History and Politics of India

Observing Pakistan’s unfolding implosion is prompting a pleasing sensation of Schadenfreude for most Indians. But it is a grave mistake to imagine that the final outcome will not be hazardous for India. Nor is it likely that Pakistan’s leaders, harbouring visceral hatred for Hindu India, will desist from harming it while they themselves self-destruct. Indeed there is a strong likelihood of temptation to aim for an apocalyptic endgame for the region should Pakistan itself truly disintegrate.

Pakistani society is already deeply divided horizontally, with several regions increasingly estranged from the Federal State and vertically, with a vast constituency enraged by their own shockingly greedy and profoundly foolhardy elites. And the ubiquitous Americans will come up with another surreal plan for Pakistan, without ceding control over its armed forces and the nuclear assets they and the Chinese conspired to implant there in order to bring India to heel.

It may also safely be predicted, contrary to the fantasies of the Delhi chatterati and elements of the Indian establishment, that the Anglo-American alliance will greet India’s dire discomfiture with satisfaction. They will welcome the disappearance of the second non-white challenger to their historic global supremacy, accentuated by a deep dislike for Indian sanctimony and a history of ill will. They will certainly expect to pick up some of the pieces of a broken-backed India, reconstituted as querulous independent entities seeking sustenance outside the region.

The historical record of India provides no comfort that such a situation is unlikely to arise. And the internal political and ideological fissures that endured in the past have now re-established deep roots within it. Hindus love quarrelling among themselves and their susceptibility to brainwashing to ensure they do so has few parallels. The most laughable spectacle is Indian Leftists, unashamedly pursuing mammon in the US while feigning deep thought and espousing the Rights of Muslims, though careful to only belabour democratic India and its hapless Hindus.