India's Reluctance to Speak Results in Pakistan's Message Going Out Faster: Ajai Shukla

The Hindu

2 days ago

Published : Jun 03, 2025 18:45 IST - 18 MINS READ
The four-day conflict from May 7 to May 10 has become a defining moment in India-Pakistan military relations, with Operation Sindoor generating intense analysis from defence experts across India, Pakistan, and internationally. At the heart of the debate lies a critical question: What really happened in the skies during those tense days of hostilities?
For weeks, speculation swirled around reports of Indian aircraft losses, but official silence from New Delhi left the field open to competing narratives and propaganda claims. That changed dramatically when Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan broke his silence in Singapore, speaking candidly to Reuters and Bloomberg about Indian aerial casualties during the operation's opening phase. While refusing to specify numbers, General Chauhan's admission marked the first official acknowledgment of aircraft losses—a revelation that has sent shockwaves through defence circles.
The General's comments carry profound implications beyond mere military accounting. His assertion that India 'learned its lessons' and returned 'with full firepower' on May 10 suggests a tactical evolution under fire. Yet questions remain: Did these early setbacks hand Pakistan a propaganda victory? How do we separate military reality from the fog of information warfare that has clouded this conflict?
To decode these developments and their strategic significance, Frontline spoke with Colonel (Retd.) Ajai Shukla, one of India's most respected defence analysts. A former Indian Army officer who transitioned to journalism as an anchor and war correspondent with NDTV, Shukla brings both military experience and analytical rigour to understanding what Operation Sindoor reveals about the changing nature of warfare in South Asia. Edited excerpts:
What do you make of CDS General Anil Chauhan's comments in Singapore about the loss of Indian aircraft?
Well, on the face of it, it would appear that after having remained largely silent in the eyes of the international press for all those days between May 10 and now, General Chauhan appears to have decided that it is time to put forward more clearly the Indian military's sort of viewpoint about why it did this operation, how it did it, and the level of casualties, which was becoming into a big issue, because sort of not having given out the number of casualties both of aircraft and of pilots, the Indian military was coming under a serious amount of pressure.
General Chauhan also appears to have decided to take this opportunity of being in Singapore in front of the international press and explain exactly what happened, why it happened, and very importantly for the first time, to convey an impression of being upfront and honest and letting the international media know that we are here to answer all of their questions and we have the answers. So that was, I think, General Chauhan's primary motivation.
Had this been done earlier, would Pakistan's propaganda advantage not have happened?
That's exactly the case. This is the same thing that happened on a number of earlier occasions, including the Balakot attacks and strikes. The Indian establishment is, by nature, inherently conservative, and they don't like talking to the press. They don't want to be seen as too eager to get their message out. And the net result and upshot of all of this turns out to be that the other side has given their version of the story, usually false, and the Indian side is left with its own story untold and its impression of forthrightness. But this time, I'm glad to see that they've come out, they've come out giving all the explanations that were required. And so from that point of view, it's also a recognition of the power of the media.
Why is there such reluctance by the Indian establishment to speak out? General Chauhan spoke only after Pakistan's Chairman Joint Chiefs made front-page news.
Yeah, first of all, let me reinforce the point you made, which is that there's this reluctance to speak, which results in the other side's [Pakistan's] message going out faster, better, and more punchy than our own message. The causes are deeply historical. Prior to 1947, when we wereunder British rule, the military was an instrument of colonial oppression, usually acting against the interests of the common Indian and in favour of British rule. And to that extent, you didn't want any such message coming out from the military. The military was used for putting things in their place, making sure that nobody stepped out of line. And that was it. There was no question of trying to portray a benign image or anything of that kind. The military was there to do a job: to enforce a certain law and order onto the people. And that's what it did.
Unfortunately, after 1947, when it should have completely changed and worked on its image to make it appear more like a people's military, aligned with a military of the independent interests of India, and a military that upholds Indian interests. It continued to be apologetic about its role, and for some reason or the other, from 1947 till now, it has been sort of a very slow opening up, I would say, of the military. So, what the good news is today, and we must acknowledge that, is that over the last five years, or (rather five decades), the military has become more forthright. It's become more confident about voicing its concerns, and it's become a military that recognises that the story cannot always be good. There are drawbacks, there are debacles that take place, and if you acknowledge them and address them, it's probably better than just trying to pretend that they never happened.
General Chauhan believes there was space between conventional and nuclear thresholds. Pakistan's Sahir Shamshad Ahmad believes Operation Sindoor lowered the nuclear threshold. How do you balance these contentions?
Well, it's easily explained when you look at it in the context of whose sort of interests are being served. The Pakistani viewpoint has always been that we must explain that if India—which is the more powerful country, the country with the bigger army, the country with sort of more or less status quoist—if India were allowed to have its way with Pakistan, whether in the course of a war or in the course of an operation that goes on, it would make Pakistan sort of look weak. It would make Pakistan sort of become apparent that it was not the stronger power, and therefore it would be better not to sort of lower the nuclear threshold, but to have this nuclear threat hanging in the background as if ready to use.
The Indian side, on the other hand, does not want Pakistan to gain too much comfort from its nuclear deterrent from the 50 or 100 or so bombs that they have. India would like it much better for Pakistan to say that the Indian interests have to be accommodated for the simple reason that they have nuclear bombs and weapons, and that we don't have enough to deter India. So, the Pakistani view of the nuclear deterrent and the Indian view of the nuclear deterrent are inherently in conflict with one another. And that is what came out loud and clear during this particular operation when General Shamshad Ahmad says that the nuclear threshold has been lowered.
What he's really saying, without saying it in those words, is that India has now got the space to act, the strategic space to act against Pakistan. And Pakistan will not be so quick to invoke the nuclear deterrent. Pakistan, on the other hand, is giving the message that the nuclear threshold has been lowered. Now it has become a more dangerous place in general. He's talking about South Asia. And therefore, it is not a positive development, it is a development that supports and lends itself to the use of nuclear power.
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How would you assess the four days of fighting—India struck nine sites, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad camps, and then Pakistan's response?
I would, and I regret as an Indian to have to say it, I would assess the Indian response and the Indian use of force as slightly more ham-handed and clumsy than the skill with which the Pakistanis did it. This is not to say that Indian interests were not served or Pakistani interests were served better. This is more to say that the use of the weaponry, the sort of implements of force that were actually brought to bear over here, was to the sort of advantage of Pakistan.
Now, why do I say this? First of all, it was apparent that India, after having said such a lot in the public domain about the use of force and about its sort of readiness to act if there were any more terrorist provocations from the Pakistan side. When it actually came to making this sort of thing apparent, it turned out that India was not really ready. The attack that took place at Pahalgam was followed by several days of sort of apparent inaction by the Indian side. And it was as if nothing had been decided or changed in the way of policy after Pulwama, which was a good five years ago. So to that extent, the Indian side conveyed the impression that what it said it would do after Pulwama was not what it was in a position to do when Pahalgam took place.
The message that went out from the inaction on both sides was a message that was to the detriment of the Indian threat, that it would act immediately. Now, again, they have come out with a three-point formula for sort of taking immediate action, not being deterred by the nuclear sort of threat and sort of acting immediately. But whether this is going to be acted upon will be seen in the days ahead. But it wasn't ready, as it turns out, in the last five years after Pulwama.
India showed damage to Pakistani air bases with satellite imagery. Pakistan claimed hitting an S-400 at Adampur but provided no imagery. Your assessment?
Well, I would agree with you partly. I would say that the Indian side has certainly presented better proof than it has ever before of successful air strikes and missile strikes on important bases in Pakistan like Raheem Yar Khan and Rawalpindi, and so on. So to that extent, we did not come before the press empty-handed. The Indian side has actually managed to present some proof. The problem is that it took a lot of time to present those proofs. It allowed the international media, as it were, and analysts who were purveying of anti-India viewpoint to actually sort of fill in that space and come up with their own versions of what might have happened. So, to that extent, the Indian side would have done much better to have acted faster and more nimbly in presenting its proof.
But the area in which the Indian side did not do well, and here again is thought for how it best it can be improved for the future, is in the presentation of what exactly happened in the air-to-air combat duels that took place between Pakistani fighters and Indian fighters. General Chauhan admitted in Singapore that Indian fighters had undertaken a significant amount of casualties; the Indian side was not able to provide a counter to that or to show any concrete proof of Pakistani planes having been shot down. So, to that extent, I'd say the outcome, as we assess it, was a mixed bag with India being able to strike Pakistani ground targets but not get so much success against Pakistani fighter aircraft.
For the first time, we saw drones crossing borders-unlike in 1999's Kargil. Is this how future India-Pakistan wars will be fought?
Well, I would be more conservative about predicting the taking over of the battlefield by drones and, you know, at the end of conventional war, as we know, knew it. I would not go so far as to endorse those predictions. But what is without doubt is that drones and enhanced surveillance means will certainly play a far larger role in the battlefield of the future than it has so far. The sort of swarm value of the drones and the sort of pressure that they can bring to bear on target sort of acquisition means of the enemy, which is to say in simple terms that by simply flooding the battlefield with a large number of these drones and similar weapon systems, you sort of confuse the enemy's detection means and surveillance means and force him to sort of get on the back foot, as it were. So that is absolutely a certainty now, the changing nature of the battlefield, as it were. It began changing in the Azerbaijan war.
It was evident once again in the Ukraine-Russia war. And now again, we are seeing it in the Indian context. albeit that the use of drones over here was not as completely earth-shakingly effective as it was in places like Ukraine. One reason for that could possibly be that India and Pakistan have both got very capable militaries with a very high degree and a very high number of anti-drone capabilities that can be brought to bear. So it would always be the case that they (drones)would be less effective in heavily defended terrain like India and Pakistan. But even so, it was a reminder and a wake-up call for the Indian side to sort of build up its drone forces and capabilities, to build up its surveillance capabilities, radars, and missiles, failing which one could be forced to take casualties that otherwise would not have been a reality.
Any lessons from Ukraine's spectacular drone strikes on Russian air bases?
Yes, there are certainly lessons for us to learn about several things. And in the context of this drones sort of usage that you mentioned, there are two aspects to it. One is the aspect of the capabilities and the firepower and the accuracy, and the strike power of the drone itself and the weapons that it carries. And the second capability, which has to be there at the same time in a linked manner, is the weakness of the defensive sort of elements and systems that are being attacked by the drone forces. If you have a very well-defended and a very good surveillance mechanism, and so on, on the drone side, that will sort of automatically take up the number of strikes that they will get, and therefore the benefits of that.
But if at the same time you have S-400 (anti-aircraft) missiles and you have a very strong surveillance network on the defensive side, the outcome and the gains that would be made by those drone attacks would be correspondingly less. So India has to work on both tracks, both on developing the drone warfare capabilities and on developing the defensive capabilities.
I'm glad to note that a lot of new Indian companies, companies which have only entered the field of defence and of drone warfare in particular in the last five to seven years, are making very good headway. and India is going to have a certain sort of world-class capability in this particular field itself. So we'll just have to wait and see how good it is, how fast it is, and when it can come into play. And that is going to shape the future and the outcomes on the next sort of decades' battlefields.
May 7 was meant to raise costs for Pakistan. But with Pahalgam terrorists still at large and another attack possible, will the threshold escalate further? Balakot hit one site, this hit nine.
The threshold is, there are two sort of aspects to it. One is the stated threshold, and one is the demonstrated threshold. You can make any number of promises, of dire consequences that will take place if one more terrorist strike takes place, or such a sort of grievously wounding terrorist [strike] takes place that it has to provoke India into a response of this kind. So that particular aspect is something which, as I mentioned a little while back, India is working on. Something that is being guided at the highest levels of the DRDO and something that we sort of really do expect good results on this for the simple reason that it plays into India's strengths of proficiency in software, reasonable proficiency in hardware, and the command and control centres that are needed for sort of marshalling these drone assets into a sort of a capable force.
But again, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And, you know, hopefully it should not have to come to a pass where India is forced to demonstrate the full weight of its capabilities in order to deter Pakistan, because that will take everything up to a threshold which could be unacceptably high. But, you know, the promises are there, the capabilities are there. So there's every reason to believe that the outcomes will be there also.
What is the international threshold, especially the US? After four days, American calls ended the fighting.
Well, leaving Trump's claims aside for a moment. What is certainly the case is the point you made, a very valid one, about the overall threshold and the concern that it causes on countries that are basically protected by other people's nuclear thresholds. For example, the NATO countries, South Korea, or Japan—between those countries and the countries that are making do with developing their own nuclear threshold, which means India, Pakistan, Israel, and so on.
Now, it's easy for those who are already getting nuclear cover from others to take a moralising and a sort of moralistic stance against countries that have chosen to walk that path alone. This is a debate that is going to go on. And the accusations of double standards in assessing the capability of nuclear weapons that a country has.
For example, who is there who is qualified to talk to India and make demands of India for nuclear sort of probity and sort of carefulness. India is fighting a two-front war on its sort of northern and western borders. It is left to India itself to sort of make the resources available to the capabilities available and so on. Who is anybody else to take up those issues with India and adopt a moralising stance? India is not going to stand for it, neither with Pakistan or Israel or any of the other countries. So, it's a very sort of polarised and divided debate. And there certainly isn't an excuse in sight.
But American intervention ended it. Next time, will we not have to factor in their response?
Yeah, you are absolutely right. The sort of framework in which this crisis has taken place, which is nuclear power on nuclear power, India and Pakistan, two of the most and also strong conventional power against strong conventional power. Both these two capabilities have been sort of flashed and rattled. And General Sahir Shamshad Ahmad's statements come right into the centre of this, that the nuclear threshold has been lowered, and so on. All of this is calculated to bring in other countries from outside the world, but that in itself is not wholly a bad thing. If India is pulled by the United States and guaranteed that the United States will, as it has happened in this case with Pakistan, negotiate a truce, and India will not need to really think about the nuclear threshold as Pakistan will not either, then it's something to be welcomed as one of the off ramps of the current nuclear confrontation.
There's a new expression, the off ramp.
I mean, that's something that was left only to the most erudite academics in earlier days. But here we have an off ramp requirement right here.
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What does the future hold for India-Pakistan?
My own assessment is that both sides, India and Pakistan, have internalised a couple of things as an outcome of this particular crisis. First of all, Pakistan has indefinitely internalized that there is no more protected utilisation of terror groups and jihadi tanzeems [orders] and so on, not in Kashmir, not across the border with India. This is going to evoke a response from the Indians, and that response, as we saw on this particular instance, is going to be progressively higher, progressively more damaging, and progressively more difficult to explain from the Pakistani viewpoint. So that is one thing that you know Pakistan can take for granted.
The Indian side also is going to, and I understand it already has begun the process of evaluating why such a small—I'm using small only in the sort of international provocation sort of framework—incident of this nature by the terrorist groups has effectively brought in three superpowers and sort of the two main protagonists themselves into a huddle on the conference table where they have worked out a solution for the problem. So, it's basically the costs are too high, the circumstances and the outcomes are too dangerous. And so, as you brought out yourself, the sort of catalysts and the things that bring these crises into operations have to be controlled and kept in check.
Amit Baruah was The Hindu's Islamabad-based Pakistan correspondent from 1997 to 2000. He is the author of Dateline Islamabad.