A miscalculated strike and a resurrection
The terrorist assault on 22 April at Baisaran meadow close to Pahalgam which killed 25 vacationers and an area triggered a forceful Indian response. India rapidly attributed duty to Pakistan-based militant teams, suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, expelled Pakistani diplomats and revoked journey visas.
The Modi authorities positioned these measures as a part of a daring counterterrorism doctrine and claimed they signalled a brand new threshold of strategic resolve. However what was meant to be a present of energy has as a substitute developed right into a strategic and diplomatic debacle of appreciable magnitude.
India’s airstrikes on 7 Could throughout the Line of Management have been designed to mission deterrent functionality and show that Pakistan’s continued use of uneven warfare via its terror networks would now not be tolerated. Nonetheless, what was supposed as a calibrated message rapidly invited a forceful and complicated Pakistani army retaliation. Inside the first hour of the battle, India reportedly misplaced a number of fighter jets, presumably together with Rafale. The alleged wreckage was not solely televised on Pakistani media but additionally disseminated broadly throughout digital platforms.
What made issues worse was the supply of probably the most damaging admission by the Indian Military. In an interview with Bloomberg TV, on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, India’s Chief of Defence Workers acknowledged that the Indian Air Pressure was successfully grounded for almost two days following Pakistan’s retaliatory strikes. This extraordinary concession of airpower incapacitation severely undercut India’s narrative of energy and management.
Then got here the ceasefire, brokered not via established bilateral disaster administration channels, however by direct US intervention. On 10 Could, President Donald Trump unilaterally introduced that India and Pakistan had agreed to a full cessation of hostilities, crediting American diplomacy for stopping a full-scale nuclear confrontation. The Trump administration’s public framing of the ceasefire bolstered the notion that each India and Pakistan are destabilising nuclear-armed powers requiring exterior supervision.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and exterior affairs minister S. Jaishankar’s failure to problem and even qualify Trump’s repeated assertions that his mediation had averted a nuclear battle seemed like music to Pakistani ears. Within the absence of any Indian rebuttal, a notion rapidly took maintain that the Modi authorities had ceded strategic autonomy to a superpower middleman, a notion that has not solely rankled Indian strategic thinkers but additionally emboldened Islamabad’s civil-military elite.
This fast reversal in narrative couldn’t have come at a worse time for India. Removed from deterring Pakistan or establishing escalatory dominance, Modi’s poorly conceived army gambit inadvertently offered Pakistan’s army institution with an surprising political windfall. The person who benefitted most from this reversal was none apart from Normal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s Chief of Military Workers.
Till the occasions of Could, Munir had been maybe probably the most reviled Pakistani military chief because the 1971 battle. He was seen because the architect of the crackdown on Imran Khan — Pakistan’s hottest political chief — and the mastermind of a political structure designed to maintain Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) out of energy one way or the other. From the Pakistani youth to the abroad diaspora, Munir was vilified for his position in dismantling civilian house, jailing political opponents and overseeing what many referred to as a post-democratic order.
Nonetheless, India’s botched army motion gave Munir a political resurrection. He presided over a swift and efficient army response, and thru the equipment of state media and digital platforms, was lionised as a fearless guardian of nationwide sovereignty.
Not content material with public accolades alone, Munir awarded himself the uncommon five-star rank of Subject Marshal, symbolically asserting his supreme army authority. In doing so, he sought not solely institutional dominance but additionally symbolic elevation to the pantheon of Pakistan’s nationwide saviours.
The Pakistani public, particularly in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, embraced this transformation with hanging fervour. In cities the place Munir’s posters had as soon as been defaced, he’s now celebrated in rallies, patriotic music and even prayer sermons. From the bottom ranks of the army to the drawing rooms of Rawalpindi, Munir has repositioned himself as a strategic bulwark in opposition to Indian aggression, a redeemer who didn’t flinch within the face of Modi’s threats.
On the identical time, India has suffered a catastrophic narrative collapse. Whereas the worldwide group initially expressed sympathy for the victims of the Pahalgam assault, the main focus quickly shifted from counterterrorism to battle administration and nuclear stability. Modi’s aggressive signalling minus sustained strategic diplomacy solely heightened fears of escalation. As soon as Trump publicly introduced the ceasefire, India was now not perceived as a sufferer of terrorism however as an equal participant in a destabilising regional cycle of provocation and retaliation.
Sensing a strategic opening, Pakistan has swiftly capitalised on India’s diplomatic paralysis. With sturdy backing from China already secured, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif launched a high-profile diplomatic offensive throughout the area, linking the Kashmir difficulty to broader considerations equivalent to environmental degradation, water rights and regional fairness. Talking on the Worldwide Convention on Glaciers’ Preservation in Dushanbe, he argued that India’s unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty amounted to the damaging weaponisation of an important trans-boundary useful resource.
Sharif’s visits to Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan underscored this diplomatic momentum. On the Lachin trilateral summit, the Kashmir difficulty was explicitly linked to different frozen conflicts equivalent to Nagorno-Karabakh and Northern Cyprus. Turkey and Azerbaijan supplied public endorsements of Pakistan’s “measured” response and dedicated to enhanced defence cooperation. Iran, in flip, supplied rhetorical assist and condemned India’s aggression.
India’s diplomatic counteroffensive, in contrast, has been muddled and ineffectual. The ministry of exterior affairs rapidly dispatched 59 politicians in parliamentary delegations to over 30 international locations. These delegations have been branded as symbols of bipartisan unity, however have been chosen with out session with opposition events and have typically did not safe conferences with senior officers.
In a number of instances, these delegations have discovered themselves restricted to interactions with junior diplomats, diaspora teams or coverage assume tanks. The much-publicised US delegation led by Shashi Tharoor did not safe entry to a single senior senator or member of the manager department, underscoring India’s diminished leverage in Washington.
Again dwelling, Modi resorted to optics: public addresses, roadshows and an aggressive social media marketing campaign. But these symbolic gestures couldn’t conceal the absence of any tangible diplomatic success or significant army deterrence. The hole between theatrical nationalism and strategic coherence has by no means been extra seen.
Maybe probably the most lasting injury lies within the long-term implications of the disaster. Modi’s actions didn’t deter Pakistan from persevering with to make use of its proxy networks. If something, they helped Islamabad showcase its army prowess and political resolve. What’s extra troubling, they rehabilitated and lionised a deeply unpopular military chief, giving him unprecedented management over Pakistan’s political and army establishments.
Modi’s reliance on spectacle over substance, power over foresight, and unilateralism over strategic coalition-building has repeatedly undermined India’s long-term pursuits. If New Delhi needs to regain strategic credibility, Modi should jettison the theatrics of muscular nationalism and develop a strong diplomatic framework anchored in strategic foresight.
Counterterrorism can not succeed with out narrative management, and narrative management can’t be achieved with out good diplomacy. Till India learns this lesson, every cross-border assault will threat triggering not deterrence however one other cycle of strategic embarrassment and worldwide marginalisation.
Views are private
Ashok Swain is a professor of peace and battle analysis at Uppsala College, Sweden. Extra of his writing could also be discovered right here
