National Security Doctrine

What has been happening in Jammu and Kashmir for more than three decades in terms of the ethno-religious conflict is not merely a proxy war or terrorism. To spell it out correctly; it is an ideological war inflicted by Pakistan on India. It is meant to question the very basis of the civilizational continuity called India. Even after the partition of India in 1947 and creation of Pakistan there has been no end to the belligerence patronised against India. Pakistan. All its moves have been directed to balkanise India. Jammu and Kashmir has been its primary target to engineer balkanisation of India. And for that it took the route of genocidal attrition of minorities leading to religious cleansing in 1990. The aim was to inject fear psychosis to alienate the minorities in Kashmir and in this project of destabilisation it succeeded. Pakistan used Kashmir as the laboratory of religious war to spread it to the rest of India. Terrorism unleashed by Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir is actually the extension of its religious war to accomplish what it calls the “unfinished agenda of partition”. Pakistan is clear about its war strategy and subversive agenda that it is orchestrating to vivisect India. The question arises then; what has been the response of India to this vicious strategy of Pakistan? In the last 35 years we have seen that the security grid and the security establishment guided by the political class at the helm of affairs have dealt with this subversive war in a different way. The Indian state has not been able to take the bull by the horns. As it has not addressed the challenge of religious war in the garb of terrorism accurately. When the Pakistan patronised terrorist onslaught started in 1989-1990 then it was termed as a mere law and order problem by the state machinery. And this had its ramifications. It allowed the Pakistan based terrorist cartels to consolidate the ground and engineer subversion besides a network of over ground workers. The Indian response that has emerged after decades of subversive war unleashed by Pakistan though somehow focussed on the counter terrorism response but it has missed the response at the level of security doctrine. The Pahalgam carnage that led to the tremendous loss of innocent lives has generated a new debate about the security lapse. But the things are more than that. Pahalgam carnage makes it clear that the security grid has to re-look its on ground strategy. Pahalgam carnage demands the existence of the national security doctrine to defeat the Pakistani machinations to dismember India by creating communal fault lines. As its policy is based on fragmentation of India by activating the subversive cartels that are dormant to act when the situation turns murky on ground. Thus the immediate need for India is to put in place a national security doctrine that decodes the ideological objectives of Pakistan’s genocidal attrition in Jammu and Kashmir. What is happening in Kashmir is not a law and order problem. Neither is it mere security lapse. It is a clear case of non-existence of the national security doctrine that overlooks the radicalisation being injected by using religious extremism. National security doctrine to defeat the Pakistani project of balkanisation of India in Kashmir can be put in place only when the Indian political establishment and the Indian state identifies and accepts that what is happening in Kashmir is not mere terrorism but a religious war to impose theo-fascism.