People are being lulled into a feeling that we have nothing to lose by such an enlargement. Finance minister Yashwant Sinha, who should know better, has said that the guns that boom in Kargil will not affect the growth of the economy. He should get himself down from his dizzy heights. He must realise that war has to be paid for. Just as there is no free lunch, there is no costless war.
Planes have to keep flying, ammunition has to be bought, and soldiers fed, clothed and armed.
True, this is no time to find faults. But we should not yield to the temptation of stilling the voices of dissent. Let us recall how he and his minions, trying to target late Mr Rajiv Gandhi, had needlessly grounded the Airbus planes for nearly a year as being risk-prone. So too, the generals of the Indian Army have been denied the necessary shells and transport vehicles for the Bofors guns. The saints had come marching in and almost silenced the guns.