Elections & politics of war

Recent events testify that India is going through a special quality of political discourse specially tailored for the Lok Sabaha elections. Never before in India has politics and public rhetoric been trimmed to produce a sense of national resentment as a precursor to some form of military combat, if not outright war, against Pakistan.

This is in the nature of the historical beast called the Partition of India, and life is sought to be milked to the fullest after the February 14 Pulwama attack, which from all accounts appears to have been the result of negligence and failures on the government's part to keep at bay the foreign terrorists which operate in Kashmir, and their local recruits.

Politics has received play through the beating up and sending back of Kashmiri students and traders that was orchestrated by the likes of the Bajrang Dal and ABVP, with the government tactically keeping quiet.

There have been official declarations - for psychological impact - such as imposing 200 per cent tax on (practically non-existent) Pakistani imports, and stopping river waters from flowing into Pakistan and Occupied Kashmir years later, visiting the funerals of slain CRPF jawans by BJP leaders, and the PM's repetitive statements that his "blood is boiling".

In response, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has visited the homes of the dead jawans and announced a security vision drafting team under the leadership of Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda (Retd), who had planned and executed the "surgical strike" in 2016. The government's actions are akin to budget sops, and the politics of Ram Mandir has, at an expedient moment, been trumped by the politics of war.