What Game is this?

May 2009. As millions of Internally Displaced People (IDP) flee from the military operation in Swat, Pakistan against Taliban terrorists, the prize Indian armor division launches a blitzkrieg across the dusty plains of Indian Punjab. Tens of thousands of Indian Infantry and Armor troops scramble or plod through freshly ploughed corn fields in a mock incursion into neighboring Pakistan. As the Pakistan Army fights bloody battles with the mysterious Taliban — despised, reviled and feared as thugs and criminals with little or no local support -- in the picture book, verdant valley of Swat a couple of hundred miles away, the Indians plan two more such large scale war games termed “Indian Power” (or “Hindu Shakti” in the local language.)

The War Games are sure to cause consternation in the Pakistani Army Head Quarters at Rawalpindi.

In 1971, the Pakistani Army was engaged in a similar “existential” battle with East Pakistani militants “Mukhti Bahini”. When the Army started getting the upper hand, India invaded with vastly superior forces and forced Pakistan to surrender — breaking it apart in the process. Indian Prime Minister, Indira GandhiIndira Gandhi, waved her aristocratic fist on the border and announced that India had just avenged a “thousand years of Muslim Rule.” Yes, India and Pakistan are “Olive Tree” countries meaning roots run deep and the air one breathes is thick with history. Most Indians are not yet reconciled to the sixty two year partition of United India into Muslim majority Pakistan and Hindu majority India.

Could a war game suddenly morph into a new Game of War? Are the Indians supporting the Taliban in Pakistan in 2009 like they did the Mukhti Bahini in East Pakistan in 1971? Many Pakistanis think so, and with war games like “Indian Power”, India is not giving them much cause to think otherwise. In fact Laura Rozen, writing in the US “Foreign Policy” magazine’s February 16th issue, quotes a US intelligence official -- who worked in both India and Pakistan -- as saying that the Indians are heavily involved in the insurgency in Swat. The US intelligence official claims that the Indians are arming and funding the same Taliban terrorists who are fighting against US troops in Afghanistan and Pakistani troops in Pakistan. He laments Obama’s decision to remove the Kashmir issue from Richard Holbrook’s mandate.

It is a dangerous game.

Destabilizing or brow beating Pakistan may assuage historical enmities or stoke jingoistic egos, but “Incredible India” itself is racked by structural fault lines that are largely ignored by a mass media whose passions and obsessions lie elsewhere . To begin with, over six hundred and fifty policeman were killed last year in a Naxalite or Maoist Rebellion that rages in over one quarter of India’s six hundred and fifty districts. Then there is the Hindu-Muslim divide which explodes periodically into enraged mobs — usually Hindu — venting unbelievable cruelty and carnage. The Kashmiri separatist movement, supported on and off by Pakistan, smolders or flares periodically. Any one of these insurgencies or divides can escalate uncontrollably in an environment of militancy and unrest to threaten the very existence of India.

Both Pakistan and India need to deal with their extreme poor and disenfranchised — who fuel insurgencies from Nagaland in North East India to Baluchistan in Western Pakistan. This is the real problem. Justice and jobs have to be meted out and infrastructure like roads, schools and power plants built. India and Pakistan need to play on the chessboard of business competition and jostling for development funds and foreign direct investment -- rather than on the chessboard of proxy wars and saber rattling.

Let the lunacy end.