One would expect the Indian leadership, both civil and military, to feel embarrassed after the downing of at least five Indian fighters, including three of its much-vaunted state-of-the-art Rafales, which at Rs 45 billion apiece, would cost Rs 145 billion. The loss is bad enough, for the meaning of these downings was that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was unable to fil fill his fantasies of hitting Pakistan at will. The Indian response to the Pahalgam attack had taken matter a notch higher, as the Indian attack included airstrikes at targets squarely on Pakistani soil, and far from the Linw of Control, so there was no chance of a mistake, Indian targeting seemed to revive the old accusation it had levied against the Lashkar-i-Taiba, and revived memories on Lashkar chief Prof Muhammad Saeed.
However, perhaps the most serious implication for India was that it was shown that it could not rely on its air force. A surgical strike was to have been delivered by air, but instead the PAF not only detected the intrusion, but rushed its own planes to the spot, and downed the intruders. Both sides used missiles with sufficient range to hit targets across the border. The most immediate lesson is that Indian planes cannot provide the command of the air, or even the air superiority, that it needs to provide Indian ground forces for them to launch a successful attack, or even a successful defence. This is apart from the effects on the morale of the entire Indian armed forces. This also belies the impression that Pakistan had to go nuclear because it had fallen so far behind India in conventional means that it needed some means to redress the balance.
Apart from the immediate response from the PAF, there was also a meeting of the National Security Committee, where the armed forces were all given a free hand in taking action. This is in exercise of the country’s right under the UN Charter to undertake self-defence, not just in reply to the killing of its civilian citizens, but also the violation of the Indus Waters Treaty that India has committed by stopping inflows from the Chenab. At the moment, both sides seem to be trying to stay within the limits of international law. Before that restraint is gone, before there is any further escalation, the international community must step in.
