On April 22, 2025, five militants killed 26 unsuspecting tourists including one Nepali national, on the Baisaram meadow in Pehelgam (Shepherds’ Valley), Anantnag District in the Illegally Occupied Indian side of Kashmir, in one of Indian security forces’ high security zones. Civilian fratricide in Kashmir’s war of liberation remains a sad collateral damage. The light weight, immature and jingoist Indian media immediately pushed the narratives putting the blame on Pakistan. The Resistance Front (TRF) — the obscure group that took responsibility for the attack, was in Indian reckoning, an extension of Lashkar-e-Tayyab (LeT).
The next day, India held in abeyance the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) signed under the World Bank auspices in 1960, that it had been eyeing to undo for quite some time; closed Attari-Wagah border crossing; expelled Pakistan’s military diplomats; reduced Pakistan’s diplomatic staff; and cancelled SAARC visas for Pakistani nationals. On April 24, Pakistan condemned the Pahalgam attack and termed India’s response as “unilateral”. In a tit-for-tat reaction, Pakistan also suspended the 1972 Shimla (Simla) Agreement signed after the 1971 War, revoking the status of the Line of Control (LoC); and denied overflight rights to Indian-owned and Indian-registered aircraft. And from April 23–30 border skirmishes took place.
India, traditionally, in such eventualities, follows a pattern, blaming Pakistan without evidence, making a case for retaliatory strikes. It reacted militarily for Pulwama attacks in Pakistan proper at Balakot in 2019, a first ‘first’, and undertook major escalatory actions for Bombay attacks in 2008 and Indian Parliament attack in 2001 etc. However, there were no international takers, and despite Modi’s phone diplomacy, all major powers including the US, EU, Russia, China, and Turkey etc called for calm. Iran offered to mediate. Buoyed by sympathy for loss of life, Modi Government authorised the Indian military to respond as it deemed fit.
War and Netanyahu’s Playbook
So, after almost a fortnight of sabre rattling, Indian Air Force (IAF) using around 80 aircraft struck around nine targets in six cities (Ahmedpur East (Sharqia), Bahawalpur, Muridke, Sialkot, Shakargarh, Muzaffarabad and Kotli), ‘presumably’ using the BVR (beyond visual range) munitions, without crossing the LoC in AJ&K, and international border in Punjab, closer to Lahore, Sialkot and Bahawalnagar, in Operation Sindoor. The targets selected included religious seminaries ostensibly run by the LeT, ‘allegedly’ the mother organisation behind ‘TRF’.
Pakistan’s response in Maarka-e-Haq was the pinnacle of Pakistan’s military retaliation against Indian aggression, when IAF targeted the civilian infrastructure on May 06 martyring 36 innocent civilians including women and children. India also employed dual use nuclear-capable BrahMos cruise missiles in conventional roles, an extremely irresponsible and provocative act as a nuclear state, disregarding acceptable norms of international law and moral precepts.
Indian objectives
The discerned Indian objectives were projecting Pakistan as a terror sponsoring state; imposing war to make Pakistan a pliant state; and embarrassing Pakistan’s military, not expecting a muscular and timely response, given the international hue and cry of restraint. Politically, PM Modi aimed to use the military showdown for political advantage in the then forthcoming elections in Bihar; and as a pretext to hold IWS in abeyance.
The War
Pakistan vigorously responded to the unprovoked Indian aggression through air and ground retaliation on May 7, downing some seven high performance Rafale and other jets including Sukhoi-Mk 30, MIG-29 and Mirage-2000. Indian Military resorted to attacks by loitering munitions/ drones, indiscriminately targeting Pakistan. It launched another wave of cruise missile and drone attacks on May 9, against PAF bases at Nur Khan, Shorkot, Bholari, Jacobabad and Rafiqui. Pakistan destroyed some 84 drones including Israeli made Heron and Harpy UAVs, and disabled and misdirected several missiles.
Pakistan’s main response, however, came on May 10, through Operation Bunyan-al-Marsoos (Iron Wall) when 26 targets were attacked on mainland India and IIOJK including Uri, KG Top, Nowshera brigade headquarters; air/military bases at Halwara, Sirsa, Ambala, Jammu, Mamun, Naliya, Kandla, Bhuj, Suratgarh, Punch and Rajouri, besides a deadly fire response all along LoC. PAF’s indigenous multi-role JF-17 fighter planes, using PGMs (Precision Guided Munitions) knocked India’s S-400 Air Defence (AD) system, the most sophisticated Russian supplied AD system that India had named as Sudarshan Chakra, causing AD gaps and delivering PAF relative command of the air. And Pakistan’s National Security Committee, meanwhile, vowed to go beyond the ‘defensive’ action, if India continued. Having suffered crippling military, economic, political and reputational losses, India agreed to President Trump’s ceasefire proposal, enduring further embarrassment.
Islamabad appeared taller militarily, politically and diplomatically after May 2025. Pakistan’s response – defensive and offensive – was in line with its policy of ‘quid pro quo plus’. It was mature, responsible, disproportionate where needed, calibrated in most cases, synchronised, and tightly controlling the escalation. A late response to Operation Sindoor would have been escalatory, whereas the tit-for-tat response as it went, was deemed Pakistan climbing the same Escalation rung, where India was already perched.
Along the LoC, Pakistan’s relentless response using artillery and other heavy calibers, destroyed Indian posts, headquarters, supply dumps, besides improving defensive postures in the contested zones. In some cases, the Indian Army was forced to raise white flags. In Waters, Pakistan Navy forced a retreat on the INS Vikrant, the sole Indian aircraft-carrier hosting MIG-29K jets.
The complex ‘all domain all spectrum’ Air-Land-Cyber and Space assault by Pakistan not only hit the Indian Military hard, it crippled grids, hacked surveillance cameras and websites, confused BrahMos Missile Guidance Systems, and manipulated Rafeal’s EW capability, using AI and other classified hi-tech tools. Rafael appeared less formidable against the J-10C. Pakistan’s Armed Forces executed integrated tri-service full spectrum response very responsibly, professionally, and in a calibrated manner, intentionally avoiding more damage to the Indian Military infrastructure, leadership and other high-value economic targets.
By displaying grit, resolve and determination, Pakistan’s political and Military leaders, especially the Service Chiefs, in particular the COAS Gen Asim Munir and the CAS, ACM Zaheer Ahmed Babar Sidhu displayed quality ‘combat leadership’, and greatly debunked the home-grown and foreign supported anti-military propaganda. This importantly bridged the Army-People gap that was created by vested political interests intentionally and gullibly. Pakistan’s inner front ‘jelled like hell’ when the shots rang out. All political divisions disappeared, and the nation represented Bunyan Marsoos – the Solid Wall.
PM Modi, for some time had been following Netanyahu’s playbook in Gaza, like revocation of Article 370 in Kashmir, followed by racial profiling and discrimination against Indian Muslims in Bengal, Gujrat, Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Assam etc under Hindutva-laced vigilante justice, and brow-beating India’s Muslim neighbours under hegemony on steroids. Modi forgot that India was not Israel, Pakistan was not Palestine, Kashmir was not Gaza and he was not Netanyahu.
The firsts and the new normal
The conflict introduced many firsts namely; a) the use of ballistic and cruise missiles by both sides, India being the first; b) the use of armed drones/ UAVs; c) India attacked all along LoC, International Border and Working Boundary; and d) India indiscriminately targeted civilian infrastructure. This was the ‘New Normal’, an arrogant and overconfident India was trying to set by automatically blaming Pakistan for any terrorist acts on its soil, and by bombing Pakistan proper. It seemed more emboldened this time as it struck the LeT centre near Muridke, Lahore.
This was the first time India used ‘cruise’ missiles, both the BrahMos version (PJ-10 co-developed with Russia) as well as the European SCALP-EG targeting Pakistan proper. Pakistan also retaliated for the first time, employing its conventionally armed short-range Fatah-I and Fatah-II series of ‘ballistic’ missiles and other types. This was also the first time, strategic instability in South Asia was ‘linked internationally’ to the unresolved Jammu and Kashmir dispute and not terrorism per se. No major power apparently believed the Indian narrative.
India’s Escalation Trap
For quite some time, a sizeable cohort in the Indian ‘Miltablishment’ – serving and retired – is enamoured by the idea of availability of space for a limited convention–l punitive war against Pakistan, even under the nuclear overhang. As usual, in the run-up to the war, the Indian political leadership climbed higher and quicker on the psychological ‘Escalation Ladder’ (EL). Climbing down from this high perch on the EL without military showdown, hence, was embarrassing for PM Modi, who publicly spoke of revenge. This is the Escalation Trap; Indian leaders fall into, with no or difficult off-ramps.
Appearing strong and talking tough helped Modi politically, since he won election in 2019 after Pulwama; it also enhanced his god- devta-like stature; and it appeased the cited Indian military establishment, believing (incorrectly) in space for a conventional war with Pakistan, under the overt nuclearisation of both nations. And like in the past, jingoism under the RSS-Modi-Amit Shah trio peaked and was amply reinforced by a wayward Indian media, where everyone wanted to ‘teach Pakistan a lesson’.
Pakistan’s response dilemma
By targeting seminaries, India aimed at inducing a response dilemma on Pakistan, expecting dithering, forgetting Pakistan’s Operation ‘Swift Retort’ in 2019. However, India’s initial retaliatory rush, by authorising Indian Military for tactical and operational responses, was later checked by restraint against wider geo-strategic conflagration. Because India also had not assembled forces for wider ground war. That assembly along its western borders takes considerable time, and even once assembled on time, the Indian Army never has overwhelming superiority against Pakistan for a decisive war. Compulsion to keep larger forces along Indo-Bangladesh and Sino-Indian border curtails Indian numbers against Pakistan.
The international environment was also not in favour of continued military show-down, as behind-the-scenes interlocution by the international community including Russia, EU, UK, OIC, UAE, the US, and the UN continued. China’s resolute support to Pakistan also put brakes on India’s adventurism.
The Indian predicament
Internally, the chasm between the Indian political class and its Armed Forces was also reportedly acute, given the embarrassing detention of the GOC-in-Charge of the Northern Command (where Pehelgam happened), Lt Gen M.V Suchindra Kumar, firing of Sectoral Air Chief and the unceremonious posting out of Gen D.S Rana heading the Defence Intelligence Agency. Senior commanders were ‘reportedly’ advised not to employ Sikh soldiers on sensitive duties for their pro-Khalistan leanings. There are recurring political coups in the Indian Armed Forces with senior officers resorting to judicial intervention for trivial matters like a change in the date of birth and extension in service etc.
The Indian military is heterogeneous in nature, unlike the more cohesive Pakistani military, which is battle-hardened, better trained, resolutely led and higher on the comparison matrix of ‘intangibles’ like the will-to-fight, justness of cause, morale and motivation, jihad and martyrdom etc. These are considered decisive ‘force multipliers’ in war.
There are repeated intelligence assessments about acute anti-India sentiment among common Kashmiris, eroding the military environment in the likely theatre of war. Modi’s racist policies have antagonized and alienated larger segments of Indian minorities Muslims, Christian and Dalits alike. And there are raging insurgencies within the Indian Union. And a hegemonic New Delhi is not on good terms with any neighbour.
Given the lukewarm international response to India’s Exterior/Diplomatic Maneuver against Pakistan and given her much curtailed ‘Interior Maneuver’ for cited reasons, New Delhi was made to refrain from large-scale conflagration against Pakistan, being risky and because of Pakistan’s expected response.
Redefining deterrence
Operation Sindoor broke conventional deterrence between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India. A broken deterrence needs to be re-established, hence Pakistan following its strategy of ‘Quid-Pro-Quo Plus’ equalized its losses and re-established deterrence through Operation Bunyan Marsoos.
In Indo-Pakistan military construct, traditionally deterrence breakdown ‘would’ escalate into a conventional military conflict, that may inch towards a ‘possible’ nuclear exchange, when continued fighting degrades a weaker Pakistan’s forces and infrastructure, results into spatial losses, causes population casualty or threatens Pakistan’s existential economic well-being…all understood to be Pakistan’s traditional redlines or ‘thresholds.’ In nutshell, a conventional war is generally thought to precede a nuclear war.
However, Pulwama and Pehelgam have overturned this traditional construct. In today’s super-charged bilateral environs, a jingoistic Indian media in particular, creates a frenzy and ratchets up war hysteria, where not only politicians but all walks of an otherwise saner population, are driven towards violence, sanctioned and eulogised by nationalistic fervour. Therefore, escalation is fast and higher than usual.
Social and even mainstream media whips up sentiments and emotions to unacceptable levels, and perceptual and psychological escalation occurs faster than military escalation. And when such socio-psycho-perceptual escalation is combined with military operations, the situation becomes irretrievably difficult and dangerous. This faster psycho-perceptual escalation puts pressure on leaders from both sides to respond with more force and alacrity.
So, the traditional construct of a conventional war leading to nuclear-specific escalation is never the case anymore. New implements of war like drones and missile strikes, although less deadly than actual combat by comparison, raise the ante unacceptably high. There is then an inadvertent slide towards miscalculation because of a communication breakdown. The US cited this communication breakdown as a reason for their involvement in the May crisis.
There seems to be less realisation of this new ‘Escalation Normal’ between the belligerents. And, as Pulwama and Pehelgam prove, Indian political leaders in cahoots with the cited military lobby, would continue to corner Pakistan in embarrassing situations for short-term gains, while driven by hate, blighted by irrationality and encouraged by a super-charged war mongering media. Therefore, declaration of Pakistan’s nuclear policy from its status of ‘No-No-First- Use’ is important.
India in particular needs to get out of the ‘perceptual trap’ of blaming Pakistan for non-functional toilets in Pune and resorting to blatant escalation in case of any militant activity, trampling all norms and tenets of statehood and neighbourliness. There may be no Trump to facilitate the next ceasefire, or the world reaction might be too late than Pakistan’s response to the Indian provocations, that may be more deadly, given the pressures and imperatives of its own demography, and India’s perpetual brinkmanship.
Perceptions, inferences and conclusions
Maarka-e-Haq altered the South Asian balance of power, and the Indo-Pakistan power equation. An overconfident, power-drunk India, under a ‘supposedly’ ironlike, tough talking Modi with the stature of a god, imbued with a false sense of supremacy, self-righteousness, hubris and arrogance, and buoyed by economic success, stood humiliated, compromised and much shorter than the stature it aspired and acquired.
A much smaller, weaker, divided and quieter Pakistan gave it a well-deserved drubbing in a resolute, calibrated and timely riposte. The jingoistic Indian media and the manipulative Hindutva cohort, who ratcheted up war hysteria to unknown frenzy, and had captured most of Pakistan in their imagination, under litany of falsehoods, stood crestfallen and biting dust. India lost a lot in the perceptual domain than it was and is willing to acknowledge.
The West Plus led by the US, and China, the wavering Arab World, SAARC nations and even Russia look at this totally unnecessary skirmish as a grave error of miscalculation and overreach by New Delhi. The US ostensibly began soul-searching if they were betting on the right horse, to stand up against a rising China. This episode badly exposed India’s international standing, its ability and capability and its staying power.
The Indian diplomatic corps was greatly embarrassed for sticking to its Pakistan-linked terrorism mantra, and the ensuing military action despite the world capitals urging restraint. New Delhi’s case had no traction from Day One. Pakistan’s political and military leadership demonstrated their unflinching resolve to notch up on the EL, if India decided to go up; this greatly undermined India’s diplomatic credibility and stature.
The very purpose for which the Pehelgam carnage was stage-managed, and Operation Sindoor launched under media fanfare, backfired. The entire gamut proved politically disastrous for Modi, BJP, RSS and Hindutva Doctrine.
Indian Military especially the IAF appears weak, in disarray and less professional. PAF using their JF-17 Thunder, J-10C fighters (Chengdu Vigorous Dragon) and PL-15E missiles combos, without trans-border employment of F-16s, not only forced India to ground its fleet of 36 odd state-of-the-art Rafael jets but also compelled IAF to move them around 300 kms away from the International Border to avoid ambushes by PL-15Es.
The aftermath of Pehelgam and Operation Bunyan Marsus demonstrated Pakistan’s ‘strategic humility’. Miscalculations by Indian leaders’ – political and military – should never be forgiven in silence. In ‘teaching Pakistan a lesson’, India not only ‘altered the regional equation’, it got rehyphenated with Pakistan, something it loathed, after its hard-won Clinton-era de-hyphenation. And New Delhi, unwittingly exposed itself to a parity with Islamabad, that it vehemently denied under hubris, arrogance and over-confidence.
India walked into the trap of ‘buying and bullying into influence’, only to lose both. It triggered the most dangerous regional escalation since Kargil without any investigation, without any shareable proof, without any satellite imagery, without any international inquiry and without remorse, just guided by ‘nationalist theatrics’, media jingoism and short-term political gains, all to abrogate IWS and humiliate Pakistan. And it failed.
A ‘pauper’ Pakistan’s response sent India suing for ceasefire, after being forced out of the skies, after targeted destruction on land, and a good drubbing in Kashmir. New Delhi ‘mistook Pakistan’s composure for collapse’. Islamabad’s response was doctrinal and not theatrical. Pakistan’s ‘digital kill web’ proved far more dangerous than the terrorism that India blames on Islamabad.
The 16-hour air skirmish diminished India’s role as a counterbalance to China, as a rising regional power and as a reliable partner. Instead of teaching a lesson to Pakistan, India was taught one…to be included in the syllabi of all staff colleges and war courses, heretofore.
From this brief war, neither Pakistan emerged as a dwarf two-feet David, nor India as a loud-talking 10-feet Goliath. India was humbled by the unkindness of events. Karachi did not fall, Islamabad remained steadfast, and Lahore kept pulsating, with daredevil Pakistanis eulogising their armed forces while firing deadly arsenal towards India from their fields, from their neighborhoods, with praying elders overseeing salvo after salvo. It was a national Bunyan Marsus. Pakistan did not escalate; it equalised India’s perceptual superiority. It emerged not as a weakened state, but an awakened country. Pakistan didn’t blink, and stood its ground with dignity, restraint, precision, and strategy.
Modi ‘perceptually’ had a bigger stick that now lies broken, and his power is exposed not only to Pakistan, but to the admirers of ‘shining India’ worldwide. India, in public perception, lost its ‘dominance’ not through outright defeat, but through overreach, despite the ‘theatrical illusion of victory’ that Indian media continues to showcase for psychological conquest of its citizenry. India’s myth of conventional superiority, built and carefully managed for such an eventuality, lies in chaotic collapse before the public eye.
Pakistan’s poverty, touted repeatedly over a berserk India media is recognised by the world as its ‘cool hardiness.’ Islamabad emerged as a calm, articulate player, and as a disciplined nuclear power that can demonstrate restraint, resolve, and resilience. And its dwarfed defense spending compared to New Delhi’s $85 billion defence budget, still enables and equips its armed forces with doctrine, deterrence, and determination to hold its nerve under fire. Pakistan absorbed Operation Sindoor with a resolute defensive response and then responded with its own ‘Bunyan Marsus’, rewriting the rules of deterrence.
Consequently, Pakistan gained more confidence and relevance that is already buttressed by its geostrategic location at the crossroads of Karakoram, the Silk Road, South and Central Asia; and it being key to regional stability for 2.8 billion South Asians. The strategic map has shifted and with it the world’s perspective. Pakistan once branded as a ‘failing state,’ today emerges as a reliable strategic balancer. This isn’t just a strategic shift in the regional power dynamics, it is a psychological jolt and a rude awakening for the Hindutva-laced RSS dominated, Modi’s bigoted brand. From being overlooked to being overanalysed and over-examined, Islamabad, given its recent mediatory credentials, is back in global conversations Alhamdo Lillah.
This brief war demonstrated India’s ‘doctrinal collapse’, militarily as well as in the perceptual domains. Ajit Doval’s sinister scheming to flush TTP, BLA and BRA with cash, incite synchronized uprising in KP and Balochistan, exploit Pakistan’s many cleavages, and turn Afghan borderlands and Pakistan into an inferno for Pakistan’s military, backfired squarely, roundly and embarrassingly. The operation, contrarily, jelled Pakistan’s inner front like hell. India mistook Pakistan’s doctrinal maturity as fragility.
Modi’s India miscalculated militarily, decided to ignore geopolitics, misread the doctrine, misjudged Pakistan’s internal dynamics and resolve, and overplayed its hand in trying to redefine South Asia’s balance of power. A leaf from Israel’s playbook did not match Chanakya Kotalia’s script. India’s doctrine of punitive retaliation through swift operations, is broken operationally not just symbolically.
The dictum of history is clear, New Delhi was not the victor, Islamabad is. Bunyan Marsus was a rude awakening for India from its make-believe Bollywood world; and ‘Pakistan’s rendezvous with history’, an existential moment of great peril, handled with dignity and precision. Allah be praised.
The writer specialises in global affairs and political sociology. He can be reached at tayyarinam@hotmail.com and his twitter handle @20_Inam
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