about righteous anger against Pakistan.
•  It is about the deep suffocation at the realisation that we have let Pakistan win.
•  Sure, there will be some retaliatory action. But even if successful, we know that is not a victory.
•  In 1971, we won the war but lost the peace.
•  The truth is that defeating Pakistan is about defeating a state of mind called Pakistan.

Way forward

•  The net result is an anger that is self-destructively turning inward.
•  The Right has turned on Kashmiris, Muslims, journalists and other assorted “anti-nationals”, because it cannot accept the self-defeating nature of its own ideology and interventions.
•  It has been caught in the lie that a chest-thumping Modi can do better than a vacillating Nehru.
•  The Left has always laboured under the anxiety of whether its positions were principled or simply a rationalisation of weakness. Either way India feels trapped.
•  But the truth is defeating Pakistan is not about defeating the Pakistani state.
•  They will inflict losses on us. But the Pakistani state can equally be trusted to harm Pakistan.
•  The truth is that defeating Pakistan is about defeating a state of mind called Pakistan.
•  The disconcerting truth after Pulwama is the state of mind called Pakistan seems to have made inroads into us than the state of Pakistan itself. Pakistan has won.

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Jinja is located near which of the following rivers?
a) Thames
b) Nile
c) Mekong
d) None of the Above

Answer: B

Mains Questions:
Q.1) Do you see death penalty as an instrument of deterrence for terrorists? Despite the fact that some people also believe it is counter-productive. State your views in this regard and also suggest measures
to restrict the terrorist activities with the help of psychological methods.