Emerging India & Modi factor
India attained independence after centuries of being attacked, marauded, pillaged, converted and ruled over. Being very geostrategically located, having just gone through the unprecedented ordeal of partition, India had already acquired one hostile neighbour on two of its extremities. There was another huge neighbour, whose intentions with indications on the ground should have been assessed properly. It was a crucial stage for taking some hard decisions and formulating policies which would keep this large nation secure and integrated and also make it strong and prosperous to not only hold its own, but also to be able to influence its large, diverse and to a great extent inimical neighbourhood. However, unfortunately, that was not to be and India’s political leadership made a very poor start by ( a) failing to study the nature and extent of India’s vast land and sea boundaries, ( b) failing to realise the importance of military muscle and the timely use of adequate/ appropriate force, ( c) being ignorant/ naïve about tendencies/ intentions of neighbours like China and Pakistan, ( d) looking at the armed forces with suspicion and creating phobia of military rule, ( e) developing/ propagating a warped sense of secularism by obliterating history and ( f) laying the foundation of sycophancy, dynastic politics and corruption.
Unfortunately, India’s political leadership holding the centre- stage at that time decided to look at such an Army with suspicion and, sad to say, that the then Prime Minister and defence minister went out of their way to not only ignore any sound advice from the Army, but also meddled with the Army’s leadership, with disastrous results like the 1962 Chinese aggression, when this same professional Army obeying the orders of the government as per norms of a democracy, had to fight underarmed, ill- equipped and insufficiently clad and suffered a humiliating defeat.
In dealing with Pakistan during the first war it had already perpetrated with independence, no aggressive use of the Air Force was made and the Navy was not even utilised. During the Chinese aggression again no aggressive use of the Air Force was made. During the second India- Pakistan war of 1965, the Navy was completely kept out of the loop and the then naval chief ironically visited the operational area as an observer, even as Pakistan Navy launched an attack, albeit unsuccessfully.
The only exceptions of assertiveness against inimical neighbours/ external attacks in over six decades since independence, were by Shrimati Indira Gandhi.
In 1967, when Chinese Army upped the ante at Nathu La in Sikkim by repeated firing of not only small arms but also artillery, resulting in a number of fatal casualties the brigade commander requested for sanction to respond with artillery. She promptly accorded the sanction. The response resulted in about 400 Chinese soldiers being killed and a number of Chinese vehicles and fortifications being destroyed. The message that 1962 cannot be repeated was effectively sent to the Chinese. Since then, despite many confrontations and incursions by Chinese troops on the Line of Actual Control, no bullets have been exchanged between Chinese and Indian forces.
During the build- up towards the 1971 Indo- Pak war, Shrimati Gandhi heard and heeded the advice of the Army Chief and following a well- planned operation on two major fronts, with very effective use of the Navy for the first time, resulting in not only Pakistan’s defeat yet again, but also the liberation of Bangladesh. The US sending its 7th Fleet also did not make her loose any sleep. However, where she e faltered at last was during the Simla talks, when she fell for Zulfikar Bhutto’s dramatics and lies and by not using the 12,000 sq km of Pakistan’s territory in the Western sector as major bargaining chip of “Land for Peace”.
World’s largest democracy saw over 563 million votes being cast over a period of five weeks, resulting in a massive victory for the BJPled by former thrice elected chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who succeeded in reaching out to all parts of this vast nation during his campaign. While there is no doubt about Mr Modi being the decisive factor for BJP’s victory, this election’s result is also a testimony to the high level of dissatisfaction and frustration of the Indian public with the scam- ridden Congress- led United Progressive Alliance ( UPA).
If India’s 2014 election saga has been different from earlier ones or unprecedented, its genesis to a large extent, is the campaign launched by Anna Hazare. On April 5, 2011, Hazare began a fast unto death at Jantar Mantar in Delhi for a stronger anti- corruption Lokpal ( Ombudsman) Bill in Parliament, which shook both India’s public and its polity like never before. The public got shaken out of a stupor accumulated for over six decades on a diet of a dicey concoction of dynastic rule, vote- bank politics exploitation religion and caste, unbridled corruption, sycophancy , suppression/ twisting of certain facts also amounting to altering history and disturbingly, repeatedly compromising disastrously on national security.
Narendra Modi’s countrywide campaign of well attended rallies has been marked by his airing many facts of India’s history, assiduously suppressed by the Congress since Independence and some relevant ones since before Independence, as well as many lies or false claims of public welfare- related projects and other achievements made by the party.
As the war of words and barbs between the Congress and BJP’s got harder and hotter, the BJP came out with a 58- page “chargesheet” on UPA’s 10year rule, condemning it as a “failure on all fronts” and accusing Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party’s primeministerial candidate of being equally guilty of all ills by exercising authority without responsibility. BJP launched an all- out attack on UPA government accusing it for its economic policies that brought “destruction”, its policy on defence and national security, foreign policy and “neglect” of Northeast, besides “undermining” of institutions, including “compromising the dignity and integrity” of the office of Prime Minister.