INDIA’S true enemy is not Pakistan: it is hubris, the arrogance of a born-again bully. India emerged as a unified nation-state in 1947, the People’s Republic of China two years later. Both boast a heritage that is more than 5,000 years old. Yet each has spent the past seven decades struggling to resolve unfinished business left by divisive powers — Great Britain and America. In India’s case, this included the disputed former kingdom of Jammu & Kashmir. In China’s case, it was the renegade island of Taiwan.

Today, China and India are determined to straddle the 21st century. They have hegemonic ambitions. India aspires to dominate its subcontinent; China, the rest of the world.

China is a post-1972 enemy of US’s making, just as Russia (once an ally against Germany) is a product of Europe’s post-1945 paranoia. Meanwhile, hostility in the subcontinent, has brought Pakistan and India yet again to the edge of an abyss.

Tensions following the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22 are simmering. It is a sign of the BJP government’s insecurity that it should have reacted so quickly and so pointedly after that incident. It accused Pakistan (without........

© Dawn