This blog contains material I wrote and posted on multiply.com between the years 2005 and 2011 only. It does not contain any new material. For newer writing, please check my main blog (Bill the Butcher).


Monday 26 November 2012

A Lifetime Behind Bars: The Story Of Machal Lalung

From December 2007


I’ve been reading “alarming reports” on how there may well be war between India and Pakistan very soon, in the aftermath of the Bombay attacks.

Don’t worry. There won’t.

There will not be a war for many reasons.

In the first place, a war costs a lot of money which, in these economically straitened times, the Indian elite will not want to spend. A war will only benefit the military-industrial complex, which, fortunately, India does not as yet have, because so far the Indian government hasn’t handed defence production over to the private sector. Bribes can be negotiated, of course, for acquiring weapons from abroad, but they are peanuts compared to the risk to the economic elite.

Secondly, Pakistan, let’s remember, has a large nuclear arsenal. In the event of war it will use that arsenal before it is either destroyed by Indian strikes or before the Americans who actually run the country seize and destroy the weapons. Since every part of India that the economic elite loves, specifically the Delhi complex of cities (Delhi, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Ghaziabad), Gujarat and Bombay, not to mention Bangalore, is within Pakistani missile range, there will be no war.

Third, those who talk of war mean a vicarious war, one that’s fought only on the TV screen and where they, themselves, do no fighting or dying. An India-Pakistan war will kill a lot of “poverty draftees” on either side – but it will not end there. A full scale war will damage the Great Indian Muddle Class beyond repair, not the least by wiping out the stock markets and the financial structure on which the Muddle Class depends for its employment: the companies that hire the Muddle Class' MBA-educated kids, the banks that hold the Muddle Class' money, the malls that bring the world's goodies to the Muddle Class; not to speak of the invisible wall that protects the Muddle Class from the rage of the poor underclass..

Fourth, any war will be squelched by the Americans, to whom India has long since surrendered its sovereignty – I read in the paper today that the US even says it has jurisdiction over the captured Pakistanifidayeen Amir Kasav (who incidentally killed only Indians). There will be no war because the Americans are now our sovereign rulers and the Americans will not allow a war.

Then, any war will mean a bad weakening of the Indian centre (especially so if Delhi is nuked). India - for all its federal pretences - is a rigidly centralised nation. This will mean secession of all those parts of the nation which do not want to be dragged down by a war they did not choose and which they did not want, and which they are liable to survive relatively undamaged – specifically, the east (which has many active secessionist movements) will break away and the south (which has a dormant secessionist spirit) may too. Another reason why there will be no war.

Sixth, posturing apart, the Indian armed forces, though less abysmally trained and equipped than the Pakistani, are in no shape to fight a major war (vide the Comptroller & Auditor General’s report of last month, which exposed the truly parlous state of our forces, with nonfunctioning submarines and a barely-there air force). Therefore there will be, unless the forces want to commit suicide, no war.

Seventh, the world is going through a prolonged economic meltdown. Politicians normally send their family members to other countries to settle down there with their ill-gotten gains. Since those gains won’t amount to a hill of beans in the current economic climate internationally, there will be no war.

Eighth, there will be no war because it will solve nothing. Anyone can download information from the net on how to make bombs and India has a flourishing illegal weapon market. So even if every single jihadi in Pakistan were to be exterminated, any Indian Muslim with a grudge will continue his activities, and terrorism from the Islamic side will continue.

Ninth, there will be no end to Hindunazi terrorism even if the jihadis are exterminated. Hindunazi terrorism will turn on the moderate Hindu because Nazis need enemies. Even idiots like our current government know this. Therefore there will be no war.

Tenth, there will be no war because nobody except the Hindunazis really wants total power to be in Hindunazi hands. Wars are rarely these days fought to definite conclusions, and in the aftermath of economic collapse and possibly the fragmentation of the nation in the aftermath of a ruinous and inconclusive war, the Hindunazis will take over and exterminate every possible competitor, starting with the non-Hindunazi Right. Therefore there will be no war.

Eleventh, there won’t be a war because the Indian public memory is so short that the Bombay attacks are already receding into the haze of the past. The poor, in any case, have livings to earn; the rich are more concerned with their jetsetting lifestyles and the Muddle Class are the only ones left – and even they will have forgotten all about it two months from now. They would have begun to forget already, if the media weren’t out to squeeze every bit out of it they can. 

Twelfth, we have an (unelected) economic “genius” of a “prime minister” whose only obsession is 9% or 10% growth and who won’t let such piffling things as social justice or concern for the poor come in the way of that monomania…and a war will do a hell of a lot more than justreduce “growth”, whatever that might be when it’s at home. Therefore there will be no war.

And, lastly – what would a “warlet” – strikes on terrorist training camps – achieve? Such camps can be moved and re-established within hours. I’d be astonished if they hadn’t been moved already. Since even our “intelligence agencies” (an oxymoron if there ever was one) know this, there will be no war.

I don’t rule out the idea that there may be a lot of sabre-rattling and deployment of the army to the border, though. This was done once in 2001-02, in an exercise that lasted a year (Operation Parakram it was called) and which cost an estimated 65 thousand million rupees 
(is it churlish of me to wonder how many roads, schools and hospitals that might have built?), not to speak of the deaths of 798 Indian soldiers in operational accidents. Some army we have.

Anyway, just suppose there is a war, and India does somehow prevail and captures Pakistan without too much damage to itself (that’s the absolute minimum it would take to even begin to try to eliminate Pakistani jihadis) – well then, what? Do we annex Pakistan? Will the Hindunazis decide to kill all Pakistani Muslims? How do they do that even if they want to? If not how do they like the idea of living in a nation where the Muslim population has about doubled overnight? How do we absorb Pakistan’s national debt in addition to our own? How do we decide to tackle the Pakistani resistance movement, which would spill over beyond the border because, surprise, there won’t be a border any more? If Pakistan is not to be annexed, how long do we occupy it? Forever? Who pays for that? If not forever, how do we ensure it doesn’t fall to jihadis, like Iraq did even under US occupation?

There are no answers to these questions, and so there won’t be any war.   

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