Terror to cricket, India has a 'bada bhai' complex with Pak

The announcement of the resumption of cricketing ties between India and Pakistan has had the ‘candlelight’ brigade delirious with joy. They’re already crawling out of the woodwork trotting out their theories about how India and Pakistan are brothers separated at birth, like in a Bollywood film, and whom fate has kept apart for too long. In that estimation, a Pakistani cricket tour of India is the sporting equivalent of the Yaadon ki Baraat song that will reunite the brothers, now grown to manhood. But outside of this cottage industry of bleeding-heart peaceniks, few people can make sense of the idiocy of playing ball with a Prodigal Brother who has, in all this time, only nursed venomous hatred for us. Consumed by Kashmir lust, he sends jihadi snakes into our home - and, over time, has only become more brazen in his  embrace of terrorism. Now exposed before the entire world as the epicentre of jihadi terror, and on the brink of bankruptcy, he is looking for a way out. [caption id=“attachment_380232” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  An Indian BSF officer shakes hands with a Pakistani Ranger at the Wagah border. Reuters[/caption] But even in this moment of supreme weakness, facing international heat over its double-game of ostensibly going after terror groups while simultaneously feeding the beasts, Pakistan  continues to mock India. When we proffer evidence of Pakistani state involvement in the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai, one of the most egregious instances of urban jihadi terror anywhere in the world, it turns around and suggests that it was the work of Hindu terror squads. And when hate-mongers in Pakistan continue to trot around the countryside making anti-India speeches and harnessing  jihadi hatred for the next attack, the Pakistani state provides them moral and material support to export its terror machine. But that kind of conduct is built into Pakistan’s DNA: for a country that was carved out of a united India on the basis of a specious two-nation theory founded on theocratic religious principles, the very existence of a secular, pluaralistic India is a stunning daily repudiation of the circumstances of its accursed birth as a nation. And the spectacular decline in jihadi Pakistan’s fortunes in recent years - and the simultaneous rise of India as a relatively superior economy - is a daily reminder of the folly of its ways. Which is why the Pakistani state uses terrorist groups as an extension of itself; their objective is not just to carry out terror attacks on Kashmir or on random Indian cities. Their ultimate goal is the destruction of the idea of India. When so much is known of the Pakistani mindset, why does the Indian government reward its perfidy by playing cricket, when we haven’t received the slightest indication that the Pakistani ‘deep state’ is willing to renounce the hatred in its black heart? In conducting its relations with Pakistan, India nurses an ’elder brother’ complex. That’s the perception that as the bigger of the two countries, which were separated at birth, India must bear the infirmities of the younger sibling. Under this worldview, the ‘younger brother’ may cause grievous hurt, but in the end, the ‘bada bhai’ ought not seek justice, but find solace in forgiveness. We must therefore magnanimously open up our large hearts, bear the slights and taunts that our fragile ‘kid brother’ hurls at us, and not descend to his level of pettiness. In doing that, we come up with the most elaborate alibis for why we have as much of a stake in ensuring that Pakistan, our kid brother state, does not collapse - because then mad mullahs and militarists would take over and we would have a problem that is many times more serious than having to deal with one cynically exploitative Pakistani ‘deep state’. But as this columnist observes, there’s a case to be made that the opposite may well be true. In 1971, Pakistan was dismembered when Bangladesh came into being. This immediately ensured two decades of peace for India, as an enfeebled Pakistan was focussed on its internal failings. Additionally, the creation of Bangladesh ended the open support for insurgencies in India’s northeastern region. Likewise, if Pakistan were to break up, he writes, “if Sindh or Baluchistan seceded, there is no way this could do India any harm. Rather, Pakistan would be so obsessed with its own problems that we would have a degree of peace.” In any case, the larger threat to India comes not from freelance jihadis, but from organised terror machines that enjoy Pakistani state patronage. And so long as the Pakistani state is strong and stable, those forces derive greater strength in their anti-India activities. When such is the case,  when the Pakistani state is tottering on the edge, but yet shows no contrition about the hatred it nurses in its heart, it is utter folly to throw it a lifeline - in the way that the Indian administration has done with its invitation to play cricket. Manmohan Singh’s peacenik approach towards Pakistani has landed India in colossal diplomatic mess on many occasions in the past, most spectacularly in the Sharm el-Sheikh fiasco. Now in the autumn of his political career, keen to secure his legacy as a peacemaker, and sign off with a state visit to Pakistan later this year, he is clearly overreaching himself. With its brazen refusal to bring the 26/11 masterminds to justice, and by continuing to mock Indian demands to wind down its terror machine, Pakistan has for long slighted the memory of the victims of the 26/11 attack - and other numerous terror attacks on India. By playing ball with Pakistan, despite its repeated insults, the Manmohan Singh government is demonstrating not the magnanimity of the bada bhai, but the utter spinelessness of a weakling nation-state that will forgive just about anything. Worse, it has become complicit in Pakistan’s dishonouring of the memory of the 26/11 victims.