Readers Write

Dear Editor,

India is Unstoppable

Lt Gen P R Shankar and his Gunners Shot podcast is widely regarded as one of the most respected and closely followed geopolitical and military programs on YouTube today, making it well worth regular viewing. This particular episode stands out as one of his finest among a series of excellent ones.
Gen Shankar’s impartial observations, devoid of excessive Indian nationalism, are particularly noteworthy. Furthermore, his ability to bring top Indian generals and military theorists onto his program to share their perspectives on key issues is commendable. Credit should be given to the PM Modi BJP/RSS government for allowing and even encouraging India’s top military and geopolitical thought leaders to express their views. In contrast, the Nehru-Gandhi family Congress Party administrations, which dominated India’s first 50 years after independence, were marked by paranoia about military coups, as seen in Pakistan and other newly independent nations. Consequently, India’s most decorated military commanders were never appointed as commanders-in-chief and were instead posted abroad as ambassadors upon retirement.
In this podcast, Gen Shankar aptly remarks, “I am called pro-US general. I am not. I am a pro-Indian general.” He freely criticizes the slipups of the PM Modi BJP/RSS government, just as he critiques India’s forgettable dynast and perennial PM hopeful, Rahul ‘Pappu’ Gandhi. Gen Shankar’s stance is clear: he is not pro-BJP, but pro-India, and did not vote for the BJP in the last election. Nevertheless, he accepts Narendra Modi as India’s Prime Minister and hence by extension, his own PM. This podcast is one of Gen Shankar’s finest introspective pieces, masterfully integrating military, economic, political, and cultural factors to explain India’s unstoppable rise as a global force in the 21st century. Gen Shankar freely acknowledges America and China as superpowers currently hold more economic and military power than India which is major regional but battle tested power. Gen Shankar goes on to add the America China dyad are inevitably declining, and he pithily says why. India inexorably ascends to become the second global superpower by mid-21st century, trailed by a decaying United States. Gen Shankar astutely observes that every nation and culture has its day. As India rises, Failed Marshal Asim Munir, Trump’s blue-eyed boy and terrorist Pakistan continue to attempt genocidal jihadi Gazwa-e-Hind games.
New York