Aditya Sinha: Nuclear war? Such a 'bummer'

Indian forces keep vigil at the India and Pakistan International Border at RS Pura, about 35 km from Jammu on Saturday. Pic/PTI

"Gentleman, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room."

This line is from Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film, Dr Strangelove, or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, uttered by the US President Merkin Muffley when a scuffle breaks out between Air Force General Buck Turgidson and the Russian Ambassador, in the US War Room, during the flight of a squadron of nuclear-armed B-52s to the Soviet Union. They have been launched by psychotic Air Force General Jack D Ripper, who bypasses the chain of command to launch a nuclear strike on Russia. This satirical film is apt, what with all the war on common sense, logic and language this past week, provoked by the terrorist attack at the Uri army base.

The war-hype wasn't being tamped down, but instead driven higher and higher. Subramanian Swamy, who some claim could have won an Economics Nobel Prize had he not jumped into politics, went on TV to say that India, with a population of 110 crores, could afford to lose 10 crores in a nuclear war. If jawans and officers make the ultimate sacrifice then so can others, was his argument. A former army officer's moustache was on a TV news channel's panel, theorising that if India lost 500 million to a nuclear war, the remaining 500 million would have a strengthened nationalism.

This sounds like the logic of suicide bombers. I don't know why we don't just load men like Swamy and friends into cannons (you know, the kind they had at Gemini Circus) and shoot them across the border at terrorist camps.
The rhetoric peaked when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kerala - along with Tamil Nadu, the only place safe from atomic bombs - to throw down the gauntlet at Pakistan. Modi is under great pressure to act against Pakistan after the Uri attack. Most of that pressure is thanks to Modi himself. He is in a bind. If he goes to war, he can say bye-bye to that coveted seat on the UN Security Council. If he doesn't go to war, he will lose the UP Assembly election next year, and then the general election in 2019. Sigh.

"There's no patriotism, that's what it is. And no matriotism, either."

Captain Yossarian utters this meta-gem in Joseph Heller's glorious World War II novel Catch-22, chronicling members of Italy-based squadrons of bombadiers whose number of missions keep increasing every time they reach the target. I must confess that I lack both patriotism and matriotism. This is why I have no idea what strategic restraint is, or when India became unrestrained, or when we became re-restrained (as some said after Modi's Kozhikode speech). It can't be about not going to war: we don't go to war because we're afraid of losing. That's what the generals told us in 2002 (after the Parliament attack, when India amassed troops along Pakistan border), and in 2008 (after the 26/11 assault on Mumbai): that they would not advise teaching Pakistan a lesson. Heck, what are the nuclear ‘bums' (as they say both in Hindi and in Urdu) for, anyway?

Perhaps Modi is worried. After abusing Delhi-walas for years while he was in Opposition (particularly the English-speaking elite of Lutyens Delhi), he now realises that the first people to die in an exchange of nuclear bums will be Delhi-walas. And after 2014, both he and his alter-ego Amit Shah are Delhi-walas. The ironies of life. The only Delhi-wala that Modi really wants ‘bummed' is that pesky Arvind Kejriwal, who is slowly bleeding the BJP of seats not just in Delhi, but in Punjab, Goa and Gujarat as well. Kejriwal is the true terrorist as far as Modi is concerned.

There are Mumbaikars who probably want to see Delhi-walas suffer nuclear annihilation. Yes, it is the same Mumbaikars who want to deport Fawad Khan back to Pakistan, or who keep wondering whether nuclear bums will finally bring course-correction to the real estate market. Keep Fawad, I say. No Pakistani general will dare drop a bum on India's capital for economic crimes if a Pakistani actor is making good there. He'll drop it on Pune instead.

So what's Modi to do? The moment for surgical air strikes was lost when Pakistan tightened its air defences (with banning its own commercial flights) and mobilised its forces. India's forces now have to be patient and wait for Pakistan's defences to degrade. Pakistan can't keep its troops mobilised for long periods of time - unlike India. In a few weeks, their wall will start to crumble. That will be the time for ‘kinetic' payback.

Till then, remember John Hersey's Hiroshima (1946), about the atomic bomb victims: "...their faces were wholly burned, their eyesockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks."

Senior journalist Aditya Sinha is a contributor to the recently published anthology House Spirit: Drinking in India. He tweets @autumnshade.Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com