The real threat from India.

Byline: Javid Husain

There is little doubt that India poses a real and enduring threat to Pakistan's existence as an independent and sovereign nation. The gravity of this threat has been aggravated in the recent past by the radical transformation taking place in India because of the rise of Hindutva or Hindu bigotry in the Indian body politic. Modi-led BJP government's re-election with a thumping majority on the slogan of Hindutva highlights the growing trend towards Hindu fanaticism and bellicose chauvinism which is taking root in India. This development is all the more ominous because of Modi's life-long membership of and BJP's close links with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant Hindu organization. This is bad news for the minorities in India, and a serious threat to India's neighbours, especially Pakistan, and to regional peace and stability.

The growing Hindu chauvinism in India poses a particularly serious threat to Pakistan's security because of the way India's strategists and policy makers look at it. C. Raja Mohan, a well-known Indian security analyst and a former member of India's National Security Advisory Board, in an article entitled 'India and the Balance of Power' in the Foreign Affairs issue of July-August, 2006 made the point that the creation of Pakistan was a major obstacle in the realization of India's grand strategic goals. According to him, this factor left India with a persistent conflict with Pakistan and an internal Hindu-Muslim divide, separated India from Afghanistan and Iran (also, one may add, from Central Asia), and created profound problems for India's engagement with the Muslim Middle East because of Pakistan's character as an Islamic state. It is not surprising, therefore, that India has exhibited abiding hostility towards Pakistan since its independence culminating in its invasion of East Pakistan in 1971 and the creation of Bangladesh.

India's hostility towards Pakistan is, therefore, a harsh reality which we can ignore only at our peril. Our bleeding-heart liberals, who tend to blame Pakistan for anything and everything that goes wrong in Pakistan-India relations, are way off the mark. While the Indian hostility should not be used as a pretext for condoning our own mistakes in managing our internal and external affairs, it would be a folly to overlook the seriousness of the threat that India poses to Pakistan's security. If anything, with the passage of time the Indian threat to Pakistan's...