NEW DELHI – Pratap Bhanu Mehta, former president of the Centre Policy Research in New Delhi which is one of India’s top think tanks, has conceded India’s defeat after the Pulwama incident in Indian-occupied Kashmir (IOK) and termed Indian anger “self-destructive.”
In his column published by *The Indian Express *on February 23, he expressed his views following the Pulwama incident and rising tensions between Pakistan and India.
“Pakistan has won because our public culture has become corrosive,” he stated, “The tragedy of Pulwama is not just that soldiers died; it is the sense that we are acting as if Pakistan has won.” he added.
He acknowledged that international pressure, diplomatic response and surgical strikes were inadequate to the task of deterring the situation.
He further admitted that India has not built ‘kind of intelligence’, covert operations and technological capabilities for a genuine response to sub-conventional warfare.
“It is easy to vent out anger at Kashmiris; it is far more difficult to accept the truth that in the last five years we made the situation in Kashmir far worse,” he stated, “After Pulwama, suffocation has gripped India.”