Op Sindoor should be the catalyst facilitating the dawn of freedom to the oppressed in Pakistan, oppressed by GHQ Rawalpindi and its admixture of ethno reality with a fictional ideology that posits Hindus as being of a different species of homo sapiens than Muslims.
NEW DELHI: Operation Sindoor has to accomplish its purpose of ensuring that the terror machine of the Pakistan military be operational only at the peril of Pakistan. And the cloud that Beijing through Rawalpindi has lifted, so that investments transferred from China can be expected to shift to India. Unlike past precedents. In 1971, India was assisted by the Mukti Bahini to liberate Bangladesh, which was being treated as a colony by GHQ Rawalpindi. Mission Accomplished, a far more challenging task is now at hand, the liberation of Pakistan. This was a war forced on India and not sought by India. This is a war pitting a free, multicultural, multifaith country on track to become the third superpower of the globe against a country enslaved by a military that resembles the chemistry of Hamas and Hezbollah. It is glued together by hatred, hatred of the Hindu and hatred of a country where over 230 million Muslims of diverse sects live peaceably with their Christian, Buddhist and Hindu brothers and sisters. In contrast, the population of Christians, Hindus and sects such as the Ahmadiya (the sect which was the prime mover in the British colonial game plan of dismembering India) live amicably side by side with each other. Certainly there are those who spout fiery rhetoric, but “sticks and stones break my bones, words will never hurt me”, as the adage goes. Save occasions when mobs for hire are let loose, violence is absent. Unlike in Pakistan, where violence against some Muslim sects as well as on non-Muslims has become so endemic that the phenomenon is accepted as natural. Of course, there is nothing natural about hate and violence.
In Pakistan, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif is a cipher, responding to the tune of the Pakistan army, which for its evil deeds deserves to be known by the appellation “Pakisatan”. In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi far and away remains the most popular leader, and is now into his third term. The contrast between India and Pakistan could not be more stark even in a Bollywood movie. News channels are reporting 24/7 on Operation Sindoor, and what follows in the pages of The Sunday Guardian is not a repeat of such reportage, but an assessment of the endgame of Op Sindoor will inevitably lead to. This is to be the catalyst facilitating the dawn of freedom to the oppressed in Pakistan, oppressed by GHQ Rawalpindi and its admixture of ethno reality with a fictional ideology that posits Hindus as being of a different species of homo sapiens than Muslims. The mother of the writer converted publicly to Islam in 1999, after years of going out in a burqa. Did the change make her a different species from her three children and two adopted children, the former being Hindu and the latter Muslim? Perhaps General Asim Munir may have the kind of what it would be a misnomer to call intellect to believe so, but not any rational human being. The Bangladesh liberation ended the fiction of Islam uniting two disparate peoples in what became Pakistan on August 14, 1947. Op Sindoor will result in the complete destruction and repudiation of the “Two Nation” theory on which Pakistan was founded, and which has since been used to hound, harass and do worse to Hindus, Buddhists and Christians in Pakistan.
Almost as cruelly as the religious minorities have been, so have Shia, Ahmadiya and other groups of citizens in Pakistan, with many not even being given that tag. The reason is that since President Z.A. Bhutto chose the most servile supplicant to him within the Pakistan Army as Chief of Army Staff, the incoming COAS began the process of converting the Pakistan Army into a Wahhabi force. Zia repaid Bhutto for the honour by judicially executing him, and joining the growing list of army chiefs in Pakistan who removed the civilian authority and declared Martial Law in Pakistan. Under Zia, madrasas were converted into fast breeder reactors of Wahhabi graduates, who were given the same recognition as those who graduated from non-madrasa educational institutions. Such was the origin of what has since developed into Terroristan, a state dedicated to hate and violence. The army officers, serving and retired, have for decades done “private practice” by training recruits to the terror factories of groups such as Hamas and even ISIS. Osama bin Laden had been living quietly in Abbottabad for years before he was killed by the US and his remains thrown into the high seas.in 2011. Social media has long been replete with images of GHQ Rawalpindi officers consorting with known terrorists, a trend that has continued into the present.
This is not a war against Islam, it is a war against the fanaticism which causes hate and violence to be exercised against innocents. It is not a war against the people of Pakistan but a war meant to assist as they move to secure their own freedom from the clutches of GHQ Rawalpindi. Whether Baloch, Pashtun or other, each is proud of their own heritage and for long has been chafing under the yoke of GHQ Rawalpindi, which is wedded to the most extreme form of Wahhabism. Channels such as Al Jazeera owned by the accomplished Al Thani Royal House need to consider whether they should continue to support Wahhabism or revert to the moderate strain championed by stalwarts such as Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Sadly, Turkey under President Erdogan has repudiated the precepts of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and has adopted the ideology he detested and fought against, Wahhabism. All that this ideology brings is turmoil and deepening economic hardship, and greater and greater distance between the world of moderation and societal and economic progress. Prime Minister Modi has made Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Prayas, Sabka Vishwas as his lodestar. All citizens of India come within its ambit, irrespective of differentiating languages, faith and other characteristics. Op Sindoor is the Mahabharat of the 21st century, fought in the modern 21st century way where technology is central. As happened millennia ago, Dharma must prevail over Adharma. And Dharma includes freedom from terror, a fact embodied in the new doctrine announced by the central government, that an act of terror would be considered an act of war. And by breaking the ceasefire this is what Pakistan has brought on itself.