Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram in his latest statement warned that if a fresh Mumbai-like terrorist attack is launched again India will take an instant retaliatory action. He said: "Pakistan is a trouble-shooter neighboring country of India. It should mend itself as a responsible neighbor."
It is a bold statement that the way terrorist attacks are being carried out against India it would be an ideal situation to give a befitting reply to Pakistan-based terrorist and their handlers, yet nothing has been done like that so far.
Resolving Kashmir Issue
Even a cursory look at the Indian history would show that India never invaded any country. On the contrary, it became the victim of invaders. On its very creation, Pakistan picked up trouble with India and captured one-third territory of Kashmir in 1947.
In 1965, when Pakistan attacked India, our forces marched forward right up to Lahore by crushing it heavily, but under the Tashkent Agreement reached through the Russian mediation, India withdrew from the Pakistani territory captured by it. Lal Bahadur Shastri died after signing the agreement.
In 1971, Pakistan made yet another invasion of India where 90,000 Pakistani soldiers were made war prisoners in Bangladesh and India captured certain parts of the Pakistan territory. But under the Simla Agreement, Indira Gandhi in response to the entreaties made by Bhutto released war prisoners and also returned the Pakistani territory. Likewise, Pakistan carried out an attack on Kargil treacherously. Pakistan was inflicted upon a crushing defeat in the Kargil war. As consequences, the US endeavors a cease-fire was enforced there and a safe passage was given to trapped invaders to retreat from there.
Since 1980, proxy war is being fought by Pakistan against India in the form of terrorism and it has been causing huge harm to Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and other parts of the country. But India has never launched attacks on terrorists and their sponsors in Pakistan.
When terrorists carried out strikes on the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly and the Parliament building in Delhi, the patience of the whole country was absolutely exhausted. The then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee declared a "do or die" war with Pakistan and deployed Indian troops along the border with Pakistan, but failed to carry out an invasion.
A determined prime minister like Vajpayee who carried out the second nuclear test at Pokharan had the potential to launch an attack, but he did not do so. Gradually, he also agreed to hold talks with Pakistan and the Indian forces returned to the barracks.
In September 2008, when Pakistani terrorists triggered explosions under the very nose of the Indian Government, only then the government awoke out of its slumber to some extent. But, Pakistani militants attacked Mumbai on 26 November 2008. It took three days for the Indian security squads and commandos to tackle them and a Pakistani terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, was arrested.
Dismantling Militant Training Camps
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders asked the Pakistani Government to dismantle militant training camps on the Pakistan soil and hand over the conspirators to India or prosecute them within Pakistan. The government went to the extend of saying that unless and until Pakistan demolish terrorist training camps and hand over the accused to India talks will not be held with Pakistan.
However, even after remaining in the denial mode for quite some time, Manmohan Singh held talks, first with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at Yekaterinburg in Russia and later at Sharm al-Shaykh (Egypt) with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. In the wake of these talks, India returned with the cancer of Balochistan.
The state of affairs now is that whenever the Taliban or some other terrorist groups trigger an explosion or a violent incident, Pakistani ministers and other authorities stand harping on the allegation of the Indian hand behind it or the Balochistan unrest. Notwithstanding all this, Manmohan Singh maintains "resolution of bilateral issues between the countries is possible only through talks."
Focusing Internal Security
Ever since Chidambaram assumed the charge of the Home Affairs Ministry he has been focusing on the internal security and enhanced the strength of the police and security forces and also provided modern arms to them. He has taken effective steps against militants.
The question is: What is the prime minister's opinion on his latest statement? Will he allow him to go ahead to translate his statement into action? If Chidambaram actually implements his warning, Pakistan will never muster up the courage to launch terrorist attack on India.
No comments:
Post a Comment