Strategized Demography: Why And How?

 To get the answer of question posed as title, we need to evaluate things not only in our domestic affairs but also in world affairs. Since 2004 we had multiple terror attacks in our cities but the biggest one was 26/11. It was expected that govt will raise cost for Pakistan but it did not happen. Amid all these incidents few interesting things happened and went unnoticed. One was spread of Hindu terror narrative, 2^nd was invitation to a political party president instead of P.M. of India  and 3^rd  was an agreement between age old Indian political party and CPC. 

Now if we join the dot we will find that Hindu terror theory was constructed to camouflage Pakistan actions not only in India but also in Balochistan and PoK and to limit India’s options to counter CPEC inforeseeable future.We have seen that how Pakistan is blaming India for terrorist attack which took place in Pakistan against Chinese firm. On the other hand Chinese were also trying to use election years to put money into pockets of self-centric politicians of India so that CPEC went unopposed. While all these were happening, we as a society, were thinking about just one aspect of our national security strategy which was economy. Did we discuss all these anywhere and did we aware about it at that point of time? Certainly not and the reason is we as a society failed to identify the strategic dimension of the events.  

Now let’s come to the year 2015 in which Indo-African summit was held in New Delhi. Suddenly, we had seen series of attacks on African people in capital of India and portray of India’s image as a racist country to spread anti India narrative among African people and their respective leaders. But it was never discussed and countered despite being a software superpower. When we look at china and its activities especially along LAC and in our neighborhood, we are still unaware about its design as a society. The reason behind is that we still want to enjoy short term pleasure which Chinese products offer to us especially in categories of mobile handset, products used in festival decoration, entertainment apps. We don’t know how these things are strengthening enemy in long run. We still think that strong economic relation between India and china will create a space for constructive talk especially on so called boundary dispute defined by china. We talk about right to privacy when it comes to DNA technology bill but we failed to get it when it comes to how Chinese are using their smart phone industry as a weapon to collect data from across the world. Shri Jayadeva Ranade (Former Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat) in his lecture at ‘IndoiAnalytics’ explained that why and how Chinese and other intelligence agencies are collecting data and using it against our interest. It seems normal because we are very less aware about strategic issues.

In Kerala we witnessed most number of ISIS recruiter from the state despite being a highest literacy rate and comparatively more educated state. It shows that as a society we are still unable to link how is enemy working among us and using our democracy as tool to advance its ideology and interest. Politics of West Bengal, Kerala, Maharashtra and Rajasthan is example of it because of rise in political violence and drug cartel in these states. The recent demand of groups of so called farmers to completely roll back agriculture laws which are enacted to provide more choices to farmers must be seen through strategic dimension too because of role of Canadian politics, arrest of Khalistani terrorist in delhi regarding the matter. Timing of these protest is also questionable as laws were passed more than a month ago and protest is taking place when preparation of republic day parade had already began.The recent declaration of their intent about how they will celebrate republic day of 2021 in front of foreign dignitaries despite of putting stay on farm laws and making a committee under the guidelines of Hon’ble Supreme Court shows the same design which we had seen during arrival of USA’s president.   

If we look at USA and France, we find that both nations had faced consequences of narrative in incidents like ‘black life matters’ and ‘Samuel Party murder’ respectively, despite being a developed and advanced nation. The portrayal of Gandhi as racist and attempt to move his statue first in Ghana in 2015 and now in Leicester, Britain in 2020 was a move made by anti India forces to tarnish the image but it was not debated in our society. We also forgot how data was used by ‘Cambridge Analytica’. Can we afford the cost of strategically less aware society in such a world where everything is turned into a weapon to achieve strategic goal? Recently our Hon’ble EAM emphasized on ‘militarized diplomacy, strategized military’ in an event at FINS to meet upcoming challenges of ‘THE GREAT GAME’ which is going on in the world. But for the sustainability of this approach and to correct historical mistakes, we also need ‘strategized demography’ otherwise we will meet the same fate like USA (example:black life matters).

Despite of multiple challenges and threat posed by Wuhan virus we began a new decade which will present more complex challenges. As we know that world is a very tough place to live, especially when competitiveness increased many fold, courtesy to technology, in 21^st century amid shortage of resources and rise in population. Information is travelling faster than ever and chemical-biological-cyber warfare has become new normal. The world is facing a new disorder with rise of violent, coercive and belligerent  china. The role of international institution has become more suspicious than ever due to monopoly and coercive diplomatic tactics of P-5. The world is busy in data theft and online colonization via Facebook, twitter, whats app and mobile manufacturing. We still think that Bollywood is a entertainment industry but we don’t think that it can be used as weapon as explained by VIKRAM SOOD in his book called ‘THE ULTIMATE GOAL’. To understand these circumstances we need strategized demography.

Thus it is clear that being a nation of youngest demography, vibrant democracy and 5^th largest economy our people must have strategic thinking instead of giving sudden reaction to any incident to thwart any misadventure of our enemy in every segment of comprehensive national power. To build this capability we must take several steps as following: first, all D.M., S.P., officers and jawans must communicate with each other including common people on regular basis about upcoming challenges apart from implementing developmental and security policies. If enemy can use various apps and social media than who is stopping us? Second, recruitment of cyber warriors to checkmate enemy at each level and propagate India’s narrative. Third, use of NCC and NSS cadets, territorial army (during 6 months of civil life) and veterans to aware people about complexity of the threat and mindset of enemy because since they involve in action, could deliver things in more appropriate way due to acceptance among masses. Fourth, seminars and webinars must be organized between bureaucracy and security forces so that we can synergies our policy and action. Fifth, Media, in all regional languages should be utilized to win psychological warfare. Sixth, we must put best and experienced strategic mind in our education institution so that enemy would not able to use our students and institution as a weapon. Seventh, we must build a team of language expert of foreign and Indian languages to tell not only India’s story in Indian way but also other’s story in Indian way. Eight, we must use cinema to tell about events which happened in past to gain strategic advantage.