What Quick (De)Escalation Between India-Pak Teaches Us About War And Peace

NDTV

12-05-2025

The wanton public wants war one moment and peace the next. The state ought to eschew the urge to base its decisions on this wantonness.
From certitudes to canards, the war de-escalated quite fast. While it's never a bad thing for two nuclear-armed countries to cool their tempers down, the manner in which this has happened in the case of India and Pakistan has sown more seeds of conflict than it aimed to resolve.
Nothing is resolved.
What has come to the surface during the eighteen days of fear and foreboding, just like the mythological Samudra Manthan lasting for twelve days, is the elixir of unity and the poison of preposterousness. Both, however, were contained in the vessel of wantonness. Sample this: people cried for retribution when there was silence. When retribution was being carried out, people cried that it was too much. When retaliation to the same retribution was served, people got jittery with fear. Many who had previously advocated for war suddenly became peaceniks, creating a paradoxical parody of peaceniks turning into warmongers.
Confusion Reigns
Suddenly, nobody knew what they stood for anymore. The 'fog of war' confused everyone. If Pakistan has been waging war to 'liberate' Kashmir, why was it killing Kashmiris with relentless shelling across the Line of Control? If Indian Muslims were 'traitors', why were they out in full support of the armed forces? Why was the media in both India and Pakistan peddling outlandish information with zero evidence to back their respective claims? Whose side was the US on? Why did the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sanction another tranche of loans to Pakistan in the middle of the conflict? What to make of China's official statements? And, finally, why did the President of the United States announce the ceasefire instead of either party embroiled in the conflict? We found unity in this confusion.
Despite the above confusion and more, one good outcome of this India-Pakistan conflict was the lifting of the theoretical 'fog of war' from the posturing of several ideas and ideologues. The primary one is that no deterrence works till an outmatching of the enemy happens at every stage of the so-called 'escalation ladder'. The rules of engagement need to be redefined towards those very goals, rather than an endgame that may never even happen.
War Meets Blind Rage
Another thing that is becoming visible is that liberalism is contingent only on who or what is in question. Collaborationism will always trump ethics. Intellectual neutrality and evenhandedness, therefore, are nothing but hollow buzzwords.
Less importantly, with the lifting fog, the idea that some chosen few are immune to the blind rage of the ill-informed public ought to be junked. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, once celebrated by all and sundry for his measured, calm and sensible speak, found himself at the receiving end of the Frankenstein's monster of social media trolling. It did not take a wanton people even a day to turn towards their own when engaging the 'other', the enemy, ceased to be an option.
As the world celebrates the birth anniversary of Gautam Buddha, the need for equanimity cannot be underscored enough. When passions rule and reason takes a backseat, every Karma becomes a parody of itself. At the level of decision-making, equanimity enables the drawing of the most effective plans. Those who execute them need equanimity to accept losses and gains in the course of action. For the onlookers, equanimity is a gift that they can give to the previous two. In the India-Pakistan conflict, only the armed forces have been able to keep their equanimous posture intact. The wantonness of the public discourse has not been able to upend that.
What, Really, After War?
Wars come with a price that most people want somebody else to pay. A serving senior naval officer recently commented, "People get upset when their access to Netflix gets disrupted for a few hours. Do you think they can stomach the discipline that comes with a prolonged war?" A decisive war comes with an even bigger price tag. And even then, it's not the gift that will keep giving. Peace after war is a chimaera. Just like happiness is not an absence of unhappiness, peace is not an absence of war. Peace is the integration of human society on acceptable terms. This integration cannot occur if passions prevail at any level of nation-building.
Of late, the idea of nation-building has given way to a narrow definition of nationalism: one that is not only based on bellicism but also exclusions of own populations. The resulting bellicosity destroys rather than builds. If there are lessons to be drawn here, one need not look further than the official press briefings. Sans jingoism, the message was clear: we do what is required of us, no less, no more.
The wanton public wants war one moment and peace the next. The state ought to eschew the urge to base its decisions on this wantonness.
(Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based academic and author)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
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