THE brief and intense military operation conducted by the brave officers of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in the broad day hours of February 27, 2019 where two Indian aircraft were shot down was code-named as, “Operation Swift Retort”.
This operation was in response to Indian violation of Pakistani air space in the dark hours of February 26, 2019.
Operation Swift Retort put Pakistan at a strategic advantage while simultaneously putting India at a strategic disadvantage.
While revisiting the history of Pakistan-India relations, the latter has been making constant endeavours to prove its political and strategic ascendancy in South Asia as part of its long-term strategic planning of becoming regional hegemony.
Whereas India was able to dominate and subdue all South Asian states, nevertheless Pakistan didn’t accept Indian regional supremacy.
Pakistan always rejected strategic and political manoeuvring of India by giving a befitting response to any of its misadventures and misleading Indian media campaigns. In order to prove its strategic ascendancy over Pakistan, in 2016, India projected to international media that it had carried out surgical strikes inside the areas of Azad Jammu and Kashmir by crossing the ceasefire line (Line of Control). Pakistan exposed the Indian falsehood by inviting the representatives of local and international media to witness any signs of surgical strikes. Indeed, nothing was found to sup-port India’s claim. Upon exposure of this lie, India had to cut a sorry figure in front of the international community. Nevertheless, it continued reinforcing its lie by making similar claims and gains which could prove its hegemonic designs.
On February 14, 2019, India stage-managed an attack on an Indian military convoy in Pulwama area of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). The attack killed over forty soldiers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). Immediately after this attack, India projected Pakistan as the state behind this attack where neither Pakistan nor Kashmiris were beneficiaries of this attack. At the political and diplomatic levels, Pakistan condemned the attack with a clear rejection of Indian allegations about its involvement in the attack. Pakistan even offered its cooperation in the investigation process. On its part, India launched a massive media campaign to implicate Pakistan and Pakistan-based organizations in the Pulwama attack and created war hysteria among the Indian masses. This all ended at the Indian Air Force physical incursion into the Pakistani aerial space up to Balakot with false claims of killing over 300 militants at a militant training camp there. This all was done despite a clear warning from Pakistan that any violation of Pakistani territory will be retaliated.
Indian aerial incursion at Balakot in the dark hours of 26 February 2019 put Pakistan at an odd position, warranting a befitting response. The very next day, 27 February 2019, Pakistan Air Force (PAF) retaliated Indian attack through “Operation Swift Retort” in the Nowshera sector of IIOJK shooting two Indian aircraft in broad daylight; one falling into AJK area and another in IIOJK. From the planning to its conduct phase, India wanted to achieve a political and strategic mileage from the Pulwama attack. Politically, India wanted to tell the world that whatever is happening in IIOJK is backed by Pakistan and Pakistan-backed militants’ organizations, warranting punitive actions like sanctions and declaring Pakistan as a state sponsoring terrorism.
Strategically, India wanted to prove its military ascendancy over Pakistan and in the broader South Asian region. Had Pakistan not responded to IAF incursion, it would have stamped the Indian dominance in the region and so-called claims of the surgical strike in 2016. The Pakistan retaliation and shooting of Indian aircraft put India into a humiliating position, with a strategic disadvantage. Today after six years of the “Operation Swift Retort” Indian soldiers and Indian masses must ask Modi and military high command as to why Indian Government stage-managed an event to kill its own soldiers and thereafter paved the way to massively brutalize the Kashmiris of IIOJK in the garb of this attack. This stage-managed Pulwama attack was primarily planned for attaining three key objectives: (a) re-election of BJP into the power through scheduled elections of May 2019, (b) projecting Kashmiris and Indian Muslims as militant for their future penalization through undoing the special status of IIOJK and Citizenship Amendment Act-2019 and (c) projecting Pakistan as the state behind militancy, thus demanding international community to put sanctions against it.
Operation Swift Retort substantiates that it is not the gun but the man behind the gun, which really matters. This Indian confession and submission lowered its status in the regional politics of South Asia with a global embarrassment to its earlier fraudulent claims against Pakistan. Indeed, the Pulwama attack and the post-Pulwama Indian military misadventure put India into a strategic disadvantage with a lot of domestic and international repercussions. Indeed, India was fully exposed at regional and international levels. The Indian efforts to become a regional hegemonic power with the status of major power position at the global level have also met with disappointments. In summary, ‘Operation Swift Retort’ put India into a strategically disadvantageous position while concurrently proved inspirational for the Pakistani military.
— The writer is Professor of Politics and IR at International Islamic University, Islamabad.
(drmkedu@gmail.com)
