The Indian military, on the other hand, has not only been starved of funds by inadequate budgets but is also deprived of hardware by a lackadaisical Ministry of Defence. First, in Pakistan, we face a security-state controlled by a Praetorian army whose nexus with its Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agency constitutes the all-powerful Pakistani “deep state”. Since peace with India will deprive the deep state of its raison d’etre, it has successfully sabotaged every single Indian peace overture. It is time to evolve a 25-year strategy to address Kashmir’s problems and eliminate Pakistan from the equation by ending alienation, providing employment, restoring civil administration and bringing Kashmir into the national mainstream. AdvertisingThis article first appeared in the print edition on April 3, 2019 under the title ‘De-fanging the deep state’.

Source: Indian Express April 02, 2019 18:33 UTC