Pakistan is no Poland

Fascism cloaks itself in patriotism, reinvents history, recasts supremacist dogma as cultural revival and dresses mass delusion in democratic garb. By the time the world recognises the stench, it’s already too late.

This is not a prelude to a dystopian fiction or a polemical outcry; it is a precise reading of India’s trajectory under Narendra Modi. With chilling echoes of 1930s Germany, the Nazification of India is a lived, visible phenomenon that follows a blueprint long archived but never buried.

From book to battlefield, from Mein Kampf to the Pahalgam attack, Modi’s India is engineering a regime of Hindutva supremacism with frightening parallels to Hitler’s Third Reich. This is the strategic reality Pakistan and the region face a festering ideological volcano masked by the world’s wilful blindness.

Germany’s Nazi rise began with wounded pride and economic unrest; today, the BJP fuels its ascent through historical resentment and manufactured grievances. Hitler scapegoated Jews while Modi’s India targets Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Dalits. Nazi Germany didn’t plunge into fanaticism overnight; it was built through indoctrination, propaganda and legal tyranny. India mirrors this path with chilling precision from RSS shakhas grooming youth in Hindu supremacy to laws like CAA and NRC that institutionalise discrimination in the name of nationalism.

Consider the timeline. The Nazis annexed Rhineland (1936), Austria (1938) and Sudetenland (1938) before engulfing Poland in 1939, each step rationalised by an ever-evolving mix of historical entitlement and manufactured grievances. India, in parallel, absorbed Hyderabad through ‘police action’, gobbled up Sikkim, occupied Goa by force, and now, with a stroke of Article 370’s abrogation, has moved to turn Jammu and Kashmir into a political wasteland under military boots.

The cartography of Modi’s ambition, like Hitler’s, is drawn in the ink of ethnic domination and cultural erasure. Just as the Jews were reduced to numbers, registries, and ghettos, Indian Muslims are systematically marginalised, ghettoised and scapegoated through digital witch hunts, lynch mobs,and mass incarceration disguised as national security.

And just as Hitler’s Third Reich weaponised mythology of Aryan superiority, the betrayal myth of Versailles, India’s ruling elite draws on a manipulated Vedic past to assert Brahminical supremacy. The ‘Hindutva’ project is no different from the Nazi concept of Blut und Boden (blood and soil). The 1992 demolition of Babri Masjid was India’s Reichstag Fire, and the attacks on churches and mosques echo Kristallnacht in both symbolism and savagery.

The RSS and its affiliates are not fringe groups but central to India’s state ideology. Like Hitler’s SA and SS, Modi’s regime uses state-backed vigilantes and a complicit media to suppress dissent. The Modi cult, akin to the Führerprinzip, demands total loyalty, equates dissent with treason, and thrives on fabricated enemies: Muslims, Pakistan, liberals, students, and outspoken women.

The April 2025 Pahalgam attack, swiftly blamed on Pakistan, revealed Modi’s Nazi-style propaganda machine – using crises to stifle dissent, target Muslims and inflame anti-Pakistan sentiment. Like Hitler’s Reichstag fire, such events are not spontaneous reactions but rehearsed narratives, executed with alarming speed, media uniformity and political choreography.

But unlike 1939 Poland, Pakistan is not defenceless. Operation Bunyanum Marsoos, launched in response to Indian aggression, was a moment of clarity and strategic reversal. Pakistan’s militarily and diplomatically calibrated response demonstrated that any Cold Start Doctrine will meet a Cold End. Modi may envision a Blitzkrieg through Punjab’s plains, but unlike France’s paralysis in 1940, Pakistan’s high command is alert, united, and doctrinally evolved. The myth that India can conduct a swift, punitive, conventional strike without risking full-scale war is not only dangerous but delusional.

India’s military buildup, from expanding its army to over two million troops, to dreaming of a Blue Water Navy, to seeking air domination through Rafales, is about regional hegemony. Like Nazi Germany’s military-industrial complex, India’s is designed to support an ideological war not just against Pakistan but against the very idea of pluralism and peace.

Despite the dangers, Pakistan is not passive. With a sharpened doctrine and credible deterrence, it has made clear that South Asia won’t serve fascist ambitions. As the world clings to illusions of Modi’s “digital democracy,” it must ask: can it afford another 1939?

Any Cold Start misadventure could trigger a nuclear winter. The myth of Smiling Buddha has become India’s quest for dominance, but Pakistan is no bystander. In South Asia today, the choice is not war or peace, but fascism or freedom. History will not repeat itself. This time, Pakistan is no Poland.

The writer is a freelance contributor and writes on issues concerning national and regional security. She can be reached at: omayaimen333@gmail.com