The Making Of A Hard State

By ratcheting up nationalistic sentiments to a fever pitch, the BJP is trying to reap political dividends.

- Sanjay Kapoor

File photo of 17 soldiers who were killed during a militant attack in Uri

WHAT DOES IT really take to trigger a war with Pakistan? Not much – it seems. After the surgical strikes – if they indeed caused as much harm as the Indian government is claiming they did – it would take just another retaliatory operation by the Pakistani Army or a vicious terror strike deep in India’s heartland for a full-blown war to break out. By the new rules of diplomatic engagement, India will take “a jaw for a tooth”, as colourfully stated by BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav after the attack on the Uri army camp that resulted in 19 soldiers’ deaths. If this provocation does not lead to war, what would?

Is a war between India and Pakistan really around the corner? There is plenty of lazy analysis that suggests tension between the two neighbours is being ratcheted up due to the crucial upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat where the BJP is reportedly losing ground. Predictably, due to this prevailing cynicism, many had suggested, much before the tension spun out of control, that the two countries could go to war. However, a larger game is being played out: the reordering of Indian society along with the tricky long-term rebalancing of global powers. At the geo-strategic level it is manifesting itself in the retreat of the US from South Asia and the rise of China and Russia in these spaces. What is exacerbating the drama and the consequent tension  is that India, with all its regional and global aspirations and its furious contestations with China and Pakistan, is relying on the support of the US, which is ambivalent about wielding clout in South Asia until a new president is elected in Washington.