Make no mistake, a World War has begun

Choosing the right side will be critical for India, and under the seasoned leadership of PM Modi, this is what the country can expect.

- M.D. NALAPAT

A world war does not get initiated just by gunfire and the clash of militaries and newspaper and television headlines conveying the news of the start of war. It begins silently, almost creeping higher and higher stealthily, and it takes a while before the world understands the nature of the conflict. World War I (so named) and World War II (so named) were not world wars but European wars, soon afterwards involving the other side of the Atlantic later, which was always on the winning side as a consequence. Not because of fortune or happenstance but because the US had and has the capacity to make the difference and victory. Even in the world of high commerce, such is the case. True, during the period when these world wars were fought, much of the world was under the control of one or the other European powers. Willy-nilly, they were dragged into the conflict and endured even worse suffering than the colonized people previously had. However, they cannot legitimately get counted in the column of those countries willingly at war, for the countries were forced into the wars by their colonial masters. Only a free country counts in such a reckoning, which is why what has been initiated is not World War III but World War I. Only the now outdated view of themselves that some European countries still have makes them label the conflicts of 1914-18 and 1939-45 as World Wars rather than the Euro-Atlantic wars they were. Choosing the right side will be critical for India, and under the seasoned leadership of PM Modi, this is what the country can expect.