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The Hindu
16-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Watch: Decoding Trump: Disintegrating World Order
We should not be unduly nostalgic about the old world order, but the disintegration of the world order is significant because the attack has come from within, T.S. Tirumurti, former Permanent Representative of India to the UN, said on Friday (May 9, 2025). He was speaking at a panel with Srinath Raghavan, Professor, Ashoka University, on 'Decoding Trump - Disintegrating World Order', moderated by Suhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Affairs Editor, The Hindu. Read more: Disintegration of world order is significant because the attack has come from within: Tirumurti
The Hindu
15-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
What Operation Sindoor reveals
On May 7, India woke up to 'Operation Sindoor', a series of precision strikes by the armed forces at nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. This was in retaliation to the terrorist attacks in Pahalgam on April 22, in which 25 Indians and one Nepali citizen, mostly tourists, were killed. This was the same week that a report on the Indian Wealth Divide revealed that most of the country earns so little that an annual income of just ₹2.9 lakh puts you in the top 10%. It came just two months after a venture capital company published a report that out of the 140 crore Indians, only the top 10% have enough discretionary money to spend on non-essential items. That same evening, during the mock drills announced by the Ministry of Home Affairs to check if the country was prepared against 'new and complex threats', instead of staying in during the blackout and learning to hide their locations, many Indians thronged the streets and burst firecrackers — just like they would to celebrate an IPL cricket match victory. Meanwhile, street vendors, part of the bottom half of the Indian population, whose national income has fallen from 22% to 15% between 1990 and 2025, were made to prove their patriotism by shutting shop for the mock drills and giving up their daily wage. A work-from-home war That night and the following two days, most Indians fought a work-from-home war. Content creators and news channels threw a barrage of disinformation, reporting how India had captured Lahore, Karachi and even Islamabad. And how, many Indian cities were under attack too. There were visuals of panic buying, throngs at ATMs to withdraw cash, and jammed train stations and bus stations as migrant workers rushed to return to their hometowns. Simultaneously, cross-border shelling and drone attacks were killing civilians, officials, soldiers, and causing the destruction of houses, property and livestock in Poonch, Ferozepur, Uri, Jammu, Srinagar, Rajouri, Samba and other border districts. The villagers there were displaced and looking for hideouts. But people sitting afar, experiencing the virtual war — trained to dehumanise others by rationalising abuse of those on the socio-economic margins because of their class, caste or religion — dismissed it as 'collateral damage' in the war against terror. Common sense was thrown for a toss. Demanding preventive instead of combative approach in conflict became unpopular. Some of the WhatsApp users peddling fake news were now baying for blood and the escalation of military action by using war gaming language: morale, strategy, tactics, terrain, artillery, victory conditions, order of battle, zeroed in. Some even advocated the use of nuclear weapons to destroy Pakistan in a few minutes. There was a clear shift in public opinion and expectations on what is the right response to conflict — which had earlier acknowledged that escalation of armed actions causes losses to all, economically, socially and morally. As Srinath Raghavan, an academic and former Indian army official, who has deeply researched India's strategic history, says, 'War is a continuation of politics.' He notes that the chest-thumping and bloodlusting response to conflicts has been a general trend in the last decade. Case in point: Prime Minister Narendra Modi stating on multiple occasions that India's official policy is to hit her enemies inside their territories — something he recently repeated, 'Ghar mein ghus-ghus kar marenge.' According to Raghavan, India saw the same war mongering response in the surgical strikes of 2016 and during the 2019 Balakot air strikes after the Pulwama attack. 'There is a concerted attempt to whip up this response and now we have become used to responding in this way. In 2008, when the 26/11 attacks happened in Mumbai, some people asked to use other methods than war — which was also what the then government wanted. The present government does not have the same approach.' Blow to the economy Studies reveal that the 10 most conflict-affected countries in the world such as Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Venezuela lost, on average, 41% of their economic output as a result of violence. It is estimated that the 1999 Kargil war cost India roughly ₹15 crore per day. Escalation of violence could cause a food crisis or famine, like in Gaza, or even impact the IT infrastructure that facilitates WiFi-enabled virtual wars. In this light, the common-sense response of the people would have been to demand an end to the war, but anyone who tried to publicly say 'no' to war was deemed not just a traitor and terror supporter, but was also threatened with dire consequences. Ritu Sinha, a software techie in Hyderabad, says, 'I refuse to marry a person who asks for de-escalation. It shows the weakness of that man's character.' When asked about diplomacy and other measures to handle terrorism and cross-border conflict, she responds that 'saying no to war is discouraging and disrespecting the Indian army, and only a terror apologist would say that'. Raghavan, however, stresses that Indians of this generation are lucky that they have not seen a large-scale war; they have only seen localised military problems in specific areas — where the people of that region have dealt with the consequences and not the entire country. 'People should not assume that wars are re-enactments of movie scripts. Wars are not a trivial matter, and we have to be mindful of the consequences.' When politicians unite In this war frenzy and mass hysteria, hardly any political party has called for peace. Historian and writer Ramachandra Guha points out that jingoism is emotionally overpowering, and that people forget their own plight. Now the public calculation is that 'war is bad for us but worse for Pakistan'. He also reminds: 'After the 26/11 attack, the then Home Minister Shivraj Patil had to resign, but no such demands are being made by the Opposition parties this time.' In fact, parties across the political spectrum, be it Right, Centre or Left, have supported military actions. They are desperate to prove their patriotism. While participants of anti-war peace rallies in Thrissur and Kolkata faced a crackdown by the state governments in Kerala and West Bengal (under the Communist Party of India and Trinamool Congress, respectively), the rally held in support of the armed forces by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Opposition coalition, was allowed thousands of participants. The crucial question on the colossal intelligence failure that led to the barbaric terror attack in Pahalgam is no longer present in public discourse. Peace activists believe that in times of propaganda, dumbing down of intellect, and herd mentality, there is a shrinking of space for dialogue. Arundhati Dhuru, convener of the National Alliance of People's Movements, recounts that when she organised Indo-Pak peace missions in the late 90s after Pokhran, Indian schools hosted Pakistani delegations. 'They were sceptical, [Pakistanis] were still 'they', but we had an openness to listen, talk and sit together,' she recalls. 'Now, it is no longer possible. You could be lynched by your neighbour for saying no to war.' But, at the same time, 'pitting yourself against majority pro-war sentiment is not cowardice,' reminds Ravi Nair, executive director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre. 'Pacifism is an act of courage. It is an informed choice.' Where is the independent thinker? In the absence of in-person dialogues and the presence of hate spewing content on smartphones, art could be a potent tool to counter war propaganda. For decades, artists have encouraged peace with their work globally. But it is not so in contemporary India. Within two days of Operation Sindoor, there was a rush by entertainment companies to register the copyright of the name, as if it were a product launch and not a military operation. It is not surprising at a time when movies with slanted, sectarian, and inaccurate facts about the past and present — some of them glorifying violence and war — have been rewarded commercially and by the government. Orijit Sen, a graphic artist and designer, says, 'In India, artists are no longer voices of dissent. This feeling that the government will come after you is everywhere. There is an overall atmosphere of fear among everyone, including artists.' He adds that there is a manufactured mass hysteria among people where emotions are ripped up through propaganda-generating factories of the ruling dispensation. 'In the past decade, people have become more zombie-like, they think less for themselves and rely on what they see on social media. It requires you to be an independent thinker and use your common sense to oppose killings, war, and violence,' says Sen. A hypermasculine approach Globally, most leaders such as the U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and India's own PM Modi have fashioned themselves as hypermasculine leaders — in their body language and responses. Guha points out that the media has declared them as redeemers, and independent thinking people have fallen prey to herd mentality. 'The same hypermasculine attitude and language is reflected across political ranks and files of BJP leadership, and in the responses of the street thug that lynches, tortures, and abuses people on the margins and makes hate speeches. It is no surprise that there are such masculine responses to this situation,' he says. This was apparent in the name 'Operation Sindoor', where the Indian state and its leaders projected themselves as the protectors of women. On the afternoon of May 7, when the government held its first press conference, it was addressed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and two women, Colonel Sofia Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh. They informed that 'Operation Sindoor was launched by the Indian Armed Forces to deliver justice to the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack and their families.' Sindoor, vermilion, is worn by many Indian women in their hair parting to indicate their married status; ceasing to wear it implies widowhood. PM Modi, in his address to the nation on May 12, repeatedly said that the military action is to seek justice for the women whose sindoor was erased. J. Devika, an academic and feminist, says, 'Operation Sindoor is a hit because it upholds the fraternal social contract where women belong to men in a patriarchal system. Where killing of a man is seizing his women, in this case, the wife. Killing the husband is killing her protector. This is the base of attacking in a patriarchal society where it immediately becomes a question of honour.' The press briefing held by two women officers avenging the sindoor of the widows of Pahalgam was also hailed as an image of the Indian 'empowered woman' and 'united India' because Colonel Sofia Qureshi is Muslim. The Indian government takes a leaf from Israel and the U.S. in creating such optics to focus a selective approach to human rights violations. Israel has been accused of 'pinkwashing', trying to give itself a liberal veneer in its war on Gaza. In November 2023, a photo of an Israeli soldier with a rainbow flag in support of the LGBTQIA+ community appeared. Similarly, the U.S. sent Thomas-Greenfield and Robert A. Wood, both Black Americans, as its representatives in the UN — who have raised their hands to veto ceasefire resolutions for the Palestinian people. Not in the name of women The representation of women and Muslims in the press briefing did little to whitewash the oppression of women and Muslims, however, or repair the social fabric in contemporary India. An Association for Protection of Civil Rights report suggests that after the Pahalgam terror attack, between April 22 and May 8, 184 hate crimes against Muslims were reported across the country, out of which 106 were instigated in retaliation to the Pahalgam terror attack. On May 13, BJP leader Vijay Shah called Colonel Sophia Qureshi 'sister of the same community as terrorists'. Urvashi Butalia, a feminist and publisher, says that it is worth noting that in the past, most peace-making initiatives have been made by women. Women in Black, an anti-war movement that started in Jerusalem in 1988 against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and human rights violations, now hold vigils against any manifestation of violence, militarism and war all over the world. Similarly, in 1994, during the Nagaland conflict, the Naga Mothers Association formed a Peace Team as part of a campaign called 'Shed No More Blood' that actively arbitrated a truce between the Indian government and the outfit, NSCN (IM). The group exists to date. On May 10, when India and Pakistan's ceasefire was declared, the collective aggression of virtual war participants was visible in rejecting peaceful solutions. The same people who were talking about avenging women's honour through Operation Sindoor began trolling Misri's daughter, for providing legal counsel to Rohingya refugees after the Foreign Secretary announced on the government's behalf that India and Pakistan agreed to cessation of military operations. Amid this macho atmosphere, feminists across India and Pakistan have not just welcomed the ceasefire, but also called 'for a dismantling of power structures that sustain violence. The logic of war — rooted in nationalism, toxic masculinity, and colonial-era borders — must be rejected.' Butalia says, 'People think war should be the first response and will fix the problem within a week. But look at the Russia-Ukraine war and Israel-Gaza. It has been years. No wars have stopped because countries ran out of ammunition. They stopped because people sat across the table, talked and signed peace accords.' Today, reports of ceasefire violations continue, as do chest thumping WhatsApp forwards, and TV and content warriors who can't wait for season 2. The Delhi-based independent journalist and author covers the intersection of politics, gender, and social justice.
Hindustan Times
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Army and the Indian nation: past, present and future
The armed forces have always had a lot of prestige and reverence in India. These emotions have been on full display in the aftermath of the recent military conflict with Pakistan. Ironical as it may sound, adulation towards the military is not the default emotion in large parts of the world, especially the decolonised world, where the army has often been seen as a threat to democracy and civil liberties. Pakistan is one of the biggest examples of what the army's toxic influence can do to a country. What makes India an exception on this count? India's recent public discourse, in fact, has veered further in the opposite direction from large parts of the decolonised world. The current regime, under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has often politically celebrated its policy of giving more 'operational freedom' to the army than was available under the previous regimes. Does civilian control over the army; while it protects democratic freedom, tend to constrain a country's armed forces from performing to their full potential? Has it been the case in India in the past? Is a politics, which commits itself to giving more freedom to the army also the best policy to safeguard and advance strategic interests of a country? Can this question be answered vis-a-via India in today's day and age? The answers to these three questions, both in general terms and in the specific context of India, have attracted the minds of generations of experts on history, military and strategic studies. Some of the best work on the Indian aspect of these questions has actually been published in the recent past. This week's column revisits some of the important scholarly arguments on these questions, which can hopefully, make the ongoing debate and discussion better informed. How India managed to keep the army in the barracks unlike Pakistan The British Indian army was one of the largest armed forces raised under colonial rule. It was primarily a tool of serving imperial interests, not just in imperial wars but also subjugating the domestic citizenry if needed. Our founding fathers had deeply thought about these issues even before independence. They hit the ground running as far as keeping the military's oppressive and interventionist instincts in check was concerned as soon as we got freedom. These efforts took the shape of both deeply thought-out policy measures as well as playing on optics in resetting the civil-military balance in independent India. A 2010 article in the Seminar magazine by historian Srinath Raghavan, for example, noted how Jawaharlal Nehru shot down independent India's first (British) commander-in-chief General Rob Lockhart's orders that the public be kept away from the flag hoisting ceremony on the first independence day, sending a message that the army was to be subservient to democratic control in independent India. Political scientist Steven Wilkinson's 2015 book Army and the Nation: The Military and Indian Democracy since Independence noted that Nehru deliberately chose the Commander-in-Chief's official residence Teen Murti Bhawan as the Prime Minister's residence after independence. What is even more interesting in Wilkinson's book were three factors which he identifies as having led to key difference between the civilian-military relations in newly independent India and Pakistan, which led to the military acquiring far more power and ending up dominating the civilian arm in the latter. They are: Pakistan being delivered a 'worse hand' in terms of resources; both military and civilian, during partition, the Congress's institutional structures being better than the Muslim League's, which made the former better equipped to handle political contradictions and therefore lend more credibility to democracy, and the Indian government taking conscious 'coup-proofing' steps to safeguard civilian supremacy. A detailed explanation of the arguments will take too much space, so the column will cherry-pick from Wilkinson's book to give a broad idea about them. While the Muslim League managed to get the democratic ballast for creating a new Muslim state by winning big in Muslim-reserved constituencies in the 1946 elections, the new nation-state was bound to suffer from important structural handicaps. Among them were of Pakistan inheriting a small part of the revenue generated in India but a large part of the actual conflict-ridden border with Afghanistan, which had consumed a lot of the defence spending in British India, thereby leading to a bigger burden of military expenditure. The asymmetry was not confined to resources alone. The British Indian army had disproportionate representation from both Indian and Pakistani Punjab –owing to the imperial policy of recruiting from martial races – but almost none from Bengal. East Pakistan, which eventually became Bangladesh, would have a majority of Pakistan's population but almost no representation in its armed forces, creating a fundamental asymmetry in the army's composition. Whether Pakistani army's atrocities during the Bangladeshi liberation war would have been the same had Bengalis been well-represented in the army is an important counterfactual. The Congress party, which unlike the Muslim League was an organic political beast well aware of the contradictions within the Indian society. Unlike the League, which was consumed by almost a hubris that creating an Islamic state was a silver bullet to take care of all other contradictions, the Congress knew better about the democratic challenge these posed. That Pakistan was imposing Urdu on its majority Bengali speaking population — a major reason for alienation of East Pakistan from West Pakistan — while India was carving out states on linguistic basis gives an insight into the political sense of these two parties. Muslim League's lack of political prowess in handling Pakistan's internal contradictions unlike the Congress in India — often the top leadership of the Congress changed its mind on issues after democratic pressure — weakened democracy in Pakistan and tilted the scales in military's favour. India's early political leadership did not leave everything to chance to preserve civilian supremacy over the military and took explicit measures to what Wilkinson calls 'coup-proof' India. They included things such as abolishing the Commander-in-Chief's post, empowering the civilian bureaucracy vis-à-vis the military, taking conscious efforts to make the military's leadership more representative in ethnic terms and keeping the army on a strict leash by intelligence gathering on its leadership, shortening tenures and even tactically pushing retired officers out of the country on diplomatic postings when they were seen as meddling in domestic politics. The Indian state also raised a large para-military force, which is now almost comparable to the strength of the army, to tackle internal security responsibilities which might have made the army a bigger player in internal political and ethnic tensions risking its politicisation in the process. Did the civilian leash constrain the army in India? While a lot of the credit for preserving India's nascent democracy from the military's intervention is due to Jawaharlal Nehru, his legacy suffered the biggest damage when India's faced a humiliating defeat at the hands of China in the 1962 war. The China debacle generated a widespread opinion that the civilian leadership had jeopardised national security in its zeal to keep the military on a leash thereby crippling its fighting capabilities. To be sure, the idea has been contested by historians such as Raghavan who has argued that claims of civilian interference behind the China debacle were 'at best radically incomplete and at worst downright false'. Facts notwithstanding, the hangover of the 1962 military debacle led to a sub-optimal arrangement in the civilian-military relations. The government let the army decide its course on operational issues without any civilian oversight without ceding control on larger policies and resource allocation. This did not necessarily lead to better outcomes. To be sure, on other important occasions, such as what Raghavan terms as India's delayed intervention in the 1971 war in his book on the creation of Bangladesh, both the civilian leadership and the army took the wrong line of delay despite counsel to the contrary. Raghavan's views on civilian-military relations, of course, are firmly tilted in the favour of the former being in command. 'Civilian involvement (including those at the tactical levels in army matters) is essential, even if it may not always have a salutary effect. This is particularly so in a democratic system', he wrote in his Seminar essay quoted above. Other scholars, such as Anit Mukherjee have argued that the real collateral damage in the uneasy truce – what he calls 'the absent dialogue' between politicians, the military and bureaucrats in India in a 2020 book by the same name – is the efficacy of the army in performing its stated goals. These issues have manifested themselves in things such as lack of coordination and resource optimisation between different military wings (army, air force and the navy) and procurement needs being delayed inordinately for the military. This silo-based approach has also created the problem of the lack of adequate domain knowledge about military affairs in the civilian arm of the government, which, in fact, jeopardises the very idea of effective civilian control of the military. To be sure, Mukherjee's book is primarily focused on the pre-2014 period when India did not have a post of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), often seen as a necessary reform to undo the unity-of-purpose damage done by abolition of the Commander-in-Chief's post in the armed forces. Civilian-military relations hit a nadir in the run up to 2014 with a serving army chief accusing the government of falsifying his age to shorten his tenure, there was an unexplained movement of army troops towards the national capital in what was described as an alleged coup-attempt and even army veterans came out openly against the government of the day on issues such as One Rank One Pension. These controversies were preceded by things such as the growing chorus for defence reforms in the aftermath of the Kargil war and the civilian-military discord on things such as demilitarisation of the Siachen Glacier and the propriety and maintainability of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in areas where the army was involved in counter-insurgency operations. While some of the issues flagged in Mukherjee's book have been addressed under the current government, most importantly the creation of a CDS, the armed forces and their ability to live up to their own stated national security doctrine is far from being realized at the current moment. Operational freedom can do very little do take care of structural constrains for the military While the entire country is celebrating the efficacy of India's air-defence systems (very expensive weaponry) in the aftermath of the recent conflict with Pakistan, the political narrative vis-à-vis the armed forces was very different in the 2024 general election. The opposition made the Agniveer scheme – which plans to hires soldiers for only four years instead of the much longer hirings with retirement pensions earlier – a major electoral issue hoping to attract the votes of unemployed youth who were hoping to land a job in the armed forces. While most rational observers take narratives of future wars becoming more and more mechanised and even digitised to the extent of making conventional combat irrelevant with more than a pinch of salt, there is little doubt that the military will become more and more capital intensive gradually, making it more expensive but less employment generating. In a country like India where jobs are scarce and fiscal resources already stretched thin towards balancing the necessary (such as national security) with the political prudent (welfare), the rising capital intensity of the military is bound to become an increasingly difficult to handle contradiction. In conservative institutions such as the army, these are anything but easy contradictions ton handle. In a 2023 compendium published by the Observer Research foundation, for example, former army chief Manoj Naravane talks about the army being saddled with ten thousand mules and as many handlers despite animal transport battalions becoming redundant with the availability of all-terrain vehicles. Employment is not the only concern vis-à-vis India's future military preparedness. Procurements, caught between red-tape, resource constraint and the ambitions of import substitution continue to put a squeeze on the military's operational prowess, especially the air force and the navy. Senior military functionaries, serving or retired, have flagged these concerns, especially in the context of the rising military might of China. The latter is significantly ahead of India not just in terms of economic resources but also indigenous capabilities of its military industrial complex. In fact, while conflicts with Pakistan continue to animate a large part of the country and popular opinion, India's real strategic challenge emanates from its eastern not western neighbour, which has been supporting the former to keep the spectre or a two-front war alive for India. India's military prowess, or the lack of it, is not something, which exists in vacuum. It is deeply linked with other aspects of what the Indian state choses to do. For example, India's growing proximity to the US which is now described as a strategic alliance – an idea being increasingly questioned in the wake of President Donald Trump's recent public statements hyphenating India-Pakistan – has often been peddled as an excuse to severe its defence relations with Russia. This chorus became louder in the aftermath of the Ukraine war. Russian air defense systems played a major role in the recent conflict. While Russia is more willing to offer its best military equipment and also more likely to share technological know how and interoperability with other systems; imported or locally developed, at cheaper prices, it simply cannot be a substitute for the US in a lot of commercial transactions and cutting-edge technologies which are equally important for the Indian state. Similarly, despite being supportive of the Palestinian cause (at least on a de jure basis) India has cultivated a deep strategic relation with Israel and procures a lot of defence hardware from it, making it an important cog in the wheel of India's military preparedness. These contradictions make India' pursuit of its strategic goals a difficult balancing act where future decisions are always at the risk of falling between the proverbial stools of being oblivious of the past or sidetracked by it. While it is to be expected that the political regime of the day will always portray itself as handling these strategic contradictions better than its opposition even as the latter tries to pit one against the another for political gains, a democracy must always guard against policy becoming a victim of its own propaganda rhetoric. The last thing which can help this cause is a shrill and uninformed public discourse which is often encouraged by competing stakeholders in the democratic realm. Roshan Kishore, HT's Data and Political Economy Editor, writes a weekly column on the state of the country's economy and its political fallout, and vice-versa.
New York Times
11-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Danger for India and Pakistan Has Not Gone Away
India and Pakistan have seemingly pulled back from the brink again. But so much was new about the nuclear-armed enemies' chaotic four-day clash, and so many of the underlying accelerants remain volatile, that there's little to suggest that the truce represents any return to old patterns of restraint. A new generation of military technology fueled a dizzying aerial escalation. Waves of airstrikes and antiaircraft volleys with modern weapons set the stage. Soon they were joined by weaponized drones en masse for the first time along the old Line of Control in Kashmir — hundreds of them in the sky, probing each nation's defenses and striking without risk to any pilot. Then the missiles and drones were streaking past the border areas and deep into India's and Pakistan's territories, directly hitting air and defense bases, prompting dire threats and the highest level of military alert. Only then did international diplomacy — a crucial factor in past pullbacks between India and Pakistan — seem to engage in earnest, at what felt like the last minute before catastrophe. In a new global chapter defined by perilous conflicts, distracted leaders and a retreating sense of international responsibility to keep peace, the safety net had never seemed thinner. 'Going back historically, many of the India-Pakistan conflicts have been stopped because of external intervention,' said Srinath Raghavan, a military historian and strategic analyst. Mr. Raghavan observed that neither country has a significant military industrial base, and the need to rely on weapons sales from abroad means outside pressure can have an effect. But the positions of both sides appeared more extreme this time, and India in particular seemed to want to see if it could achieve an outcome different than in previous conflicts. 'I think there is a stronger sort of determination, it seems, on the part of the Indian government to sort of make sure that the Pakistanis do not feel that they can just get away or get even,' he said. 'Which definitely is part of the escalatory thing. Both sides seem to feel that they cannot let this end with the other side feeling that they have somehow got the upper hand.' The political realities in India and Pakistan — each gripped by an entrenched religious nationalism — remain unchanged after the fighting. And that creates perhaps the most powerful push toward the kind of confrontation that could get out of hand again. Pakistan is dominated by a military establishment that has stifled civilian institutions and is run by a hard-line general who is a product of decades of efforts to Islamize the armed forces. And the triumphalism of Hindu nationalism, which is reshaping India's secular democracy as an overtly Hindu state, has driven an uncompromising approach to Pakistan. On Sunday, there was still no indication that Pakistan or India might repair their diplomatic relations, which had been frosty even before the military escalation, or ease visa restrictions on each other's citizens. And India did not seem to be backing away from its declaration that it would no longer comply with a river treaty between the two countries — a critical factor for Pakistan, which said that any effort to block water flows would be seen as an act of war. The spark for the latest fighting was a terror attack on the Indian side of Kashmir that killed 26 civilians on April 22. India accused Pakistan of supporting the attackers. Pakistan denied any role. The crisis ended a six-year lull in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Indian government had taken a two-pronged approach to Pakistan: trying to isolate its neighbor with minimum contact and to bolster security at home, particularly through heavily militarizing the Indian side of Kashmir. Establishing a pattern of escalatory military action in response to terror attacks in 2016 and 2019, India had boxed itself into a position of maximal response. After last month's attack, the political pressure to deliver a powerful military response was immediate. But the choices for India's military were not easy. It publicly fumbled the last direct clash with Pakistan, in 2019, when a transport helicopter went down and when Pakistani forces shot down a Soviet-era Indian fighter plane and captured its pilot. Mr. Modi's effort to modernize his military since then, pouring in billions of dollars, was hampered by supply constraints caused by Russia's war in Ukraine. India was also stressed by a four-year skirmish on its Himalayan border with China where tens of thousands of troops remained on war footing until a few months ago. When it came time to use force against Pakistan this past week, India wanted to put that lost prestige and those past difficulties behind it. It also sought to show a new, more muscular approach on the world stage, able to wield not just its rising economic and diplomatic power, but military might as well. Western diplomats, former officials and analysts who have studied the dynamics between India and Pakistan said that India came out of this latest conflict looking assertive and aggressive, and perhaps has established some new level of deterrence with Pakistan. But the way the fight played out did not suggest improvement at the operational or strategic level, they said. In its opening round of airstrikes, on Wednesday, India struck targets deeper inside the enemy territory than it had in decades, and by all accounts had hit close enough to facilities associated with terror groups that it could claim victory. Each day that followed was filled with language from both India and Pakistan suggesting that they had achieved what they wanted and were ready for restraint. But each night was filled with violence and escalation. More traditional artillery volleys across the border kept intensifying, bringing the heaviest loss of life. And the drone and airstrikes grew increasingly bold, until some of each country's most sensitive military and strategic sites were being targeted. What finally seemed to trigger the intense diplomatic pressure from the United States, with clear help on the ground from the Saudis and other Gulf states, was not just that the targets were getting closer to sensitive sites — but also just what the next step in a rapid escalation ladder for two alarmed nuclear powers could mean. Shortly before a cease-fire was announced late on Saturday, Indian officials were already signaling that any new terror attack against India's interests would be met with similar levels of force. 'We have left India's future history to ask what politico-strategic advantages, if any, were gained,' said Gen. Ved Prakash Malik, a former chief of the Indian Army.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Indian air strikes - how will Pakistan respond? Four key questions
In a dramatic overnight operation, India said it launched missile and air strikes on nine sites across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, targeting what it called militant positions based on "credible intelligence". The strikes, lasting just 25 minutes between 01:05 and 01:30 India time (19:35 and 20:00 GMT on Tuesday), sent shockwaves through the region, with residents jolted awake by thunderous explosions. Pakistan said only six locations were hit and claimed to have shot down five Indian fighter jets and a drone - a claim India has not confirmed. Islamabad said 26 people were killed and 46 injured in Indian air strikes and shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) - the de facto border between India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, India's army reported that 10 civilians were killed by Pakistani shelling on its side of the de facto border. This sharp escalation comes after last month's deadly militant attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, pushing tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals to dangerous new heights. India says it has clear evidence linking Pakistan-based terrorists and external actors to the attack - a claim Pakistan flatly denies. Islamabad has also pointed out that India has not offered any evidence to support its claim. Does this attack mark a new escalation? In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched "surgical strikes" across the LoC. In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot - the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 - sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight. Experts say the retaliation for the Pahalgam attack stands out for its broader scope, targeting the infrastructure of three major Pakistan-based militant groups simultaneously. India says it struck nine militant targets across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, hitting deep into key hubs of Lashkar-e- Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizbul Mujahideen. Among the closest targets were two camps in Sialkot, just 6-18km from the border, according to an Indian spokesperson. The deepest hit, says India, was a Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Bahawalpur, 100km inside Pakistan. A LeT camp in Muzaffarabad, 30km from the LoC and capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, was linked to recent attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, the spokesperson said. Pakistan says six locations have been hit, but denies allegations of there being terror camps. Pakistan says six locations have been hit, including in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir [Anadolu via Getty Images] "What's striking this time is the expansion of India's targets beyond past patterns. Previously, strikes like Balakot focused on Pakistan-administered Kashmir across the Line of Control - a militarised boundary," Srinath Raghavan, a Delhi-based historian, told the BBC. "This time, India has hit into Pakistan's Punjab, across the International Border, targeting terrorist infrastructure, headquarters, and known locations in Bahawalpur and Muridke linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba. They've also struck Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen assets. This suggests a broader, more geographically expansive response, signalling that multiple groups are now in India's crosshairs - and sending a wider message," he says. The India-Pakistan International Border is the officially recognised boundary separating the two countries, stretching from Gujarat to Jammu. Ajay Bisaria, a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, told the BBC that what India did was a "Balakot plus response meant to establish deterrence, targeting known terrorist hubs, but accompanied by a strong de-escalatory message". "These strikes were more precise, targeted and more visible than in the past. Therefore, [they are] less deniable by Pakistan," Mr Bisaria says. Indian sources say the strikes were aimed at "re-establishing deterrence". "The Indian government thinks that the deterrence established in 2019 has worn thin and needs to be re-established," says Prof Raghavan. "This seems to mirror Israel's doctrine that deterrence requires periodic, repeated strikes. But if we assume that hitting back alone will deter terrorism, we risk giving Pakistan every incentive to retaliate - and that can quickly spiral out of control." Could this spiral into a broader conflict? Smoke rises after an artillery shell hits the main town in India's Jammu region on Wednesday [AFP via Getty Images] The majority of experts agree that a retaliation from Pakistan is inevitable - and diplomacy will come into play. "Pakistan's response is sure to come. The challenge would be to manage the next level of escalation. This is where crisis diplomacy will matter," says Mr Bisaria. "Pakistan will be getting advice to exercise restraint. But the key will be the diplomacy after the Pakistani response to ensure that both countries don't rapidly climb the ladder of escalation." Pakistan-based experts like Ejaz Hussain, a Lahore-based political and military analyst, say Indian surgical strikes targeting locations such as Muridke and Bahawalpur were "largely anticipated given the prevailing tensions". Dr Hussain believes retaliatory strikes are likely. "Given the Pakistani military's media rhetoric and stated resolve to settle the scores, retaliatory action, possibly in the form of surgical strikes across the border, appears likely in the coming days," he told the BBC. But Dr Hussain worries that surgical strikes on both sides could "escalate into a limited conventional war". Christopher Clary of the University at Albany in the US believes given the scale of India's strikes, "visible damage at key sites", and reported casualties, Pakistan is highly likely to retaliate. "Doing otherwise essentially would give India permission to strike Pakistan whenever Delhi feels aggrieved and would run contrary to the Pakistan military's commitment to retaliating with 'quid pro quo plus'," Mr Clary, who studies the politics of South Asia, told the BBC. "Given India's stated targets of groups and facilities associated with terrorism and militancy in India, I think it is likely - but far from certain - that Pakistan will confine itself to attacks on Indian military targets," he said. Despite the rising tensions, some experts still hold out hope for de-escalation. "There is a decent chance we escape this crisis with just one round of reciprocal standoff strikes and a period of heightened firing along the Line of Control," says Mr Clary. However, the risk of further escalation remains high, making this the "most dangerous" India-Pakistan crisis since 2002 - and even more perilous than the 2016 and 2019 standoffs, he adds. Is Pakistani retaliation now inevitable? Indian paramilitary personnel stand guard along a road in Srinagar on Tuesday [AFP via Getty Images] Experts in Pakistan note that despite a lack of war hysteria leading up to India's strike, the situation could quickly shift. "We have a deeply fractured political society, with the country's most popular leader behind bars. Imran Khan's imprisonment triggered a strong anti-military public backlash," says Umer Farooq, an Islamabad-based analyst and a former correspondent of Jane's Defence Weekly. "Today, the Pakistani public is far less eager to support the military compared to 2016 or 2019 - the usual wave of war hysteria is noticeably absent. But if public opinion shifts in central Punjab where anti-India feelings are more prevalent, we could see increased civilian pressure on the military to take action. And the military will regain popularity because of this conflict." Dr Hussain echoes a similar sentiment. "I believe the current standoff with India presents an opportunity for the Pakistani military to regain public support, particularly from the urban middle classes who have recently criticised it for perceived political interference," he says. "The military's active defence posture is already being amplified through mainstream and social media, with some outlets claiming that six or seven Indian jets were shot down. "Although these claims warrant independent verification, they serve to bolster the military's image among segments of the public that conventionally rally around national defence narratives in times of external threat." Can India and Pakistan step back from the brink? Indian security forces patrolling in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir [NurPhoto via Getty Images] India is once again walking a fine line between escalation and restraint. Shortly after the attack in Pahalgam, India swiftly retaliated by closing the main border crossing, suspending a water-sharing treaty, expelling diplomats and halting most visas for Pakistani nationals. Troops on both sides have exchanged small-arms fire, and India barred all Pakistani aircraft from its airspace, mirroring Pakistan's earlier move. In response, Pakistan suspended a 1972 peace treaty and took its own retaliatory measures. This mirrors India's actions after the 2019 Pulwama attack, when it swiftly revoked Pakistan's most-favoured-nation status, imposed heavy tariffs and suspended key trade and transport links. The crisis had escalated when India launched air strikes on Balakot, followed by retaliatory Pakistani air raids and the capture of Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, further heightening tensions. However, diplomatic channels eventually led to a de-escalation, with Pakistan releasing the pilot in a goodwill gesture. "India was willing to give old-fashioned diplomacy another chance.... This, with India having achieved a strategic and military objective and Pakistan having claimed a notion of victory for its domestic audience," Mr Bisaria told me last week.
