Delenda Carthago Est, Cato the Elder used to urge the Roman Senate. “Carthage must be destroyed.” In 146BC, the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus razed Carthage to the ground and sold its entire population into slavery. Carthaginians were never again to trouble Rome again. The hour has come for India to echo Cato the Elder’s clarity. Pakistan must be destroyed.

India’s post-partition relations with Pakistan should have been as benign as they are with Iran, Afghanistan, and later Bangladesh, but they are not. Pakistan has waged war on India and driven devastating murderous religious wars in India continuously ever since it was born in 1947. Those who would have us believe that Pakistan has legitimate grievances against India say that Indian bullying and imperialism is the reason for the Indo-Pak conflict, and that a resolution of the Kashmir issue would bring peace. This is completely false.

Were Kashmir resolved to Pakistan’s satisfaction, the Islamic Republic would not lay down its arms. Its military would not leave the stage, the vast cadre of Jihad it has built would not disband. Instead, it would be taken as the triumph of the Mujahideen against the Hindu, and a validation of Pakistan’s ambitions, perseverance, and methods. Flushed with success, Pakistan would press the advantage with more separatist movements in India, more insurgencies, more narratives of the persecution of Muslims, to hammer wedges into the fault lines and fractures of the Indian Union till they widen beyond the capacity of the Indian state to heal them, leading ultimately to the break-up of the Republic of India.

Have no doubts about it. Pakistan is waging Jihad against India, it has been doing so since the moment of its creation, and it will never stop.

There are only two choices before us: One, pretend that it is not so, pretend that Pakistan has not created devastating socio-political crises for India, pretend that Pakistan is an ineffectual annoyance that can be endured for another 100 years and more.

Or two, face the reality that an enormously powerful organized machinery of Jihad sits astride the Sindhu River, in the heart of Ancient India, on this side of the Khyber Pass, constantly striving to shatter the Republic that the Hindus have built for themselves, unable to digest that the dominion of Islam over the Hindus has passed and determined to subdue the idolaters once more.

The reality is that we do not have the luxury to sit bunkered down and inactive, hoping to endure the next 70 years of Pakistan’s assault as we have endured it over the last 70. Pakistan is working overtime to revive the Khalistan movement and has made enormous strides in organizing Sikh communities in Canada and elsewhere, that are rooted in the villages of Punjab, towards a resurgence of Khalistani activism. Inactivity at this juncture will only leave Punjab aflame again in a few years, Hindu and Sikh conflict exploding. The youth of Kashmir can already be seen to have become radicalized and hateful of India beyond anything this author has seen hitherto, while the state administration has sat idle and inactive for over 15 years, letting Pakistani Islamist ideological cancer spread unchecked.

This cannot be allowed to continue. The security and continued existence of the Indian Republic depend on pushing the world of Mujahideen and Ghazis to the other side of the Khyber Pass and out of the Indian subcontinent, and exterminating the ideology and organizations of Jihad from the subcontinent. That requires the complete destruction of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Let’s have no illusions about this. There are no talks and treaties that can cleanse Pakistan of the obsession to wage Jihad upon the Hindus. If the Republic of India does not bring about the destruction of Pakistan, godfather of Jihad, then it cannot secure itself from the forces of Islamism that have been active in the subcontinent ever since Iqbal switched from “Sare Jahan se Accha Hindustan hamara” to “Muslim hain hum, Sara Jahan Hamara“.

The only question is whether India has the gumption, the cunning, and the will to do what is necessary. Our record is poor. In 1965, our forces reached Lahore and were called back. We could have solved the problem right then. There would have then been no Khalistan movement, no genocide in Bangladesh, no Kashmir problem, no KP refugees, no nuclear threat, and the hundreds of thousands of Indian citizens, soldiers and civilians, who have died because of Pakistan’s villainy would have been spared the horror.

In 1971, again Pakistan was saved because Indira Gandhi, her political position as an Iron Lady secured, preferred to throw away the victory won by our soldiers, rather than stand up to the Americans and finish the job once and for all.

The opinion of those in the know is that India’s military preparedness for a war with Pakistan is poor. Lt. General KJ Singh wrote in Times of India, “Pragmatically considering our current state of equipment and ammunition inventory, we seem to lack the decisive edge and requisite force asymmetry for a full scale conventional war”.

This ought not come as a surprise to anyone who understands the nature and mentality of politics and bureaucracy in India. Let’s be very clear on this: India has managed to hold off Pakistan for 70 years only because of our vast size advantage. Were Pakistan the same size as India in resources, population and economy, India would have ceased to exist decades ago. If we have held our ground, it is not because of any commitment, drive and competence on the part of our elected officials, bureaucrats, and diplomats.

Prime Minister Modi faces an overwhelming challenge in turning the ship of the Indian State to deal with the existential challenge of Pakistan. He is beset by an establishment that urges caution, talks, cool-headedness, limited action, constantly reminds him of the nuclear threat, the Chinese threat, while tying up India’s preparedness for war in committees, red tape and corruption.

Mr. Modi must understand that how India relates to Pakistan is a prisoner of an Indian establishment that would rather do nothing and has spent decades ensuring that nothing can be done. And he must figure out how this is to be changed so that India acquires and exercises military power advantage over Pakistan that is commensurate to India’s vastly greater resources.

More than anything, we need gumption. We need to switch from constantly fearing the consequences of any action we take, to boldly taking action that terrifies the enemy and drives him into anxiety and fear. “Surgical strikes” will not do. Pakistan’s strategy, from Mumbai to Pulwama, of filling our TV screens with the images of the blood and bodies of our people splattered across our streets, is a form of psychological terrorism straight out of the ISIS playbook. Killing a few Pakistani soldiers in the dark of night is not a meaningful response. Indian response to Pakistani military sponsored Jihadist terrorism should be scenes of corresponding carnage on Pakistani soil, scaled up from any act committed in India.

The attack on Pulwama should have been followed by a massive BrahMos missile barrage upon Hafiz Saeed’s compound in Muridke, near Lahore. If that would be an act of war, then let it be so. Or are we so afraid of war, and so deficient in cunning, that Pakistan can carry on brazenly without fear of Nuclear War but we can do nothing in return because we’re terrified of Nuclear War? Why is Pakistan not the slightest bit frightened of our nukes but we are paralyzed into inaction by theirs? It really all comes down to political and bureaucratic leadership that has never pushed itself to create and maintain India’s mastery in war and foreign relations. Let us remember that the US brought about the destruction of the USSR despite the threat of nuclear Armageddon. We have no choice but to achieve the same for Pakistan!

India’s international standing is weak. No one takes initiatives like the Quad seriously because no one has any expectation that India can be relied up to back up its allies with aggression and boldness when called upon. But if there was ever an American president who would back a bold and decisive play by India and provide political cover and resources, its Donald Trump. If there was ever a time that Britain can be pushed to support India internationally against state sponsors of terrorism, its now, as Britain looks to India for political, security and trade relationships in the post-Brexit scenario.

Let us also face the ghosts of 1962. China has never acted militarily against India in support of Pakistan. It provides economic, equipment and diplomatic advantages to Pakistan, but the Indian fear of a “two front war” needs to be tested. China has never come to Pakistan’s aid militarily, not in 1965, not in 1971, not in 1999. Realistically, it is virtually impossible that China would declare war on India, sink Indian ships, attack Indian bases were India to get tough with Pakistan. The Sino-Pakistan relationship is not so strong as to trip China into war when its own strategic calculus does not call for it. India must call Pakistan’s China bluff, or the fear of China will forever keep us afraid of dealing with Pakistan.

Let us be clear: If every such attack by Pakistan slips from the news after some minor and irrelevant response has been made, it will only be a matter of decades before Pakistan’s plans come to fruition, and the Indian Republic, paralyzed by inactivity, indifference and cowardice, does crack apart at the seams.

If that is not an outcome we want, Pakistan has to be destroyed and we have to gear up to make it happen. Starting now.