https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/india-pakistan-the-ukraine-war-through?s=w

India-Pakistan: The Ukraine War through three lenses

In general, the four ways to look at strategic matters are through the perspectives: realist, liberal and the radical right and left. The first two are where conventional strategy can be located, while latter two are not so much strategic as political perspectives. In India, the first – realist - is the popular one in the strategic and attentive communities. The second – liberal – is adopted by the alternative strategic community.

The radical right is aligned with the fist, though realists are shy of admitting it. As a result, realist logic cloaks radical right wing stratgising, legitimizing it and helping with its propagation. Whereas the realist perspective was always the dominant strain in strategic culture, the radical right having taken over political culture, its perspective has thus permeated and interwoven with realist dominance of strategic culture. However, since this permeation of strategic culture is a work-in-progress, the alignment is latent for now. Realists don’t take the logic of radical right-inspired realism to its logical conclusion, since the hangover that theirs’ is a secular act remains intact. The radical right in India being Hindutva-inspired is less apologetic, riding on the coat tails of realism, keeping its radical intent veiled while profiting from popular realist ballast. The liberal and radical left strains are rendered dormant by the paradigm-dominance of the two perspectives in a quasi-covert alliance: realist and radical right. 

If India is taken as a ‘normal’ State, then the four lenses are justifiable. Whereas the realist and liberal perspectives as hitherto would contest the intellectual high-ground, the others would be marginal. Increasingly, that India is a ‘normal’ state is an untenable assumption. India is an ideological State and therefore its strategy has to be informed, not by the usual yardsticks of national security, but the factors applicable for an ideology-inspired State, the foremost of which is regime perpetuation for sustenance of the ideology. Self-perpetuation imperatives supersede national security factors. In India, consolidation of Hindutva is the core concern.

Any examination of Indian strategic matters must be informed accordingly. Mainstream strategic writings dither from taking this onboard and are remiss on this account. Consequently, here the gap is sought to be filled. The paper takes a view of the implications of the Ukraine War for India using three lenses, taking the conventional approach in the first two parts dealing respectively with the realist and liberal approaches and, in the third part, modulating the findings under the ideological lights of the regime. The radical left perspective is not applied, though it bubbles away below the surface waiting to overturn things once Hindutva upturns India.

Part I: The realist lens

Evidently, the Indian army has taken note of lessons from the ongoing Ukraine-Russia War. Its commanders have observed that war is not quite passé, as the national security adviser had seemed to suggest last year in a lecture to those following in his policeman footsteps. Ajit Doval’s suggestion was that hybrid and grey zone war had displaced war as an instrument of national policy. Also, with the war in Ukraine entering its fourth month, the fond notion that war, when it occurs, will be short and swift, and, therefore, sweet, appears to have been decisively dispelled.

Realisation that wars happen would lead to them preparing with renewed vigour. That war, if it comes to it, might not end quickly, can see them arm to the teeth, not only through the well-worn import route but through the new-found Atmanirbharta one too. In short, the Ukraine War has given national security and its military instrument, a shot in the arm. Missing from the lessons learnt is that the lessons are applicable for war in which one of the two contestants is not a nuclear power. Since both our neighbours are nuclear powers, lessons have to be circumscribed accordingly.

This the military has been doing for the past 20 years. The Army’s Cold Start doctrine was cognizant of nuclear thresholds. The realist case was that Pakistan was deterred by the promise of disproportionate nuclear retaliation, allowing for quick, shallow-thrust retribution in case of Pakistani subconventional provocations. The doctrine – nuclear and conventional - having be put together, it’s taken some 20 years to operationalise. The integrated battle groups (IBG) are being put in place.

The China threat having loomed large lately, some Pakistan-specific formations have been shifted as part of a rebalancing. Any deficit is being tidied over by a ceasefire in place with Pakistan on the Line of Control (LC), taking advantage of Pakistan’s preoccupation with its other front, Afghanistan. Alongside, optimising military power application through reorganization into joint theatre commands is contemplated. The military reform, drawing on the two recent wars - Azerbaijan-Armenia and Russo-Ukraine - also envisages a technological turn, compensating loss in numbers. Since Kashmir is in the midst of political resolution efforts of sorts – laden with an admixture of Hindutva – a turn to grey zone war to keep Pakistan sensitized to its underside is underway. Kashmir serves as a grey zone war theatre for both sides. 

India is enthused by surgical strikes, irrespective of their nullity in strategic value. They promise surgical strikes differently now. An IBG in its Yol Corps is perhaps waiting for launch. That Pakistan has the wherewithal for taking on IBGs implies more will have to follow in the initial footsteps by both, making for self-reinforcing escalation potentially nudging nuclear thresholds of both. While Pakistan has advertised a lowered threshold as part of its ‘full spectrum deterrence’, India’s increasing skin-in-the-game if on a downward cycle, can also unhinge its’ No First Use pledge (NFU). Realist strategic analysts are sanguine this deters, allowing for conventionally administered punishment.

Realists take care not to go into political-strategic analysis that should logically lead nuclear-use thinking. This self-censorship owes to political-strategic analysis consciously distancing from including Hindutva verities, eliding attention from the most critical transformation within India. Harshly said, strategic analysts are complicit, or, to give them benefit of the doubt, are uncomprehending of strategic cultural artifacts of Hindutva.

 Part II: The liberal lens

Wars happen and preparing helps deter is a truism. Therefore, conundrums that arise need managing. Arguably, arming in anticipation of a war results in a security dilemma, which provokes are response in the adversary. Its response then serves to inform the threat perception, reinforcing the case for militarization and militarism. In a nuclearised context, it is well-taken that nuclear weapons are for deterrence rather than for war fighting. However, another conundrum is that leveraging nuclear weapons for deterrence increases likelihood of war outbreak, liable to go nuclear by nuclear doctrinal precepts.  The doctrinal tussle over whether a war can go nuclear is between India’s retaliatory promise making it unthinkable and Pakistan’s nonchalant threat of embedding nuclear weapons into its conventional response. The outcome can only be decided at the crunch.

India’s arming through the eighties resulted - in part - in Pakistan’s strategy to undercut the growing conventional asymmetry by launch of and sustaining a proxy war against India. Alongside, for insurance, it also took care to covertly go nuclear. Realising by decade-end that its conventional deterrent had diluted, India changed doctrinal tack conventionally and went overtly nuclear. A decade on, Pakistan sought to checkmate Indian conventional doctrinal movement by a turn to tactical nuclear weapons. For its part, India reiterated - for the sake of nuclear deterrence credibility - that for it nuclear first use by Pakistan is a one-step escalation to its assured destruction. Pakistan’s nuclear buildup, particularly of its missiles and nuclear warhead numbers, tacitly warned that this would be mutual. Since neither state has taken the subsequent doctrinal steps that should logically follow, it is at this juncture of doctrinal inter-activity that the next war will be fought.

Logically, if a war is poised to go nuclear, then it should not be countenanced in first place. That has patently not happened. The LC ceasefire has not been taken forward, wherein it is upgraded from an agreement between the two militaries to one between the two States. The political resolution envisaged for Jammu and Kashmir, beginning with deflating it from statehood, is going rapidly in a reverse direction. Pepped up by security indices, India misses the ground is shifting beneath its feet. Consequently, the security situation shall remain instead one in which war, even if not inevitable, is not off the table. Even if not as rationally arrived at choice of one of the two sides, war can be thrust on the two by as commonplace an event as a terror attack.

The inference from the seeming inevitability of war needs to be taken further to ending a security situation where war remains an option. Instead, the strategic choice has been in favour of conduct of hybrid or grey zone war. This creates the security conditions for outbreak of war which justifies the preparedness for it – allowing, in turn, for conduct of grey zone war.

On the second lesson from the Ukraine War – on war duration – the inference is that since war is not ruled out, it needs prosecution. Since over three score IBGs are reportedly envisaged, there is either denial that the war could go nuclear or an acceptance that a nuclear war can be fought. Lately, the nuclear threat appears eclipsed somewhat. Pakistan does not need to reach for the nuclear weapons to redress any conventional asymmetry as earlier. This makes the nuclear dimension of a war recede, though making for a long-duration war.

Ukraine’s holding out creditably, if not with the distinction western commentators give it, shows that Pakistan could do as well. Just as Ukraine was thrown a lifeline, Chinese largesse for Pakistan could keep it afloat. Pakistan has enough irregular war potential to replicate for India the long war the Americans got into in Afghanistan. If Zelensky could whistle up a foreign legion, it would be an easier proposition for Pakistan to attract the floating would-be jihadists dispersed by the end of the Islamic State in Levant. A longer war gives India more time to prevail, but with time would be less surety of doing so. Indian inability to prevail will keep Pakistan’s nuclear weapons sheathed, while increasing India’s utility for these, NFU notwithstanding.

Had Ukraine remained a nuclear state, Russia would have laid off.  And, if war did nevertheless did get underway, nuclear weapons could well have figured in the conflict by now. Nuclear weapons have been bandied by Russia already to stay any adventurism on part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.  Besides, scenarios were conjured up in which Russia could credibly be seen to reaching for battlefield nukes, such as for instance to open up Azovstal steelworks at Mariupol in case it proved a hard nut to crack conventionally. Such thinking can be informed by the logic that led to the first use of nuclear weapons: to save Americans lives from invasion of Japan. The ongoing conflict has had the overall ill-effect of loosening the nuclear taboo. A nuclear state may well use nuclear weapons rather than lose a conflict, No First Use (NFU) protestations notwithstanding.

War termination strategy acquires immediacy. This is the most understudied part of conflict to begin with. The Ukraine War has shown it to be the most significant. There have been multiple junctures at which either of the two sides could have reached for the switching off the war by now, but neither has been able to. The ‘ripe moments’ have occurred, even if only about now is a ‘hurting stalemate’ building up. Both are aware that war is but the creating of conditions for negotiations over the war’s causes. Political will has been missing in grasping the nettle. Zelensky has been bought by promises of Western support in the rebuilding, predicated on his weakening Russia to a degree. Putin, for his part, is taking by force what he was unable to do with the preceding period of grey zone war since 2014. That it would be a rather moth-eaten Donbas does not lessen the satisfaction of playing war lord.

India would likewise be faced with similar war continuation temptations, adding to war termination challenges. On this score, its record from war making has been mixed. In 1947, it drew up at the ethno-linguistic line between Kashmir and Punjab, hoping with UN assistance to have the border settled along it. In 1965, it stopped short of forcing a defeat on Pakistan, persuaded that a draw might see a satiated Pakistan give up on Kashmir. (There are stories that mistaken fears of artillery ammunition running short prompted the ceasefire (liberally disseminated by a knowledgeable bureaucrat at the Army’s cost leading to his being considered persona non grata for some years back then.)) It tired to sweeten the deal at Tashkent by giving back territorial gains, but also firming in the ceasefire line thereby. In 1971, India did well not to carry the war into West Pakistan, once the East had surrendered, again hoping that a chastised Pakistan would be more amenable to recognize the changed strategic reality. In the event, India overplayed its hand with the Pokhran tests and conventional upgrades to its mechanized forces. Pakistan, with the fortuitous help from America, bounced back, launching proxy war under nuclear cover. At Kargil, India did not venture beyond retaking its side of the LC. Thus, besides keeping wars short in duration and short of going for the clincher, India has also been forthcoming in being accommodative on both the battlefield and on the negotiation table. Whether next time round, such a promising precedence would help is uncertain, prompting a consideration of domestic politics.  

Part III: The radical right lens

India is now New India. India’s Hindutva-inspired regime is out to settle old scores, mostly with Muslim ghosts of the past (other than of Nehru). In Kashmir, it’s rolled back all possibilities of negotiated political settlement. Its ideological support base is being fed with visions of Akhand Bharat, visualized as a South Asian map that includes Pakistan. To materialize Bharat, a Hindu Rashtra, it rides on the populism of Hindu Hriday Samrat, Narendra Modi, a leader reputedly strong-on-defence. Myth-making of India’s showing in the surgical strikes by land and air and a tactical-level unarmed skirmish in Ladakh sustain the image. A national security adviser - hyped as Chanakya reincarnate – reinforces it. With this self-image, it would be rather difficult for India to match up to its past strategic modesty, faced as it would be - like Putin - with inflated self-worth.

Even so, India is unlikely to shoot its way out of a war it is losing, since the image is mostly hype – best known to those that have invested much in building up it up and charged with such decisions. A brief digression to buttress the point that India’s self-image flatters to please is from the China front.

Some 50000 Indian soldiers are reputedly in eyeball confrontation. Apparently, equivalent levels of Chinese troops are held out as justification for Indian buildup to like levels. If true, the good part is that such numbers are reassuring for both sides, implying that they can indulge in a war without any immediate threat of it going nuclear. Being fought in mountains that ‘eat troops’, it is one that can also go on for long. The area rather remote, it would not threaten either NFU pledge, nuclear weapons only coming into the frame in case of an improbable operational level breakthrough in other theatres, such as at India’s Chicken’s Neck.

However, the projection of the China threat, intrinsic in the numbers China supposedly has up there, is questionable. China is unfazed by India’s troops’ buildup. India has not projected any offensive intent behind this buildup. Even Operation Snow Leopard was merely an occupation of features on own side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). India tamely vacated these without a quid pro quo. India’s generals are talking of ‘strategic patience’, phrasing better heard from diplomats or national security officials rather than frontline generals.

When China, advantaged by its infrastructure, can bring up troops at will – as it demonstrated in April 2020 – there is little necessity to keep them ahead in response to India’s LCisation of the LAC. It has never claimed Ladakh, so does not need the capability in place. It has already got control up to its claim line, with India giving up buffer zones along it. Since it does not have offensive intent China does not need the troop numbers attributed to it. Besides, commentators have it that it intends to fight differently, and not be troop intensity reliant. Finally, to ward of the threat of Indian offensive, it does not need an equivalent number of troops, but just about a third the number of Indians if faces. In short, it is unlikely to have more than some 20000 troops, which is not quite the 50000 that the Indians say they do, requiring of India to keep such numbers up there.

It follows therefore that India’s inflation of the China threat, from the numbers China reportedly has on hand, is a ploy to justify India maintaining such numbers there instead. Such numbers shows India as facing-down a China threat; thereby building-up the Modi regime’s image as strong-on-defence. Commendable though the logistics of the moblisation are, it’s an alibi for Indian solo shadow boxing in Ladakh.

The implication for the Pakistan front is that New India cannot be diverted from the bedding-in of Hindutva to make India, Bharat. Consequently, whereas fences won’t be mended with Pakistan – the external-Other - these may be kept maintained. The relative equivalence of mechanized reserves between the two sides broadcasts that India has no offensive intent. The other significant factor that suggests a deliberate dilution of Indian threat signaling is in the hobbling of the army with the Tour of Duty terms of service for other ranks. There has also been a downward trend in India’s defence budget pre-Covid. Besides, India has not thought it befitting to put in place a Chief of Defence Staff, foregoing the attendant force multiplication the appointment carries. These indicate a tacit appeasement of Pakistan - and China. It is strategy for buying India time for not only finishing what it started in Kashmir, but also get Hindutva going without getting derailed.

This dilutes its deterrent intended to cover proxy war. If all this makes Pakistan venturesome, India can get back at Pakistan with grey zone war of its own, and its tactic, surgical strikes. If this eventuates in a war, relative parity will keep out the nuclear factor, allowing for the war to be used by the Indian regime for its internal political purposes of Hindutva consolidation. In other words, a war thrust on India is not unwelcome and nor will it be used to twist the knife. A long duration, low intensity war is not without its benefits for India. If Pakistan loses, it helps with Akhand Bharat and if Pakistan does not lose, it helps Hindutva in India.

What a dash of Hindutva to strategy does

A realist blind spot has been the eliding of domestic politics from strategic analyses. As seen here, when domestic politics is factored in, strategic analysis in the realist mode is shown up as vacant. In summary, India wishes to avoid war for domestic political reasons: the consolidation of Hindutva is the regime’s primary aim. To manage the external strategic environment, against Pakistan, it has instruments such as grey zone war, for deterrence. Should a war be forced on it, it has revitalized its conventional resources, even on the China front. However, its conventional deterrence has diluted on the Pakistan front due to the rebalancing underway. As a result, it would not be able to prevail. The good part of this is in marginalizing the utility of nuclear weapons for Pakistan. Nuclear weapons stashed away, a conventional long-duration war comes forth. Whereas when Indian deterrence of proxy war was based on a shortened conventional fuse, it was strategically reticent. Now, India’s willingness to chance war – through its grey zone turn - owes to war, even if of longer duration, being less likely to go nuclear.

The Ukraine War appears to have been a double whammy: not only has it buffeted the nuclear taboo but also brought war back into the reckoning. On the face of it, the two possibilities – war and a nuclear one at that - stand enhanced in South Asia. However, insight from domestic politics needs adding. Doing so gives rise to the propositions: grey zone war acts as a buffer to war; long-duration war buffers nuclear weapons’ use; and, with a shaky NFU to begin with, India is not disadvantaged by nuclear eddies. Such strategizing perhaps secures New India for Hindutva to deliver Hindu Rashtra.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/

1.      12 May - Faced with Hindu Rashtra, what should India’s Muslims do?

2.      3 May - Reprising the Manual of Military Law provisions on Martial Law

3.       30 Apr - On the deletion of the iftar tweet

4.       25 Apr - What’s Hindutva’s strategy for India’s Muslims?

5.      15 Apr – Agenda for the new Chiefs

6.      13 Apr - Expectations of the Tour of Duty initiative

7.      12 Apr - An alternative strategic reading of Modi’s India

8.      9 Apr - Hindi-Hindu-Hindusthan

9.      7 Apr – Chinar Corps under the scanner

10.  5 Apr – Whats holding up the Chief of Defence Staff?

11.  4 Apr – Taking Kashmiri Pandits for a ride

12.  3 Apr – Indian Army fails the diversity test

13.  1 Apr – AFSPA is part of the problem

14.  31 Mar – India-China predicament and No First Use

15.  30 Mar – India’s strategic doctrine

16.  29 Mar - The Kashmir Files: Upturning the Box Office

17.  28 Mar – Russo-Ukrainian War: Implications for India’s Cold Start doctrine

18.   27 Mar – Ending Russo-Ukrainian War

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/faced-with-hindu-rashtra-what-should?utm_source=twitter&s=w\

Faced with Hindu Rashtra, what should India’s Muslims do?

In an earlier post I had it that Hindutva is out to get to Hindu Rashtra on the back of the popularity of Narendra Modi. Considering that Modi has about a decade of productive life left, the head of the right wing ecosystem, Mohan Bhagwat, telescoped the timeline to get to Hindu Rashtra to 15 years. Besides, right wing backroom boys attuned to international developments discern a window of opportunity. The West that might have been put out by India’s lurch towards authoritarianism and illiberal democracy will remain embroiled with the twin challenges posed by Russia and China. It would need India alongside, and would not be averse to looking the other way when India, as promised by Bhagwat, carries a ‘big stick’ to get Hindu Rashtra dissenters – including and especially its Muslims - to heel.

Since both the aim – Hindu Rashtra – and strategy – Big Stick – are now in the open, it behooves on India’s Muslims - prospective targets of the Big Stick - to get their act together. Since much is kept deliberately fuzzy – such as the nature of Hindu Rashtra – it is difficult for Muslims to arrive at their aim and strategy. If the Hindu Rashtra is based on the liberal and inclusive concept of traditional Hinduism, there is little worry since the usual Hindu accommodativeness will prevail, as hitherto. Only the label will be different, with Hinduism self-consciously taking credit for a liberal New India, as against liberal civic nationalism earlier. However, if the trends are a guide, liberal Hinduism might be eclipsed by Hindutva which is political or politicized Hinduism. Hindutva in the reading here bears a similar relationship with Hinduism as does Islamism with Islam. In such a case, Muslims will not only bear the brunt of the transition but will also be cast into second class status in the new Republic.

Muslims must therefore not only lend a hand for the triumph of liberal Hinduism in the battle internal to Hindus, but must also prepare for the worst, the triumph of Hindutva. By all accounts, the latter is on the upswing. Hindutva is calling the shots in political culture, with other political parties being pale imitations of its political standard-bearer, the ruling party. Some posit a social space in India’s infinite local transactions and negotiations where the pushback against Hindutva can emerge, but it’s a space Hindutva is increasingly invading. Even so, Muslim strategy for outlasting Hindutva must reckon with preserving these spaces, if any.

Strategising for the Age of Hindutva must begin where strategy does: getting the aim right. At the onset of the Modi era, I had opined that Muslims must keep their head down and allow Modi’s tenure to blow away. However, that did not happen in 2019, nor is likely to happen in 2024. While keeping the head down is a good in itself, it’s not enough, since Hindutva is interested in Muslims, even if Muslims might just want to be left alone. Clearly, the aim is to survive the Age of Hindutva. Maximally, Hindutva wants a subcontinent cleansed of Islam; Akhand Bharat of sorts. Muslim neighbours being populous, and one of them, nuclear armed, makes this a pipedream. Therefore, a minimalist version can be expected to begin with, restricted to India, within its current borders, even if the borders include slivers of neighbour-held territory. Therefore, Indian Muslims have their aim cut out: survive.

A limited aim as that makes for plentitude of options. Beginning with appeasement, in which Muslims fall in line with Hindutva expectations of them, the options – in strategic speak – are along the continuum: appeasement-defensive-deterrent-offensive. Defensive would be akin to the status quo, which can be visualized as the Jehangirpuri model in which the local community mobilised to face-off against saffronite intruders. Even so, as seen they were subject to reprisal by an assault on their livelihoods by dozers. Deterrence thus steps up as an option. It can be imagined as the Shaheen Bagh model in which the locals stared down the dozers deployed for intimidating them. Since Hindutva is unlikely to let matters rest at that – having lost that battle it will be looking to win the ones that follow and the war itself – taking to the offensive is the last option. This is open and widespread defiance, with proactive outreach to likeminded groups within India and outside. This is however predicated on the trajectory of Hindutva aggressiveness. Consequently, Muslims have only the first three options to choose from - appeasement, defensive and deterrent – with the fourth – offensive - thrust on them.

Appeasement has a stench to it. Nevertheless, being non-provocative, it is worth serious consideration. Muslims, as a minority in India, cannot exercise a veto on where the majority wishes to take India. If to Ram Rajya, it is not a worry since that is synonymous with Nizam-e-Mustafa, the creation and sustainment of a just and humane society. So long as freedom, equality and solidarity are undimmed, Muslims can even participate in the enterprise of a New India. This will strengthen the liberal forces in Hinduism, allowing them to wrest the initiative from their illiberal coreligionists. The upcoming thrust towards a Uniform Civil Code provides an opportunity for Muslims to test waters by participating in the debate. They can afford to conform as a minority if invited on the basis of equality and spirit of brotherhood. If just another stick to beat Muslims with, they may not be able to go the distance. Thus, to begin with the choice can well be appeasement, with other options being forced on Muslims corresponding to the ascendance of hardcore Hindutva in the internal-to-Hindus power equations.

The defensive option is a non-confrontationist more-of-the-same. The local communities put upon by Hindutva have to respond with their own resources. This reflects the diverse nature of Muslim India, with Muslim communities being geographically and socially distanced from each other. Their mobilisation as a community once had the colossal consequence of Partition. Whereas the mobilization was to assert their position and power, the rug was pulled from under their feet with Partition being acceded to by minders of the Congress. The negative ring to mobilisation as a community was reinforced by the serious misstep in picking a cause: the Shah Banu case. That triggered off the chain of events beginning with the fall of Babri Masjid and that are yet to see a denouement, with the fate of the Mathura Mosque hanging by a thread. There is also a perennial deficit of national level leadership. Consequently, this is the default option, with the Muslim communities dotting India waiting for the local onslaughts as the Hindutva campaign catches steam. It will allow for the piecemeal whittling of isolated Muslim communities, which can serve to set the stage for the third option: deterrence.

Deterrence, in the Shaheen Bagh mould, is confrontationist. It takes up cudgels with Hindutva, not only intellectually, such as in Shaheen Bagh’s momentous defiance of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), but also physically, such as turning back the dozers sent by the local right wing administration for an arbitrary and selective discharge of its functions. Since Indian Muslim communities are disparate, with varying resources and nested in communities with differing interest in battling Hindutva, this option might serve better-positioned communities, such as in Kerala or in Muslim pockets as Hyderabad. Bengali Muslims, the primary targets of Hindutva ire, may be so inclined in areas of their presence, Bengal and Assam. However, this would be to leave their vulnerable brethren - the real object of Hindutva wrath – eking out a living elsewhere as at Jehangirpuri - exposed to reprisal. Defensive deterrence – prickly when provoked – has the advantage of sensitizing the majority against allowing Hindutva a free ride. This is already in evidence with corporate honchos advising caution that overzealous Hindutva can impact the economy negatively. It may prevent Hindutva from going the whole hog.

Hindutva may not be deterred, but instead spurred on by rebuff. Its aggression may require Indian Muslims to either throw in the towel, get on with ghar wapsi or ‘going to Pakistan’. The elite might have the resource to opt out of Indian citizenship, while some members on the borderline of faith, might Indianise and be integrated as Hindu Mohammedans. A writer has revealed that some Muslims have taken to changing their names to get by. Hindutva may find the doctrinal arguments to take into its fold returnees, who it believes left the bottom of the social pile under malign influence of Sufis or fear of the Islamist sword of fanatical Muslim rulers as Aurangzeb. It may provide the necessary incentives, quite like its cooption of the other backward classes into towing its line by sweetners either material or a piece of the leadership pie. There are enough internal Muslim furrows for Hindutva to exploit towards such an end, not least of which is the prominent sectarian one: Shia and Sunni. ‘Divide and rule’, being an Indian statecraft characteristic relied on liberally by British overlords, makes Muslims easy prey. Even so, enlightened strategizing of sweetening the pill may elide Hindutva as it closes in for the kill. Triumph looming large, Hindutva may acquire monster proportions, leaving Muslims with little recourse than walk into gas chambers willingly or be dragged into these reluctantly.

The latter is prevented by the fourth - obstructionist – option: offensive. This has potential to escalate from a rash of outbreaks of unrest, such as tamed by the British in 1857, to localized civil war, unheard of in subcontinental history. Power-drunk, Hindutva may take recourse to a Kalinga-like crack-down. Neighbouring Muslim States may apprehend that they are next in its sights. The existential threat to Muslims might energise a subcontinental counter, a throwback to Europe’s religious wars. Alternatively all this might be on a slow-burn, with pogroms – as prognosticated recently by an academic who looks at intercommunity relations – in footsteps of lynching and the rash of recently-witnessed micro-riots. In aggression-by-stealth, pogroms will acquire a justification as they go along in the counter they provoke. Hindutva will set Muslims up for a comeuppance, leaving Muslims with a fight-or-flight option. Whereas communities contiguous to neighbours – such as Kashmiris or Bengali Muslims along the Bangladesh border - may put up an externally-abetted spirited counter, the Gujarat pogrom indicates that others stand to be decimated. The talk of genocide lately has such fears at heart.

Hindutva backroom strategists have war-gamed this. This is clear from the measured manner Hindutva has been baring its fangs. It has resorted to the ‘boiling the frog’ technique in upping temperatures. Its seeming one-foot-forward-two-steps-back stride is taking form. For instance, the CAA regulations - pending since the legislation - shall be put in place along with developments on the population register. The much-vaunted ‘chronology’ is getting into gear, in stride with Hindus being inveigled through gimmicks as the Ayodhya Mandir, Mathura Mosque, Qutb Minar, Taj Mahal, Islamicate names etc. Policy missteps that have done more to put a USD 5 trillion economy out of reach - than has Covid - forces a need for an Other to let-off steam on. Diversions in inaugurations and demolitions may not be enough, but a ‘security threat’ fits the bill as Chanakya’s most dangerous threat – externally abetted internal threat. India’s Deep State is past master at putting Muslims in the dock, with the media and strategic community complicit.

International outcry will be managed, foregrounding sovereignty and treating the unrest as internal disturbance. Neighbours will be fended-off with gray zone warfare. Given Pakistan’s nuclear cover, conventional blows will be avoided. The global Muslim community will be fobbed-off by assiduously forged linkages with Arab states (that famously included the kidnap by Marine commandos of the high seas of the daughter of a sheikh and her return by the national security adviser who ordered the operation to the oppressive patriarch). Any external support will be projected as support for terrorism, leveraging and explaining the disproportionate foreign policy investment India has put in its counter terrorism policy plank. This will be rather easy, given that Islamists might take an interest in whats happening to their fellow Muslims, carrying on their respective fights with their national authorities on Islam’s place in the world. Majoritarianism will be presented as the democratic will, giving the West an alibi to straight-facedly look the other way. To the extent, there is a Russian-Chinese axis persisting, the West – hypocritical in its defence of values at the best of times - will be quiescent. China will be prevented from fishing in India’s troubled waters by appeasing it – as now – on the borders. Besides, with India internally beset, there would be little reason for China to fuel India’s self-lit fires.

Of the four options – quiescent/appeasement; non-provocative/defensive; confrontationist/deterrent and obstructionist/offensive – India’s Muslims will likely have a local community-specific choice along the continuum. These will change as the situation moves along, transiting from one option to another and bouncing back. The potentially violent options will be dependent on and reactive to Hindutva’s propensity and sense of impunity.

What is clear is that the price of Hindu Rashtra will be steep and will not be paid by India’s Muslims alone, even if they will bear the brunt. It’s for Hindus to rein in extremists in their ranks. They need to have Hindutva stalwarts define where Hindu Rashtra stands in relation to Ram Rajya and where exactly does the Big Stick fit in the run up. If the Big Stick is fundamental to the journey and the destination is not quite Ram Rajya, then Hindus must revise their voting patterns. The onus cannot be on Muslims to play villain, stalling Hindutva in its tracks and upending Hindu Rashtra.