Pic 2: Chief of defence staff, Bipin Rawat, asking defence forces in India to prepare for non contact warfare,
Pic 3: Arsonist, Shahrukh, pointS his pistol at Police
Protest against citizenship amendment act (CAA) began in Delhi in the month of December and it has now entered the third month. By now Indian government has tried plethora of means to douse this fire, but the government’s efforts were watered down by the fact that each time protests subsided only temporarily, and the flames of resentment reignited soon after. This was a sign that the protests had an insatiable nature to it, backed by anti-India entities. Now that Ajit Doval, National security advisor of India, has stepped into this arena of burning tyres and radiating calls for azadi (freedom),Indian populace has discerned that under the garb of anti-CAA protests a sinister game plan to destabilize India is being played out. It is no easy feat for unorganized populace to carry out an ostensible agitation against the system, with free lunch and dinner for almost 3 months.
Yes, this is a nefarious design which involves diligent planning, resource accumulation, a king’s ransom and military precision in execution—India is being pushed into a non-contact war by the enemy.
Since last two days, social media has been flooded with posts asking government to take action against the murderers of Constable Ratan Lal and Intelligence bureau security assistant, Ankit Sharma. Media houses had initially misreported death of Constable Ratan Lal as– killed due to head injuries after stone pelting, when the actual reason was bullet injuries. On the other hand, 26 year old Ankit Sharma was brutally tortured and dumped in the drain. Reports have confirmed that his nose was chopped off, eyes gauged out and that there were other visible marks of torture on his body. This is a clear sign that there is planned attack being carried out not only on innocent citizens but also on the government officials—they were first isolated and then murdered. Planned agitation of this scale that targeted the population, impacted the government structures, and paralyzed normality in the capital of India, has not been witnessed by the country in the recent past.
These are elements of a non-contact warfare—when the enemy doesn’t wage a war with the forces on the traditional battlespace, instead minimizes it’s direct contact with the defence forces, and uses a third party (usually radicalized mob) to cause a dent in the economic progress, and to damage the thin fibre of societal unity leading to destabilization of the country– something that India is experiencing presently.
The plan
The plan was to transmogrify the innocuous looking agitation at Shaheen bagh into a full blown escalation at India’s borders, but it was to unfold in many stages.
Stage 1: Agitation
Largely peaceful agitation were initially carried out at Shaheen bagh using women and children, creating a narrative that a certain community was enraged by the citizenship amendment act. Here, the use of women and children was for the tactical appeal. Media and other anti-government entities were utilized to purvey this narrative within India and outside it.
Government at this stage was expected to treat the paid agitators with kid gloves. At this stage intel agencies were active, and they dug out the source of funding of many well-planned agitations. It was found that PFI (Popular front of India), an extremist organisation, through 73 syndicate banks helps helped pump Rs 120 crores or $16 million into anti-CAA protests. But a mild approach did not help in reducing the intensity of protests and it escalated to stage 2.
Stage 2: Political unrest, wave of riots, thefts and arson
In this stage political parties lend their support to the paid-agitators, pressurize the government to crucify government officials and others who take action against agitators. This functions as an umbrella that protects the agitators and lets them carry out riots, thefts, arson with impunity–violence in Jaffrabad is an example. IB security assistant Ankit sharma and Constable Ratan Lal were victims of stage 2.
This is when Indian government, which had just managed to unshackle it’s resources from Trump centered security tasks, brought in NSA, Ajit Doval, to put a check on the ferocity of paid-protests.
Stage 3: Taking out High value targets
The next stage of Shaheen bagh protests would have been either murder of a high value target (HVT) or their incarceration, which would have impeded government’s action against paid-agitators.
HVT, high value target, by definition is a commander who has to complete a mission, and is on enemy’s crosshairs. In India’s present scenario, the victim can be anyone from a local political leader heading pro-CAA march or the head of a political organisation from any camp, be it anti-CAA or pro-CAA. This would have caused chaos at an unimaginable scale, with followers of the HVT running helter-skelter like headless chickens.
Such chaos would have put tremendous pressure on the defence forces. Ideally, under such circumstances Rapid action force and para military are the first to arrive, but if the situation remains unmanageable, then Army is brought in.
With paid-agitators sabotaging private and government properties, riots on the streets , murders of political figures and government officials, enemy would have had the right opportunity to escalate the chaos to next stage.
Stage 4: Full blown escalation on the border and economic predation
It is always easier to attack an enemy who is weakened internally. With chaos having taken a firm grip over India, it would have been an open invitation to India’s enemies to open fire on the border. Conventional war is not the only possibility that the enemy would have sifted through, economic loop holes and ways to curb production within India would have also been exploited.
The enemy already attempted to utilize a window of opportunity during Trump’s visit to India when the protests had exacerbated–Pakistani BAT (border action team) infamous for decapitation and mutilation of soldiers, tried to infiltrate into India on Feb 20, via Neelum valley.
The ultimate aim of this strategy was to insert wedges between different communities in India, destabilize the government and the country, resulting in economic slowdown.
Inception, change in strategy and the other players
Genesis of this nefarious plan is not hard to figure out– Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI, definitely has role to play in it. This has already been proven by the fact that ISI backed PFI had been funding protests in India, and also by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s incendiary posts on his social media accounts. Pakistani deep state uses DGISPR (Director General Inter Services Public Relations) and Imran Khan’s accounts on social media for malign campaigns against India. The post below is an example of how Pakistani PM misleads people. India has the 2nd largest population of muslims in the world yet Imran Khan’s posts contradict this fact.
Till very recently, Pakistan Army depended on trained terrorists to carry out an asymmetric war against India but Pakistani deep state changed its strategy against India immediately after Balakot strikes, when India used it’s Airforce to bomb terrorists camps on Pakistani soil. Pakistan learnt its lessons from the incident that—India would continue such cock-a-snook operations on Pakistani soil to destroy terrorist launch-pads and camps. With a tarnished image Pakistan would have also soon slipped into Financial Action Task force’s (FATF) black list. Presently Pakistan is on FATF’s grey list, where it was relegated to atleast two times before this—in 2008 and 2012, but despite this, Pakistani deep state continued its unflinching support to terrorism.
To bring down a mammoth like India, Pakistani government with its weak economy cannot be the only players involved. Other than the usual suspects, Qatar is a country which often goes unnamed by Indian media houses. From Ilhan Omar, backed by Qatar, to Qatar’s official media house, Al-Jazeera, carrying out incessant smear campaigns against India, it is clear that Qatar does use its resources against India. It is to be noted that within the middle-eastern countries neither Qatar gets much support, nor is Al-Jazeera allowed to disseminate its propaganda.
India’s immediate concern should be to not let the present situation snowball into an avalanche. The enemy sans making a direct contact has managed to cause plethora of damage to not just normalcy within India but also to India’s reputation across the globe, while the enemy itself continues to remain ensconced safely among the paid-protestors.
This article is written by Levina