Fourth-Generation Warfare & the Communist-Missionary Nexus

Before exploring the many dimensions of the Fourth-Generation Warfare, let us begin with a few problems that stem from our own education system which has been responsible for giving rise to a deracinated generation of men and women, immaculately trained to denigrate everything that is a part of their own culture and belief systems. Christian educational institutions have undoubtedly been among one of the most favourite destinations for educating the young kids in India. The reasons for this may vary from place to place. But, the chief factor behind such a preference has been the usage of English as the primary language of instruction in these schools.

The importance given to the English language grew continuously during the period of British colonisation of India. But, it became an obsession after 1947 when the colonial masters left the country. It suited the colonised minds of the Indian elite to continue with this colonial hangover, owing to the obvious advantages of social and political capital that accrued from such an arrangement. The power structure left behind by the British exercised its dominance in the day-to-day lives of Indians. Hence, it became much easier for the brown sahibs to carry on with this same old system, instead of devising a new one. This can largely be attributed to the deep-rooted infliction of the colonial mindset in almost all the major socio-political institutions of India.

On the other hand, after the departure of the British from India, the Christian missionaries found their replacement in the emerging Neo-elite of the Indian society. As a result, the existing education system in India has been used both subtly and aggressively through the Christian educational institutions, which have been at the forefront of executing the political game-plan of religious proselytisation in India. They have used both explicit and implicit techniques for achieving this end. Whether they are the Christian missionary-funded schools in the rural areas, convent schools in the urban areas or reputed universities and colleges spread across the nook and corner of our country, the goal is one and the same – religious conversion.

Under the garb of providing quality education to young Indians, the missionary agenda of first brainwashing and then converting the kids later in life has been continuing unabashedly. An anecdote shared by one of my Professors at the University of Delhi is telling in this regard. Most importantly, it resonated very well to what I had myself experienced in a convent school. The Professor told me how during her school days in a convent institution, Christian values were imposed upon the students despite their Hindu Dharmic background, all in the name of discipline. The wearing of symbols associated with the Hindu way of life such as bindi, payal, choodi, etc. were frowned upon and even invited punishment at times.

But, our classmates who were practising Christians or were already into gradually accepting the faith as a result of their brainwash, were treated differently. One such case was mentioned by the Professor in particular where one of her friends was indoctrinated to such an extent that she became fearful of ‘God’ literally everywhere. She was made to believe that an omnipresent ‘God’ is constantly keeping a watch over her. According to that Professor, there were several such cases where innocent students were scarred for life owing to the forceful propaganda carried out by these schools and the continuous brainwash of the poor little kids. Quite possibly, the timeline of this incident is around 50-55 years ago. But, the manner of such brainwash and the intensity with which it has been occurring has only increased over time.

Their prime targets are the extremely poor and downtrodden sections of our society. The financial penury of this section of people has been strategically exploited by the missionaries, to achieve their long-term hideous design of religious conversion in order to ‘Save Souls’. The hierarchy and the geographical territory both, of the Christian educational institutions in this regard are quite very much well-demarcated. It is common knowledge that the missionary schools primarily target the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities residing in different pockets of India from the North to the South and the West to the North-East. Economic inducements are being given to lure the innocent and vulnerable parents to send their kids to these institutions.

It is the economic hardship of the parents that has served as a boon for these institutions which are all working in one way or the other as the “Harvesters of Souls”. The poor families send their kids to these institutions in the hope of making them educated citizens of the country who can also help the family come out of the vicious cycle of poverty. But, in most of the cases, these little minds undergo a systematically regulated process of brainwashing which teaches them to hate their own faith and customs. Eventually, they turn out to be tools in the hands of the Missionary schools to propagate the Christian faith in the families and the communities from where they come.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Convent school system that mostly preys upon the middle-class and upper middle-class Hindu families in urban India to fulfil their quota of soul-harvesting. The slavish mentality of a majority of the educated Indians towards English language in particular and the Western education system in general has already been explained in the above paragraphs. This has greatly aided in bestowing upon the Convent schools an undefined aura of legitimacy and authority, incomparable to any other decent school whether in the Government or the Private sector. The outward proclamation that can be observed in most of these schools is that of imparting excellence and discipline among the students.

But, in reality, through a very sophisticated and carefully devised system, it is the idea of monotheism that is glorified in these schools. On the contrary, all other “non-Christian” beliefs and faith systems (Hindu Dharma in particular) are derided upon and in many instances, even ridiculed by using every other trick that is possible for the purpose. E.g. meting out punishment to girl students for putting mehndi in their hands, expelling boys mid-term from schools for sporting a shikha on their head, etc. Hence, it can be seen that the convent schools have resorted to every other measure that they can to make the school-going kids feel ashamed of their faith and spew venom against it in the long-run.

The problem of brainwashing induced by Christian education has manifested itself in all its different dimensions in the higher educational institutions as well, such as St. Stephen’s College and Jesus and Mary College under the University of Delhi. A deeply Christian religious institution in essence, the way St. Stephen’s College considers itself superior to and different from all the other colleges of Delhi University has stood out remarkably from time to time. The controversies that it had courted during the tenure of Valson Thampu make the case of this institution a quite interesting and curious one to ponder about. Is it a mere coincidence or conspiracy that most of the so-called “Liberals” in the media and the academia today happened to be the students of this particular institution once upon a time?

Aren’t these same people invariably the ones to jump on to their guns whenever anything which furthers the cause of Hindu Dharma and Bharat’s Dharmic roots is introduced anywhere in the country? Well, this is a question that is worth finding an answer to. But, the story does not just end at St. Stephen’s College, for there are many other higher educational institutions in India which are working on the same lines in different parts of the country. But, St. Stephen’s makes for a perfect case to undertake a proper study for unearthing the unholy nexus that exists between India’s elite and the religious conversion machinery. A huge chunk of the people who are the alumni of such institutions have generally ended up being the crème-da-la-crème of India’s power structure at Lutyens’ Delhi.

Aren’t these the same people who harbour a deep sense of hatred and revulsion for all things Indic? They have always tried to prove their bastardised British roots with the ultimate objective of establishing themselves at the helm of the governance of this vast country. The famous case of a rather infamous politician, who keeps on throwing jargons after jargons in different social media platforms vying for the much scarce attention that his party can afford him to get, is the perfect example of such a mindset. Obviously, the conclusions are not difficult to draw. The rot is spread everywhere beginning from the family to the level of the university. The most worrying trend, however, is the intensity of its reach that is increasing day by day.

This has been facilitated by the far advanced modes of technology and communication along with the deep penetration of social media in our everyday lives. While the lowermost rung in the hierarchy is being used as cannon fodder for the Maoists and Urban Naxals alike, the middle-level is busy abusing all things that are Indic/Dharmic in order to appear “progressive” and super-cool. The result has been the emergence of a woke generation that loves to derive a false sense of pleasure by making a mockery of their own culture and traditions. The placard gang, the outrage mafia, the self-loathing youth of today are all somewhere down the line a product of the education that they have received in the Christian educational institutions or places where the entire course curriculum is based on the Western/Abrahamic framework.

Unfortunately, the power structure of this country has come to be controlled by those who pass out from these institutions which are outrightly against the Dharmic legacy of Bharat. Not just against, they are hell-bent to destroy it brick by brick in every manner possible. It is in this regard that there is now an urgent necessity to revamp Article 30 of the Constitution of India which is intended to protect the rights of “minority” educational institutions in the country. An important question that arises here is – Hasn’t this same Article been used to construct an obscure and opaque system by the so-called “minority” institutions as a cover for their nefarious agenda of weakening the Indian state from within?

Now, let us dwell upon the main problem that we are seeking to address here – the Fourth Generation Warfare. A highly sophisticated form of psychological and cultural warfare, it has already assumed monstrous dimensions in India and elsewhere. It therefore needs to be understood in the context of intellectual and cultural aggression of the Marxist ecosystem on societies across the world in general and the Indian society in particular. In his address to the probationers of the 73^rd batch of the Indian Police Service (IPS) at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy (SVPNPA) in Hyderabad on November 11, 2021, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had highlighted the issue of 4^th Generation Warfare (sometimes abbreviated as 4GW) in the following words –

“Wars have ceased to become an effective instrument for achieving political or military objectives. They are too expensive and unaffordable and at the same time, there is uncertainty about their outcome. But, it is the civil society that can be subverted, that can be divided, and that can be manipulated to hurt the interests of a nation.”

Quite expectedly, this address by NSA Ajit Doval, particularly on the issue of 4GW, generated a lot of criticism in both print and social media. Noted “public activist” Aruna Roy, who also happens to be an officer of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) of Mr. Doval’s batch, strongly criticised the NSA for arbitrarily laying out a new “political” theory of war and national security, with dangerous implications and potential consequences for India. It may be recalled here that Mrs. Roy had relinquished her lucrative career in the civil services in the year 1975 to become a “social activist”. With regard to Ajit Doval’s speech, she was of the view that Mr. Doval

“neither bothered to define the civil society he wants his officers to be at war with nor explained what gave him the authority to declare a ‘fourth-generation war’ on our people. He should explain himself more, but it is a theory that legitimises efforts of the political executive and the private sector as nation-building; and paints opposition or adversarial advocacy by organised citizens’ groups (civil society) as undermining development and nationalism. He wants to short-circuit the democratic, social and development safeguards in the Constitution.”

The debate generated by Mr. Doval’s speech was seconded by retired IPS officer and Sahitya Akademi Award-winning poet Keki N. Daruwalla who was of the view that the focus of the NSA was not on those suborned TV channels propagating fake news, putting a new narrative on almost every national event. Rather, his focus was on those people, constituting the civil society in India, who were continuously at work to weaken, subvert, and then destroy the nation. In this context, the concept of Fourth-Generation Warfare or 4GW is worthy of a detailed explanation.

The various levels of wars fought in history in the course of the evolution of humankind can be explained as the first, second, and third generation of warfare where the arms and ammunitions, tactics and strategies, etc. used were traditional. The idea of 4GW was first put forward by a team of US-based analysts led by William S. Lind with respect to understanding the changing face of war during the modern phase of human life and human existence. As elucidated by Lind and his team, 4GW dwelt upon decentralised forms of warfare, thereby blurring the distinctive lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians.

Based on this concept, it can be argued that because of the present situation prevailing in the world, instead of fighting a full-fledged war which is prohibitively expensive, nations are finding it easier to wage wars through decentralised modes with the help of NGOs, terrorist organisations, Christian evangelical outfits, and other disgruntled groups operating in different nooks and corners across the world. Retrospectively speaking, the role of NGOs in India came under intense scrutiny in the Intelligence Bureau Report dated June 3, 2014, under the heading – “The concerted effort by select foreign-funded NGOs to ‘take down’ Indian developmental projects”.

The 21-page report had named seven different agitations as pursuing ‘anti-developmental activities’, viz. nuclear infrastructure, coal-fired power plants, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), POSCO in Odisha, Vedanta in Odisha, Medha Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), and agitations against extractive industries in the North-East. Doesn’t this explain quite well the insane tendency on the part of several organisations based in Assam and elsewhere in the North-East to begin a chain of protest movements throughout the region once any announcement is made by the Government for starting a new industrial venture? Interestingly, the faces which have always led these movements are the ones who claim themselves as the saviours of Axomiya Jatiyotabaad (Assamese regionalism)!

The IB Report, as mentioned above, had further stated that the negative effects of such anti-developmental activities on the country’s GDP growth are estimated to be at 2-3%. In this regard, it is very important to highlight the present critical geopolitical situation arising out of the tussle between Russia and Ukraine, purportedly due to the latter’s willingness to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the former’s opposition to this idea. It is largely felt that the separatist leaders in Eastern Ukraine and the pro-Russian separatist Government in Ukraine’s Donetsk region are already being used by Russia to wage the proxy 4GW.

We can also draw a parallel here with respect to Lashkar-e-Taiba’s attack in Mumbai in November, 2008 with the active aid of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). On a similar note, the attacks mounted by several Christian insurgent outfits in different parts of North-East India from time to time have been the handiwork of outside forces, particularly China. As observed by William Lind in his book The Four Generations of Modern War, “If nation-states are going to survive, people in power must earn and keep the trust of the governed.” While addressing the American Council of Foreign Relations, Lind had argued that “at the heart of the Fourth-Generation Warfare lies a crisis of legitimacy of the state.”

He further added – “under such a kind of warfare, the establishment is no longer made up of “policy types” – most of its important functionaries are placemen.” The Fourth-Generation Warfare is a decentralised, complex and long-term warfare that lacks hierarchy and is commonly executed through media manipulation. It is the most commonly used technique of Maoists and other anti-national forces to internally de-stabilise our polity and society. The strategy of those involved in such a form of warfare is to launch a direct attack on the enemy, which implies Bharat and Sanatan Dharma in this context. Such attacks may also, at times, include genocidal attacks against civilians.

All available pressure points are called into action – political, economic, social, and military. This means that people from different professional backgrounds of our society constitute an integral part of this warfare. Legal professionals, media professionals, civil servants, artists and writers, film directors, academicians, social activists and those associated with NGOs, etc. are endowed with specific responsibilities to carry out low-intensity conflicts in the society from their own respective professional domains. They employ extremely effective tactics that instantly grab media eyeballs. These range from using aggressive agitations and propaganda provoking the Scheduled Castes to programmes against so-called “anti-labour” policies of the Government.

They take up issues not with the intention of resolving them, but creating unrest and anger against the system so as to make people believe in the necessity of an “armed struggle”. The rigid binary of the capitalist class versus the proletariat class is widened into a multitude of categories. The disadvantages suffered by each category are magnified to such an extent that they are eventually provoked to transform themselves into an all-time agitated mass of people who have problem with nearly everything and every system around them, be it the family, marriage, society, institutions, Government, our culture and civilisation, the state and whatsoever that can be linked with the real or imagined sufferings of that particular class of people.

It is in this way that democracies are being hollowed out from within to fill the imagination of our youth with unexplained anger, hate, disgust and even revenge against the existing systems, culture and traditions. The process of altering their perceptions is very much subtle, because in this process, they do not even realise that the acculturation and brainwash that they are going through is due to such an assault on their psyche. Ample examples of such phenomena can be cited in this regard. The anti-CAA protests that began in December 2019, from the precincts of the hallowed corridors of New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Milia Islamia, was followed by similar protest movements throughout the country with an eerie similarity.

Weren’t these protests all about exploiting the imaginary fear that was woven around the alleged “anti-Muslim” nature of the CAA? Interestingly, all of a sudden, slogans of ‘Free Kashmir’ written in huge, bold alphabets in big placards could be heard and seen in these protests. In an anti-CAA rally organised by Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in Bengaluru, Amulya Leona had even raised slogans of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’. Countless other examples of such incidents could be cited in which the students were found taking a stand against issues not even remotely connected with the main issue, i.e. the CAA. It is this attitude of ‘Protest for the Sake of Protest’ that is being systematically inculcated among students in higher educational institutions across India.

Almost all Central University campuses today are being infested with similar such tactics in order to manufacture an entire generation which is mentally programmed to hate anything and everything related to Bharat and Hindu Dharma. The purveyors of this metamorphosed variant of Communism as a part of 4GW make use of numerous means at their disposal to execute their dangerous agenda. Overemphasising the societal fault lines, one-sided and unnecessary criticism of Indian traditions and Hindu festivals, ridiculing and sometimes even vociferously attacking the ideal of Nationalism, etc. are some such tools.

As explained above, the frontline warriors of this Left-Liberal-Secular lobby are the youth, the ‘woke’ generation which is moulded in such a way that it comes in as handy, readymade instruments for creating further rifts in our society while at the same time, exploiting the existing ones. Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, Sharjeel Imam, Kanhaiya Kumar, Hem Mishra, Umar Khalid, etc. are just a few names among many more of this brainwashed generation; a generation that has been very strategically turned against its own country in the names of the high-sounding, fancy ideals of ‘Revolution’ and ‘Freedom of Choice’.

While a few of them make use of these concepts in order to hide their real skin, but most of them are very well convinced about what they are doing, owing obviously to the well-crafted propaganda of lies that are presented as the ‘truth’. In other words, the most worrying aspect of all this hullabaloo is that most of those who reside in the University campuses end up believing in many things propagated there, if not support it out in the open. E.g. the narratives of caste oppression and gender discrimination are amplified to such an extent that many hapless students soon become obsessed with these ideas.

They begin to find an angle of ‘upper-caste domination’ or ‘patriarchy’ in each and every interaction they have with any person belonging to a so-called “upper caste”, or in the case of a woman, the angle of ‘male dominance’ in what might otherwise seem to be a normal interaction over a cup of coffee between a man and a woman. Very soon, such motivated and brainwashed youngsters of our country become attuned to hate the idea of Bharat and everything associated with it from the core of their heart. Quite surprisingly, a curious aspect of this self-loathing, anti-India brigade is that they claim to do it out of “love” for their own country.

A vicious cycle that it is, the Communist ecosystem promotes blind, irrational hatred not only against the establishment but also against one’s own fellow human beings and near and dear ones. Hence, 4GW has today emerged as a new tool of the Communist propaganda – the most subtle, yet the most deadly among them all. The garb of neutrality and rationality, under which the Communist zealots hide their real faces, has been able to give them and their propaganda a natural sheen of legitimacy thereby attesting their non-religious credentials further. They have established themselves as the flag-bearers of an absurd notion of secularism and liberalism, which have bestowed upon them an aura of constitutional authority as well.

Genuine and honest discussion on the problem can be initiated both in the political and academic platforms only when we acknowledge the roots of it, and entangle each and every inter-connected aspect of 4GW from the long-term perspective of keeping intact the country’s national security, unity and integrity.

References:

1. Lind, William S. (2014). The Four Generations of Modern War. Castalia House, USA.
2. Simon Murden. (2008). Staying the Course in ‘Fourth-Generation Warfare’: Persuasion and Perseverance in the Era of the Asymmetric Bargaining War. Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 28, No. 1, ISSN: 1352-3260 (Print) 1743-8764 (Online), pp. 197-211. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.
3. https://www.kractivist.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/NGO-Report_leaked-IB-report.pdf
4. https://ww.organiser.org/Encyc/2019/5/8/Minority-School-Forces-Christian-Values-on-Hindu-Students.html
5. https://youtu.be/fnf5BqJW3ZY
6. https://www.cjmdelhi.com/AboutSchool.aspx
7. https://www.mynation.com/news/jharkhand-naxal-missionary-christian-nexus-intercepted-letter-kidnap-bjp-leaders-pel05n

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