By the Editor: Siddharth Sehgal
Sometimes war and armed conflict remains the only possible option but alas, the brave sacrifice of twenty of our soldiers wasn’t enough to make New Delhi understand the real scope of the problem. Our diplomatic corpse wants to talk it out with China and PM Modi has ceded the ground practically by saying that there was no intrusion and no posts were captured, but what these guys don’t understand is that talks, agreements and bilateral understanding means nothing to China.
We’d keep on honoring agreements and the other side will keep breaking them, so why bother talking at all and moreover what is the guarantee the Chinese will not unilaterally break any terms of agreement in future? It does not matter what strategic asymmetry exist between our countries, it does not matter if the other side has more defense budgets or equipment, what matters is that the other side knows we can stall its dream to become a global superpower hence they would be better off not picking fight with us. Moreover, India has every justified reason to attack Chinese intrusion. World has seen China’s dirty tricks in letting Covid-19 spread through out the world and not warning other countries in time. Xi Jinping want to use this pandemic as a pretext to capture strategic advantage when other countries are struggling with Covid-19 but our political leadership should have guts enough to give our military a free hand. I am not saying war will not be costly for us but it will be massively expensive for the other side too, they will loose a lot of their costly infrastructure and man power that they so dearly invested in for that Belt and Road Initiative. In fact, China can be drawn into a prolong conflict where compromise will be their only option out. All we have to do is call their bluff.
In fact, the onus of this crisis lies on Indian Government and its leadership who did not rise to the occasion. When our leadership beat their 56 inch chest to boast that it’s not the India of 1962 then this is the time to show that transformation. Imagine if unarmed Indian soldiers who were unprepared and few in number can beat the hell out of ambushing Chinese to such an extent that they are even afraid to disclose their dead, then what would happen if our soldiers use actual firearms and ammunition against the PLA. We clearly have advantage in terms of experience and expertise in mountain warfare and improved tactical ability, in fact if govt. simply announces a general mobilization than that should be enough to send the message home to Kathmandu, Islamabad and Beijing that we are serious about defending our homeland. By accepting that there was no intrusion on our side, we are simply saying that whatever Chinese have intruded upon is their territory and our window of response is closing by every passing day. By hiding details of its talks with Beijing and on the 15th June conflict, Modi government is only embarrassing itself and the country.
A Prime Minister is not greater than the country, I am no fan of Nehru but at least he fought a war against Chinese aggression. Even if we lost that war, our courage and resolve in 1962 had served as a deterrent for future aggression up until now. Modi may not be able to point fingers at Nehru again if he accepts Chinese hegemony in Galwan.