Countering Pakistan’s Hostile Ecosystem

Jaideep Saikia

(Jaideep Saikia is India’s foremost strategist, thinker and best-selling author.

He can be reached at jdpsaikia@gmail.com)

Several readers have contacted me about the solution that I said I would proffer in my next column about how the terror-related situation in India may be resolved. In order to do so, I must first explain that there is a clear distinction between the terrorists and the ecosystem that breeds, sustains and impels them onto anti-India action.

For instance, the recent “doctors’ conspiracy” that came into public glare with the car explosion of November 10, 2025, is a case of “radicalisation” to the point where suicide was the primary option. This necessitated the systematic collection of tonnes of explosives and the engineering of a massive strike in India. The terror actors are visible, but the ecosystem is amorphous.

The first step, therefore, is to comprehend and identify the ecosystem which sires such terror actors. Operation Sindoor was unable to even touch the ecosystem. The ecosystem is not only a set of people but also a concept that is well grounded in a “Destroy-India” premise. To that end, it is an idea that is synonymous with Pakistan itself. Therefore, whether it was Jinnah, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Zia-ul-Haq, Pervez Musharraf or now Asim Munir, the ecosystem is primarily a poison ivy that spreads because the soil itself is fertile for its venomous proliferation.

If India has to be protected from further terror attacks, then it is imperative that the ecosystem that is continually generating anti-India terror action has to be dismantled.

How can this be achieved?

India has to create an ecosystem inside Pakistan (and now inside Bangladesh as well!) which destroys the inimical ecosystem that is eating into India’s innards. This cannot be achieved in a day or even months. Indeed, it would take years, perhaps 3 to 4 decades. It was an imperative that should have begun from the time Pakistan operationalised Op Gulmarg on August 20, 1947, just five days after India attained independence, when it sent Pashtun tribesmen to invade Kashmir. It is sad that India has not realised the need for a comprehensive “Dismantle-Pakistan” plan as yet. Dissuasion has not worked. It is also important to comprehend that India has not quite done all it is capable of (save moral support) to prop up the dissension in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa against Islamabad/Rawalpindi.

The concept of the “four Ds”, i.e., Defend, Defeat, Destroy and Deny, that I have written about in my earlier columns is an attempt to frame a pre‑emptive and a multi-layered approach to counter‑terrorism in the context that I have tried to explain above, i.e., the issue of an ill-disposed ecosystem and its dismantling.  The wide-ranging sense is to move from defensive postures to proactive disruption and then to extensive‑term denial of hostile opportunities. This has to be achieved by clinical recourse to the four Ds. Incidentally, the concept of the four Ds (in an altogether different parlance!) is probably already familiar in strategic literature, especially in the works of conflict theorists like David Kilcullen. Incidentally, it was Kilcullen who had predicted that the invasion of Iraq (2003) was an “extremely serious strategic error” and the sole reason for the creation of the Islamic State.

Kilcullen, in his book Blood Year, tangentially echoes my considered belief that ousting the Islamic State from the territory it had held in Iraq and Syria was a mistake.

When the Neo-Caliphate under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was announced from the Grand Mosque in Mosul, it also enjoined the “faithful” to undertake Hijrah (flight) and migrate to Iraq and Syria. This phenomenon can be said to have begun on June 29, 2014, when the Neo-Caliphate came into being, and one which continued almost until its territorial disintegration in March 2019, when a final battle took place in Baghuz in Syria. While the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani, which was an important component of the larger Deir-ez-Zor campaign, ended the Islamic State’s claim to any territory, it let loose all remnants of the Islamic State to different parts of the world.

The reason for my harking back to history and the mistake that the United States-led coalition made by de-territorialising the Islamic State from Iraq and Syria is that the radicals left for every possible nook and cranny in the world, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and even India. If the media is now referring to “white-coat” terrorists, it is purely because of the mistake that the commanders of Op Inherent Resolve made. With the coming together of a considerable number of radicals on Iraqi and Syrian soil, the smart way to go about aspects would have been to impound the entire territory in such a manner that Baghdadi’s men had no way of perpetrating terror elsewhere in the world. Physical and technological sequestering of the “Band of Baghdadi” would have confined them to the area. They could then be effectively monitored and systematically purged at will. The aforesaid de-territorialisation scattered them all over the world, and at least I am of the considered opinion (despite the temporary and newfound friend that India has garnered in the Taliban) that both Baisaran and Red Fort have unmistakable seeds of that grave error of 2019 in them.

Incidentally, this idea came from Lt Gen D. B. Shekatkar, a former 4 Corps General Officer Commanding in the late 1990s. I was discussing the ways and means of curtailing the ULFA’s operations from Bhutan’s Sandrup Jongkhar and Kalikhola in the Ops Room of 4 Corps with Gen Shekatkar. He came up with an incredible idea. He wanted to push the ULFA into places far inside Bhutan, such as Trashigang, from where it would be difficult for the terrorist organisation to hit targets inside Assam at will. I clearly recall him telling me, “Jaideep, let us push them into Bhutan, where they are at least a day’s march away from Assam. We can then monitor their movement. We should be able to see the tiger drinking water at 4 AM in the morning and killing a deer at 5 PM in the evening. We must not disturb him. Otherwise, he will leave Bhutan and go elsewhere (Bangladesh/Myanmar), where it would be difficult to ferret out his moves.”

Later, when the ULFA was ousted from Bhutan in December 2003, the number of attacks inside Assam which were carried out by the ULFA became even more devastating. General Shekatkar’s plan was a novel one. I called it the “Sunderbans Plan”. After all, the tiger had to be confined to the jungles. One did not want him to stray into Kolkata! But both the ULFA in 2004-2008 and now the Islamists are doing just that.

But to get on with the story, the first D, i.e., Defend, is all about defending India and its countrymen and assets from the enemy at all costs. Defeat: the second D must rout all anti-India forces in the pre-incubation stage itself. It means that India must accept that anti-Indianism exists, as I have stated earlier, before it actually germinates in an alien mind. This mode of cerebration is tantamount to stating that there are forces outside (and, unfortunately, inside) India which would “one day” contemplate anti-India action. An unfortunate parable can be drawn to the manner in which Kamsa of Sri Krishna lore knew beforehand that he would be killed by the eighth son of Devaki and Vasudeva and went about exterminating all the earlier six sons (Kírttimat, Sushena, Udayin, Bhadrasena, Rijudasa, and Bhadradeh) in his futile quest to kill the Lord.

The third aspect is to ‘Destroy’ the ecosystem, as aforesaid, and learn to play white and act preemptively and destroy every single cocoon of possible terror in the future. Even the process by which a zygote fuses into a diploid mode (2n) must be summarily destroyed. Deny, the fourth D, comes into play here, as there is every possibility of further germination. Indeed, it is million-fold, and India must erect structures whereby future zygote fusions are no longer possible. The model must be of such a high order that even pre-contemplation of an anti-India ecosystem is no longer possible. Every permutation and combination has to be algorithmically and sub-clinically examined to construct an ironclad denial superstructure. The hostile ecosystem must not be allowed to resurrect itself.

Certain well-meaning people, such as the former Assam Police DGP and Head of Intelligence, H.K. Deka, IPS (Retd), have, during an informal discussion with me on my 4 Ds concept, stated that certain extra-regional western powers have emboldened Pakistan against India. I would only respond by stating that a mature state like India must be able to win over such forces. Non-orthodox diplomacy can certainly achieve such objectives. It seems to me that India is instead running from pillar to post: one day the US, another China, and then again back to the US. This is inane diplomacy, unless of course there is a deeper game plan at play here.

The accent of the time should be (a) to completely revamp not only the setups that are charged with the duties of counterterrorism, internal intelligence and national security, but also to engineer a paradigm shift in India’s combat regime and (b) to work out a long-term methodology whereby the plague of terror emanating from Pakistan and its surrogate states like Bangladesh is destroyed forever. Complete amputation of a rotting limb is the only way to save a life. Delay would only make an entire country gangrenous.