LAST week I penned an article “Modi, What is holding you back?
” In the article, I had put forth the reasons why Modi was slow to respond to the Pahalgam attack.
As luck would have it, the article was published on May 7th, the morning that the world woke up to the sound of war between India and Pakistan.
One journalist friend wrote to me “hamla karwa dia na…your article and timing is so unique”.
I had to remind him that the article was written three days before the actual attack and that the article gave the reasons why Modi is slow in responding, and his response would be at his own peril.
Since the publication of the article, it is worth reviewing whether the reasons that were given were valid and did they come to bear.
The foremost reason that I had given behind India’s hesitancy to attack Pakistan was their worry that they would get militarily embarrassed as they had been in 2019 when Pakistan downed the Indian MiG.
My argument was that Pakistan military may be much smaller than India’s and the defence budget minuscule compared to India’s ($10 billion versus India’s $80 billion), yet Pakistan has a battle-hardened military who has been in a state of war of one kind or another since the 1980’s and the first Afghan War.
On the flip side, Indian Army are no veterans and a long shot from being trained for actual combat.
Winning wars in Bollywood movies is a far cry from winning actual wars.
Pakistan proved this point on May 7th.
The Indian misadventure led to the downing of 5 planes on the first day, the destruction of a Brigade HQ and a Battalion HQ, downing of 77 plus Israeli drones, the reduction to scrap metal of a $1.5 billion S-400 air defense system and much more.
As one commentator put it, Pakistan turned India’s defence into a punching bag!
Modi was right to be hesitant about attacking Pakistan, yet he did and the misadventure has been humiliating for India.
The second reason behind the delay in action by India was that Modi could not make the case that Pakistan was behind the Pahalgam attack.
Much as India tried to promote the narrative that Pakistan was to blame, the world refused to buy it.
And Pakistan, for once, did an amazing job of not letting India win the narrative war.
When India did attack on May 7th, not only was the world not listening to India’s farcical reasons behind the attack, but Pakistan’s subsequent restrained response solidified their position as the adult in the room.
Having just arrived in DC, I decided to defend Pakistan’s position with the friends (US diplomats, think tank leaders, etc) that I was meeting.
It turned out that I didn’t have to do much defending at all.
Everyone thought that India had gone off its rockers and Pakistan acted maturely.
One former US Ambassador told me “I’m worried by the way the guardrails have come off in Modi’s India and the irresponsible role of the Indian Media, which is now out of control.
” Another former US Ambassador of Indian heritage said “I believe the Pakistani version much more that the Modi’s version.
Modi’s India is crazy”.
I could go on with many similar anecdotes but suffice to say that there is wide consensus in DC that Pakistan was in the right and India was wrong.
The third reason given towards Modi’s hesitancy for war was that India had much more to lose.
India is an economic power house in the world.
Any regional conflict will adversely impact its economy much more so than Pakistan’s.
And it came to bear.
Reuters reported that India lost $83 billion from Indian equities in two days.
On top of it, India dragged its allies down and it is a certainty that France (manufacturers of Rafales), Israel (producers of Hareb drones) and other potential partners are rethinking their economic/military ties with India.
On the other hand, the rise in nationalistic pride in Overseas Pakistanis is sure to convert to higher remittances to Pakistan in the coming days and months, thus boosting Pakistan’s economy further.
My final reason was that the world is not keen to accelerate a recession on the tails of a regional conflict.
Hence, the US and China would intervene quickly to put a stop to the conflict.
That came to pass as well.
Within four days of the start of the mini-war, US jumped in to bring about a ceasefire.
Even Pakistan’s IMF tranche was quickly approved to give Pakistan a carrot for peace.
Concurrently, China jumped in quickly to support Pakistan thus ensuring a quick end to the hostilities.
China prevented further escalation by showing India that they would lose on many fronts should they take the war forward and India got the message.
Pakistan made itself proud while India lost diplomatically, militarily and economically, and the worst part is that they did it to themselves.
It is as if India went into a boxing ring alone, punched the air and knocked itself out.
Leaving India to its shadowboxing, it is time for Pakistan to move forward and capitalize on its new found world respect and apply all diplomatic pressures at its disposal to find a solution for the people of Kashmir.
—The writer is a former Senior Advisor to the Government and a sector development specialist.
He is a member of the APP Think Tank and Pakistan’s Buddhist Heritage Promotion Ambassador for GTPL, a company under SIFC.
