Sour grapes?

Indian Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh must be regretting having that claimed that the IAF had downed six PAF planes during the Undo-Pak confrontation after the Pahalgam incident, because not only did Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khwaja Asif take him to task, but so did the Indian Opposition, which has been going to town on the issue of how badly the Indian armed forces were prepared for Operation Sindoor, as the anti-Pakistan operation was codenamed. ACM Singh had to bear the fact that the IAF had become a joke. It is funny that his claim of PAF planes being destroyed has come so late, apparently after the disgrace had become too much for him to bear. The combat occurred three months ago, but this is the first official claim from India of any downings. Kh Asif, on the other hand, merely repeated claims that Pakistan had made before: three Rafales, an Su30 and a MiG29 shot down, and an S400 battery destroyed. It is more pathetic than laughable that ACM Singh said that six PAF planes were destroyed, including an unspecified surveillance aircraft, presumably one which the IAF would have liked to destroy, and was one plane more than Pakistan had claimed.

The latest US tariffs show how India is disregarded by the rest of the world, and all because of the dismal performance of the IAF. He is trying to achieve air superiority verbally, and plans have already been articulated for Bollywood films to take inspiration from recent events. Going by previous outings, no doubt those yet-to-be-made movies will show India winning. However, while such boosts to the ego may keep the troops happy, they do not change what actually happened.

It will be interesting to see whether Kh Asif’s Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, rises to the bait. It does seem that ACM Singh intended to address his force, for the whole IAF must be shaken to its core by the magnitude of the disaster which has occurred. ACM Singh probably escaped the sack only because that would itself be an admission of failure. ACM Singh is not unused to pressing over disasters: he was once chief test pilot for the Tejas light combat aircraft, which has proved an almost unmitigated disaster. Now, he has had a project for a Medium Combat Aircraft, a stealth fighter, approved. Talk about plunging one train into a previous train wreck!