India should equip itself post Pulwama

Much like India has been asking Pakistan to shut down Jaish-e-Mohammad, Iran accuses Pakistan of sheltering the JuA (Jaish al-Adi) and has repeatedly asked Islamabad to crackdown against it. This is not the first time that Iran or India have been blaming Pakistan, accusing it of harbouring terror modules, under the active guidance and training of the ISI and the Army, and using them at will, against them. Pakistan, in fact, is home to, basically, terror modules, terrorists, extremists and other regressive forces, its Army and ISI and, unfortunately also its civilians.

The last mentioned have no say in much of the happenings within the country and the best they do is to keep themselves alive without falling victims of all the other elements mentioned and also hardliners. There is a fundamental difference compared to Pakistan and us. Our armies work within their framework and do not try to dictate or meddle in the governmental affairs as the Army in Pakistan does. So, when Iran and India delivered a stern message to Pakistan during a visit of Sushma Swaraj to Iran on February 16 Pakistan ignored the Indian part of it and is now busy in placating Iran.

It is not new that the Pakistani Army chose to target both Indian and Iranian forces within days, taking away 40 CRPF men in India and 27 of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Iran using two different extensions of its army - its non-State players - JeM and JuA. One does not know whether Iran and India would work together to take on Pakistan as both Iran and India suffered from two heinous terrorist attacks in the past few days resulting in big casualties.

While India has maintained that Pakistan uses terror organisations to wage proxy wars, its scathing attack on the country comes in the aftermath of the ghastly incident at Pulwama. Iran first blamed the Saudis, the US-Israel nexus and finally Pakistan. However, this should not be a cause for celebration in India as Iran considers Pakistan 'a brother State' and agrees that 'there are problems in Pakistan in controlling the terror groups which operate from its soil'.

So, it is entirely up to India how and what to do and when and where. Significant amid all this is the attack on Pakistan convoy in Baloch which killed at least nine Pakistani army personnel and injured many more. Pakistan, however, is not unduly worried about India and it has seen much more sabre rattling in the past. Perhaps, it is also more confident of the Indian approach due to the 'democratic compulsions' which India has wherein it stands to gain always. Once our anger dissipates, Pakistan knows, things would calm down and the war of words would be reduced to a political slugfest. We must also remember that India has very few friends.

Even Saudi Arabia which strongly condemned the Pulwama attack is ever willing to fund Pakistani military and also its seminaries and mosques. All these countries that keep quiet or just issue mere condemnations, have strong interests in Pakistan. We better equip ourselves logistically and politically to deal with the situation.