The recent attack on Uri army camp in India by Pakistan backed terrorists and the subsequent tension on border and news rooms led to some strange reactions from journalists, politicians and common citizens.
I will focus on the reactions of a few political science students on Twitter that left me wondering whether these young people are really learning anything. These students are currently in a master’s level course in political science. As the tension grew, these students started sending tweets asking India and Pakistan to talk (as if Pak sponsored terrorism has stopped while talks are on), extolling the virtues of mature discussion and negotiations to solve all issues (ignorance of Pakistan’s death by a thousand cuts strategy) and how the inevitable nuclear war (needless panic) will wipe away human civilization. One girl even said that Pakistan and China will join hands (plausible) to nuke India from two sides (laughable).
It was quite disappointing to see such views that betrayed no or at best little understanding of geopolitics and Indo-Pak relations and history. The unfortunate part is some of these people will join think tanks and other institutions and add to the growing tribe of peaceniks who preach to India without understanding that it takes two to tango and Pakistan’s ISI & military will not play ball with any peace driven agenda. These reactions also made it clear that these students don’t understand China beyond its strategic partnership with Pakistan and have no understanding of the issues it faces in Xinjiang and South China Sea. They can’t fathom that China’s strategy of encircling India or its investment in Gwadar is to limit India’s regional influence and not out of any love for Pakistan. So while China will flex its muscles and bail out Pakistan every now and then (like it is doing by blocking India’s bid to get the United Nations to ban Pak based JeM terrorist Masood Azhar), it is not going to wage a nuclear war at Pakistan’s behest or even back Pakistan of it launches a nuclear bomb at India because such actions will hurt its aspirations of becoming the numero uno superpower. China will never want a confrontation with the rest of the world for the sake of Pakistan. Therefore while China will play foster father to Pakistan, that doesn’t really give Pakistan a free hand to launch nuclear strikes against India without repercussions. What these students also seem to have missed is to understand why Modi has elevated engagement with Japan, Vietnam and Phillipines (All of these countries are uncomfortable with the idea of Chinese hegemony in South Asia) and the strategic importance of India developing Iran’s Chabahar port.
As students of political science, it is important that these young people understand global politics and regional power equations and tussles. Therefore, it is good if they are debating scenarios that may happen in case of a conflict between two nuclear armed neighbors as far as those scenarios factor in the ground realities and are not panic reactions. But when they start to make lofty remarks about virtues of global peace and harmony and show displeasure and disdain at politicians playing politics, one wonders if they are learning anything at all.
Shades of Gray 