By the Editor: Siddharth Sehgal
In this past week the history of this country and this subcontinent has changed forever. After a very long time and coma, Indian government retaliated against Pakistan for commiting crimes against Indian citizens. Pakistan got a taste of the anger of 1.3 billion people, courtesy Narendra Modi and the Indian armed forces. Yes we got the point across and also got our guy back — kudos to his courage and chutzpah — but we should not be too carried away in celebration. The war our brave pilot averted will certainly knock on our doors sooner or later.
I, like most Indians, don’t think that Pakistan will give heed to our concerns. It will be foolish to think that they will become angels this time. It will continue to support proxy war of terror against us and will most probably reassess and revise their tactics. They will take our pre-emptive strikes against Jaish-e-Mohammad as a hole in their security. They will prepare for the future escalations and that’s where we should beat them.
It would do good if we remove defense procurement from the ministry of defense, it should be under PMO with exclusive rights to make all decisions. Defense of mother land cannot be trusted to our laggard bureaucracy. It’s sloth speed, lack of political vision and corruption and opaqueness in procurement process is the reason we are using Mig 21’s for intercepting F-16’s. Though its the skill and training of our pilots that they hunted a top of the class flying machine with mere bow and arrow.
PM Narendra Modi has set a precedent for all future Indian governments and this example will ensure that all future PMs who will sit on Raisina hill will no longer look the other way when Indian citizens are killed. In recent history we became a power country ruled by weak men, its no longer the case now. You may like or dislike Narendra Modi but his decisive action has changed the course of history. Not even Vajpayee dared to cross LOC even during the Kargil war. People also have a clear understanding now that in Modi’s hands at least our dead will be avenged. Our lives never mattered to Congress and their allies but now, even they cannot afford to stand silent in face of terrorism.
War is coming, this is just a pause, for sure sooner or later we’d have to mobilize our forces to invade the other side to settle the scores. We have to prepare.