Since the terrorist attack in Pulwama on CRPF convoy, many activists started using the hash tag #SayNotoWar to stop escalation. Social media activists, peace mongers and liberal icons has been very liberal in expressing their opinions that war between two nuclear armed countries is not a good idea. Therefore it becomes important to analyze whether the present ‘peaceful’ condition is in favor of India or a one time solution (read full scale war) to Pakistan problem is better. The current ‘peaceful’ situation cost billions of dollars to the country every year.
The defense budget of the country is around 60 billion dollar for the fiscal year 2018-19. More than three quarter of this goes to ‘establishment expenditure’ which could be cut down to half if the government finds ‘one time solution’ to Pakistan problem. The combined public expenditure of central and state government on healthcare is around 1.1 percent of GDP while the defense expenditure is 2.5 percent of GDP. If the Pakistan problem is solved almost half of defense expenditure will be saved and this money could be used to double health expenditure. Millions of life could be saved from this money and standard of living could be improved.
The extremism in Jammu & Kashmir will also be solved once and for all if the problem of Pakistan could be solved. The state of Jammu & Kashmir is completely dependent of central government for its expenditure due Article 35A which hurts the growth of the economy of the state. The total revenue receipts of the state for the fiscal year 2018-19 is 64,269 crore rupees. Out of this revenue from state’s own taxes (11,194 crore rupees) and non-taxes (5,761 crore rupees) is estimated at 16,955 crore rupees. The total grants from central government to the state is 34,330 crore rupees and its share in central taxes in 12,984 crore rupees. This means in the fiscal year of 2018-19, the state is expected to get 47,314 crore rupees from central government. This means 73.6 percent of states total revenue comes from central government, the state generates only 24 percent of total revenue.
In addition to armed forces, there are lakhs of paramilitary forces of CRPF and BSF posted in Jammu & Kashmir. They are posted to curb the extremist forces in Kashmir and the money for this establishment comes from expenditure of Ministry of Home Affairs.
The number of soldiers martyred in terrorist violence in Kashmir from 1988 to Feb 2019 is 6,503. On the other hand, total number of soldiers killed is 3,000 for 1965 war, 2,500 for 1971 war, 527 for 1999 war. This all adds to 6,027 killings in total loss in three wars against Pakistan. The number of soldiers killed in almost two decades of ‘peacetime’ is more than the soldiers killed in three wars.
India armed forces have a clear advantage over Pakistan in terms of defense capabilities as argued here in the previous article by our analyst.
Therefore India should go for a permanent solution to the Pakistan problem. The peace mongers who argue that thousands of the soldiers from both side will dies in case of full scale war needs to understand that Indian soldiers are dying in ‘peacetime’ too. War is better for India as it there will be no non-state actors (terrorist groups like LeT, JeM) will be involved and India has clear advantage over state actors of Pakistan. India’s western neighbor has already declared ‘proxy war’ by not taking strict action against. In fact, Pakistan has been breeding ground for terrorists and ISI actively supports them. So, India has ‘every reason’ to go for war against Pakistan.