Crime Today News
By Kumkum Chadha
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on May 12, he put to rest some of the doubts that had cropped up after the announcement on the ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
Much to India’s embarrassment, US President Donald Trump jumped the gun. Not only did he announce to the world that India and Pakistan had agreed to a ceasefire, but also took credit for silencing the two nations at war. Pakistan jumped with joy while India looked the other way.
In his 22-minute address to the nation, Modi spoke about several things, but stayed clear of mentioning the US or its role, given that there was one. He, however, did make it clear that talks with Pakistan will only be on terror and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. With this, Modi kind of demolished Trump’s claim of increasing trade “substantially” with both countries if they stopped the war or the possibility of US mediation in issues between the two countries.
For the record, Trump is reported to have said: “If you stop it (the war) we’ll do a trade. If you don’t stop it, we’re not going to do any trade… And all of a sudden they said: “I think we are going to stop”. Trump also said that the US had offered to mediate on the dispute between India and Pakistan.
Though visibly weighed down, Modi spoke decisively. The big takeaways of his speech were: terror and talks, terror and trade and blood and water cannot go together; Operation Sindoor was ongoing; retaliation only paused and not ceased; India will not tolerate “nuclear blackmail” and the route to peace is through strength, among others.
The ceasefire announcement was certainly a “Thank god” moment. There was a sense of relief though there were misgivings on why India had backed off as there was confusion over who had actually won the war; whether Pakistan had actually got a beating and more importantly was India as keen to call off the offensive as Pakistan was? However, the top of the mind question is: had India succumbed to US pressure? There are no easy and straight answers.
The sense of relief notwithstanding, there is an element of dismay at India giving up so easily: within four days of launching the offensive.
Speaking objectively, Modi’s image has taken a hit: the lion that roared had somehow fallen silent, leaving gaps between what was to be and what actually happened. The “swiftness” with which India agreed to end the offensive was, to the people in India, a kind of a let down from a prime minister who had promised to avenge the Pahalgam terror attack. When posters of India’s former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s strong leadership surfaced and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri was trolled after the ceasefire announcement labelling him a traitor, the message was clear.
For the record, posters hailing Gandhi surfaced: “India misses Indira” and “Indira Gandhi hona aasan nahin hai”, not easy to be Indira Gandhi, being the crux. The intent was to pitch the 1971 Indo-Pak war that led to the creation of Bangladesh against the current escalation and the “hasty ceasefire”.
This is not to suggest that Pakistan did not get a beating. If official briefings on the Indian side are anything to go by, Pakistan was battered, though there were losses on the Indian side as well. The fact that it was the Pakistan DGMO who called his Indian counterpart to ceasefire was of course a face saver. Yet there is an angst: the feeling of “being shortchanged” and India giving in easily to Pakistan’s “request”, so to speak. To put things in the right perspective, one must begin from the beginning.
Post the terror attack in Pahalgam, India started off very well. For starters, it suspended the Indus Water Treaty; closed the Attari check post; set a deadline of 48 hours for Pakistani nationals to leave India; declaring defence advisers in the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi persona non grata, and so on and so forth.
Even when the country was told about Operation Sindoor being launched, it well demonstrated the thought process as well as sensitivity of the Modi government. Handpicking two women officers, was a master stroke: Colonel Sofia Qureshi of the Indian Army flanked by Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, a helicopter pilot, alongside India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri. Details of the Operation notwithstanding, it was the messaging that stood out: two women, one a Muslim, was a signal that when it comes to India, Hindus and Muslims stand and fight together. It is significant that in the Pahalgam terror attack, the victims were Hindus: in fact, they were targeted after ascertaining their religion.
The second important message was the nomenclature: Operation Sindoor: the codename handpicked by the prime minister himself: symbolic and significant given that husbands were killed in presence of their wives. The spilled image of the sindoor put out by the armed forces, was loud and clear: India is avenging the loss the women suffered. It was also a tribute to the widows of Pahalgam victims. In the Hindu custom, sindoor or vermillion is a symbol of marriage.
Till then spirits in India were high; an average Indian was elated that Prime Minister Modi had delivered on his ghar mein ghus ke maarenge promise.
It was in 2019 that the phrase roughly translated as “we will enter your home to kill you” gained currency. It was the recurring theme of the election campaign that followed the killings in Pulwama and bombings in Balakot earlier that year.
Post-Pahalgam, it resurfaced and found resonance even as India waited for the armed forces to strike back and avenge the terror attack in Pahalgam.
What the country had not bargained for was Pakistan retaliating in the measure that it actually did. Neither had it imagined that a near-war like situation would be at our doorstep. Once that happened reality sank in: Pakistan was not giving in. Whatever be its losses, it was sending in drones and missiles deep into Indian territory. The Indian forces confirmed shooting down drones in Jammu, Amritsar and Pathankot among others.
As tensions mounted and signs of escalation became increasingly clear, nervousness gripped citizens. There was anxiety on how far this could go; whether Pakistan was on a self-destructive path and more importantly could it press the nuclear button?.
Therefore, when the ceasefire actually happened there was a sense of relief: the “thank god” moment so to speak. But this is where it ended.
In hindsight, there are questions and more questions: the why and how of the Operation; our losses and gains and more importantly the “equalization” of India and Pakistan and few countries openly supporting and standing with India. Worse still, no one called out Pakistan as the perpetrator.
As against this, Pakistan was hand-held by Turkey and China while India was, in one sense, on its own. USA’s flip flop apart, even the SAARC bloc remained silent as did Nepal and Bangladesh. Even Russia, traditionally India’s close ally, adopted a neutral stance. The International Monetary Fund bailout to Pakistan, despite India’s strong opposition, was the last straw.
It is common knowledge that the USA is the IMF’s largest shareholder with veto power. Whether this was a bargaining chip to persuade Pakistan to de-escalate remains in the realm of speculation.
Against this backdrop, would it be right to assume that this is a collapse of India’s diplomacy? Or conclude that India’s much publicized “clout” on the world stage is mere optics? The jury, on this, is out.
—The writer is an author, journalist and political commentator
This article first appeared on India Legal
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