Indian Prime Minister’s “Mission Pakistan Peace” has been an obsessive fixation for the last five years. It has been revived by him once again this month after reversing the decision after Mumbai 26/11 that India would not enter in any peace dialogue with Pakistan until it makes amends in line with India’s calls to end terrorist attacks being launched from Pak territory. The Prime Minister has not advanced any cogent reasons as to what strategic gains accrue to India for reversing its policy when Pakistan has not ceased terrorist attacks against India nor violations of cease-fire agreements in Jammu & Kashmir. If proof was required of Pakistan’s unceasing belligerence against India, yesterday’s terrorist bomb attacks in Pune amply highlight Indian Prime Minister’s misplaced confidence about Pakistan. In fact this misplaced confidence amounts to a dangerous syndrome of “Pakistan Romanticism” by the Prime Minister. The Pune bombings become more sinister as they seem to be aimed at the Israeli Chabbad House and foreigners of the Osho Ashram.

In the run-up to this Indian Government’s declaratory decision, the Indian media was being manipulated by the Government to prepare Indian public opinion for India’s resumption of peace dialogue. It is well known that Indian public opinion is overwhelmingly against any peace engagement with Pakistan as that country continues to permit terrorism against India from its territory. Indian public opinion is also contemptuous of Indian political leaders and the political class as a whole for not adopting “terrorism deterrence policies” against Pakistan. The Prime Minister’s volte-face therefore flies against Indian public opinion.

The latest Pune terrorist bombings which bears all the imprints of Pakistan’s LeT and their local sympathizers is also a resounding slap to India’s peaceniks and those who sing peace tunes on Pakistan divorced from strategic realities. They fail to realize that Western peace dialogues templates and peace processes cannot be applied to Pakistan, a nation transformed by the Pakistan Army into a garrison states with medieval Islamic mindsets.

The Pune terrorist bombings become more sinister as like the Mumbai 26/11 they were aimed at the Israeli Chabbad House and a sizeable foreign community living at Osho Ashram and who get together at the German Bakery, which was the site of the bombing. The aim was to target a sizeable gathering of foreigners in Pune, in close vicinity of Mumbai where Mumbai 26/11 was perpetrated by LeT and their local modules.

Why are Pakistani terrorist organizations bombings in India since Mumbai 26/11making Israeli worship houses in India as a prime target? Why is the Israeli Government noted for its swift responses to terrorist attacks against its citizens anywhere in the world holding its hand against Pakistani terrorists? Why is the Israeli Government uncharacteristically silent in condemning Pakistan Government’s reluctance to restrain attacks against Israeli citizens in India? Who is holding back Israel? Israel needs to answer these questions as in the opinion of this Columnist the Indian Government would be reluctant to comment on these doubts based on an obsessive fixation of the Prime Minister for peace at any costs with Pakistan.

While the principal Opposition Party in India has reacted against the Indian Prime Minster’s ill-advised initiative to resume peace dialogue with Pakistan, it has not reacted with full force to highlight the Indian Government’s flawed decision and sensitized Indian public opinion against the strategic fallout of Indian Prime Minister’s obsession with peace with Pakistan at any cost.

The BJP owes it to its political existence as a watchdog on India’s national security by being the principal Opposition Party and also in India’s national interests to place on public record both outside and inside Parliament that the present Government is straying dangerously into a Pakistani strategic minefield and trap by a fixated obsession and ‘romanticism’ on Pakistan not borne out by strategic realities.

Time will bear out that Indian Government’s “Operation Pakistan Peace” is foredoomed to failure with the latest Pune terrorist bombings as an ample indicator.