AT PENPOINT
It may seem to many that India is needlessly prolonging the controversy about whether any of its planes were shot down, and that the calls for the resignation of Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan for admitting that an unspecified number had been shot down, but it should be understood that the shooting down had damaged the cult of personality that had been developing around him as the unfailing defender of Indian soil, as the semi-mythical warrior-hero who would keep India safe.
It should be remembered that the BJP is trying to portray a national myth where Muslim hordes from the West threaten at any moment to sweep down on Hindustan at any moment and engulf it, but Modi stands rock-like in defence. Bunyanum Marsoos seriously dented that image. The BJP seems to have noticed, and the Bengal elections early next year are going to be crucial. The BJP has never won an election there, but wants to displace long-time Trinomial Congress leader Mamta Bannerjee, who has held office since 2011. If the BJP fails to win, it would be something of a setback. The BJP has come from nowhere to become the state’s main opposition, having wiped out the Left Front in the process.
The real problem is that India has now no way of pulling back from its declaration that the Indus Waters Treaty was held in abeyance. For Pakistan, the IWT represents survival. For India, it represents a permanent reaction to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. It also represents a desire to escape the trammels of responsibility. It has certain duties as the upper riparian state, and it wants to welsh on them.
The BJP government has thus got into a bind of its own making. The IWT was not an issue, to the extent that it remained in force despite two Indo-Pak wars since its signing, nor has it been an issue at any of the times Pakistan and India have confronted each other. However, Narendra Modi has made it one. It might be an example of overreach, for its link with the main issue is not clearly visible. Operation Sindoor makes more sense. An attack on terrorists can be criticized for offending another nation’s sovereignty; it can be argued that India acted without sufficient evidence, and that no court had ratified that decision; so-called terrorist bases were identified incorrectly; India should have persisted with diplomatic channels. However, Sindoor can still be justified as the reaction of an enraged bull. How can the IWT be made to fit in? By the logic of the IWT abeyance, Modi should have ordered counter-population nuclear strikes, turning Pakistan into a radioactive wasteland has chosen this moment to make a deal with France to
Of course, Sindoor itself has led to problems. Dassault, the makers of the Rafale jet, have tried to put the blame for the downing of its jet by the PAF, on the IAF. Dassault is pushing the line that the downings were the result of pilot error and poor maintenance.
The IAF is not accepting this, insisting that Dassault share the source codes of the plane’s electronics. Dassault’s request that it be allowed to carry out a technical audit of the Rafales in India’s inventory has not been entertained, even as the Indonesian Air Force has asked to be allowed to conduct its own audit. The Indonesian government has chosen this moment to sign a deal with France for Rafales.
Pakistan is far away from that, as is the maker of the J-10, which brought down the Rafales. While there is the customary post-operation review (and indeed it is the thoroughness of such reviews that enabled the operational efficiency attained during Sindoor, there is none of the panic that is taking place at this moment in India.
In the case of India and Pakistan, can the world afford to wait for the threat to recede? It should not be forgotten that not only can no one afford a nuclear war, but a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India will be enough to set off a nuclear winter. This time, it seemed that the world was tiring of the Indian cries of ‘wolf’? What happens when it becomes tired? Those who remember their Aesop, that ended badly.
Amidst all of this, India has decided to launch a stealth fighter project. It seems that it is treading the same path as it did after the Phulwama crisis, when it inducted the Rafale for air combat, and the S400 for air defence. The PAF has shown that it can counter both of them. In the Phulwama crisis, it was shown that the mainstay of the IAF, the MiG-21, was inferior. Wing CDR Abhinandan, the pilot who was shot down and captured, was proof. This time around, no Indian pilots were captured. That did not mean no planes were shot down, it merely meant that the pilots had ejected and come to earth in Indian territory. It also meant that PAF and IAF planes had not intruded into each other’s territory, and had done whatever damage they did with guided munitions, both air-to-air and air-to-ground.
It reflected the nature of the conflict, which did not convert into war mainly because neither side established the presence of human combatants on the other side of the border, except the sole BSF sepoy captured by Pakistan. The intense firing on opposing positions on the other side of the LoC was carried out from weapons systems or platforms on one’s own side of the LoC.
It is interesting that the aggressor, India, was also trying to be careful. It showed that both sides realized the consequences of going too far, and wanted to avoid going nuclear.
Paradoxically, India has achieved what Pakistan has been unable to do for so many years, which is to internationalize the Kashmir issue. It could be argued that Modi made a very bad miscalculation by staging a false flag operation in Pahalgam, in Indian-Held Kashmir, and then following it up by holding the IWT in abeyance, one of the effects he did not foresee is that international attention was drawn to Kashmir and the Kashmir dispute.
The whole world has seen that the Indo-Pak dispute can have disastrous consequences, and that it centres on Kashmir. Individual countries still see India as a large market which cannot be antagonized, but there has arisen the realization that they cannot risk having India hold them to ransom. India’s sensitivities will be addressed, but it will not find that its current delegation’s visit to Western capitals will get the unquestioning acceptance of the Indian narrative that the Modi government would like.
One reason is that Pakistan’s own delegation is doing the rounds, and pressing home the centrality of the Kashmir issue. It may be that India will no longer be allowed to get away with first saying that Kashmir is a bilateral issue, and thus preventing everyone else talking about it, and then refusing to talk to Pakistan about it.
However, internationalizing any matter has pitfalls. Any solution is a compromise based on estimates of relative strength. What happens when they don’t agree? Wars have been fought in the past because of a disagreement on respective strengths. After the 1965 War ended in Pakistan’s favour, there was the 1971 War, which India won. There has been peace since, because of an agreement over relative strength. Similarly, the 1967 War had seen the Arabs laid low, but there was the 1973 War, where they restored something of a balance. Both sides agreed the Arabs were bad, but not as bad as 1967.
By that estimate, it seems the last two Indo-Pak encounters have ended in Pakistani victories. Will India accept the logic of the situation, or will it keep contending? It should accept the logic of the situation, but neither France nor England did for three and a half centuries of warfare. But they could keep it going, for they had become allies half a century before either went nuclear.
In the case of India and Pakistan, can the world afford to wait for the threat to recede? It should not be forgotten that not only can no one afford a nuclear war, but a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India will be enough to set off a nuclear winter. This time, it seemed that the world was tiring of the Indian cries of ‘wolf’? What happens when it becomes tired? Those who remember their Aesop, that ended badly.
