India will never be the same again. Or at least not like what it has been since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014.
On May 7 and 10, Indian forces were rather confidently subdued by the Pakistani army and air force. On May 7, when the wreckages of India’s highly-touted Rafale fighter jets were discovered, the tone of the Indian government suddenly lowered. That’s when one felt that the May 7 battle was not turning out the way India had hoped.
This war was initiated by India on the assumption that Pakistan was a highly polarised society with an “unpopular army” and an equally unpopular government. Indian strategists were convinced that Pakistan would not be able to withstand an attack by its much larger neighbour with a ‘very popular’ government and superior war machine.
But during the conflict, India — figuratively speaking — was first served a black-eye, and then, on May 10, a bloody nose. It eventually called for a ceasefire mediated by the US. This was first reported by the veteran journalist Nic Robertson on CNN.
India stoked a war expecting a ‘fractured’ Pakistan to crumble. Instead, it was met with unexpected national unity, military pushback and global scrutiny — thus reshaping the regional narrative
Pakistan successfully withstood a major Indian offensive and scored some vital military and diplomatic victories. India, on the other hand, has very little to show for its gambit. Let’s see how India’s infamously loud, jingoistic and fact-free media spins this because, by the evening of May 10, it had started to sound rather disoriented.
One of the most bizarre episodes of the conflict, though, unfolded on Indian TV channels during the night/early morning of May 8/9. For hours, the Indian media kept ‘reporting’ the fall of major Pakistani cities and the country’s government, and the arrest of Pakistan’s military chief. This bewildering tidal wave of fake news kept rising, despite Pakistanis posting videos of complete normality in their country (and, understandably, laughing their heads off). More so, no news outlet outside India reported anything at all about this “sweeping Indian victory.”
One day this episode will (and should) be studied more closely by sociologists (or, for that matter, by psychologists as well). My immediate understanding is that it was a case of a collective fantasy that kept gaining momentum as more and more Indians got sucked into a whirlpool of outright fibs, so much so that they lost all contact with reality.
I guess, the ecstasy and frenzy of those mad hours on Indian media were such that all ability to think rationally and mindfully was sucked out from a lot of Indians — especially middle class Indians, who are Modi’s core constituency. A collective fantasy of the total and absolute destruction of a hated neighbour was played out that night on Indian news channels and on social media. It soon mutated and took the shape of a frenetic ritual.
Most participants of this ritual woke up the next morning with a terrible hangover. Pakistan was still there, as it has always been. The hangover worsened when Pakistan successfully retaliated on May 10 with a barrage of missile strikes. By then, the Indian media and its audience were visibly exhausted. So was the Modi regime. The gambit had failed.
Indeed, Pakistan was/is a polarised society. But it is remarkable the way the country’s many divergent social, economic and political segments almost instantly came together to support the country’s armed forces and government against the Indian offensive. The Indians were not expecting this.
Their understanding of the political situation in Pakistan seems to have been based on an exaggerated perception of the economic and political crisis that Pakistan plunged into in 2022. A perception — which one can now safely claim — was largely formulated by Indian ‘psyop’ (psychological operation) experts on social media through their own ‘trolls’ (pretending to be Pakistani), and through the usual cast of ‘useful idiots’ within Pakistan who readily hitch a ride on any narrative that undermines the “unpopular” armed forces.
This is not to suggest that the narratives in this regard are entirely wrong. Far from it. But they do tend to be exaggerated and are framed to fish for emotions and beliefs that have turned into dogmas. These dogmas are mostly views about Pakistani state institutions and politics. Even though the institutions and the country’s politics have been evolving, their understanding in certain fixed minds seems to have stalled or stopped at some previous point in time. This tendency can be found on the left as well as on the right.
However, many who (I believe) carry this tendency were also openly supportive of the country’s response to Indian hostilities. There were those among them who were clearly struggling, even though they weren’t as vehement in their criticisms as they often are. Most from this segment decided to talk about ‘peace’. Nothing wrong with this, really — but here’s the thing: one is often impressed by the long tradition of anti-war and/or peace marches in Europe and the US. But these marches make sense because they were (and still are) held against one’s own country because its forces have invaded and occupied another country. Think Vietnam, think Iraq, think Afghanistan, think Palestine.
But do you think peaceniks in the US would’ve been singing ‘Give Peace a Chance’ had it been the Vietnamese forces invading the US? Were the Iraqi soldiers singing ‘All We Need is Love’ when facing US troops in Iraq? Of course war can be hell on so many levels. But it wasn’t Pakistan who started the war.
The country’s sovereignty had been breached by a neighbour that has never hidden its desire to break Pakistan into several pieces. Calls for peace had to come from peaceniks in India, the initiator of the war. One just couldn’t expect the Pakistani armed forces and government to pull out acoustic guitars instead of guns and start singing ‘All We Need is Love.’
Perhaps the silliest were many fans of Imran Khan. Some continued their so-called ‘anti-establishment’ tirades, but most, in a rather surreal manner, tried to posit that Pakistan’s victory was somehow dependent on Khan’s release from jail. They didn’t explain how. Take for example the following X post by the official Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) account when India launched its second attack: “Pakistan is under attack. Release Imran Khan now!” To do what? Hold a rally? Organise a dharna? What?
Nevertheless, the Indian government’s reading of present-day Pakistan was exposed as one-dimensional. This understanding became trapped in its own exaggerations and formulations. Even these realities changed with the aggression against Pakistan, surprising the Indians.
Published in Dawn, EOS, May 18th, 2025
INTERVIEW: ‘India Should Never Fight Indecisive ‘Wars’ With Pakistan’
Image Courtesy: Flickr
Bharat Karnad, Emeritus Professor for National Security Studies, Centre for Policy Research, and Distinguished Fellow at the United Service Institution of India, is a prolific writer and security expert having written several books on India’s nuclear policy. Among the many books is `Staggering Forward: Narendra Modi and India’s Global Ambition’ and `Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet). Edited excerpts of an interview with senior journalist Rashme Sehgal on the hostilities between India and Pakistan after the terror attack on tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir, on April 22.
Rashme Sehgal: What made US President Donald Trump jump into the recent Indo-Pak fracas? Did he fear the increased escalation leading to a nuclear conflict? US Vice President JD Vance had gone public saying that it ‘was none of our business’, but a day later, we saw US talking to both sides and going public on their claim. Your comments.
Bharat Karnad: Two things may have prompted the US President. One, Trump's proclivity to grab the international spotlight -- this time by jumping into the India-Pakistan tussle as international "peacemaker" and making completely false statements about pressuring the Indian and Pakistani governments to stand down.
Two, India's missile hits on the Nur Khan air base at Chaklala, HQ of the Strategic Plans Division, Pakistan's nuclear secretariat, and even, perhaps, on nuclear storage sites in the Kirana Hills, may have triggered America's overblown fears of a nuclear conflict.
RS: There were reports in a leading English daily that IAF had hit Kirana Hills in Punjab which provides storage facilities for their nuclear infrastructure, which was subsequently denied. I have two queries. First, nuclear facilities are built with many safeguards so much so that experts claim these facilities should be able to withstand such a hit (if not direct). Second, Pakistani experts claim nuclear facilities are spread across the country. Your comments.
BK: Yes, nuclear weapon sites are usually in dispersed locations, and they are physically well protected with hardening.
RS: President Trump in a subsequent tweet claimed it was US intervention that halted this fight and he was willing to mediate in a neutral place to resolve this dispute. Allowing the US to get involved will cease this as a bilateral issue. How will this affect India’s foreign policy?
BK: For over 20 years now, I have been warning in my books and other writings about the perils of getting too friendly with the US. Washington begins by taking you for granted, and takes liberties. When Vance called (Prime Minister) Modi, he should have strongly objected to the US intervention and told him in so many words to "Shut up! Stay out" because it was none of America's business. Modi should then have gone public by saying he had told the US to stop interfering. Instead. S Jaishankar (the foreign minister and the Ministry of External Affairs), as I understand, talked ambiguously about details, such as the proposed "neutral site" for negotiations, etc. So, we have given way on the last point and, diplomatically, once again helped the US to re-hyphenate India and Pakistan that New Delhi had striven so hard over the last 20 years to keep apart.
RS: Given that Indian security forces claimed that we were winning the war, should India have so readily agreed to a ceasefire? Some security analysts claim that India snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Your views?
BK: India certainly had the upper hand -- our missile blows were landing and Pakistan's were being negated by a surprisingly good layered Indian air defence system. The trouble was that other than Muridke and Bahawalpur, the Indian government had no strategic objectives, as I pointed out in my 'Security Wise' Blog of May 7. There were no preparations, for instance, to straighten out the LOC (Line of Control) by capturing the Haji Pir Salient in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir -- the main channel for infiltrating terrorists into the Srinagar Valley. Or to take Skardu, to rationalise the Indian control of the border to the Saltoro Muztagh and the Siachen Glacier. These were doable goals, as I pointed out in my blog post of April 30. So, naturally, there is disappointment.
RS: India decided to teach Pakistan a lesson (post Pahalgam) by attacking terror facilities inside Pakistan. Do you see such an action as a deterrent, given the fact that terrorism remains an integral part of Pakistan’s state policy? If we are indeed creating a new benchmark, then should we not have kept up our attack?
BK: No. But it will make the ISI (Pakistan’s Inter- Services Intelligence) more creative in training and housing the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammad extremists now grouped under a new name -- The Resistance Front (TRF)-- make them less visible, less conspicuous.
RS: Both sides are claiming victory, with Pakistan claiming they shot down four of our planes, and the Indian side claiming likewise, but we have refused to provide any details. The result is that the Western media seems to be accepting Pakistan’s version. Your comments?
BK: It is predictable in an indecisive conflict that both sides claim victory! And that's why I have long argued that India should never fight indecisive "wars" with Pakistan. But that's precisely what the Modi regime once again did, and so we have all this crowing by the Pakistani state and media.
RS: During this conflict, Western observers have expressed admiration for the performance of Chinese military technology, citing reports that its J10C fighter jets shot down the French-made Rafale. Your comments on this, as also on how India’s indigenously manufactured weapons performed?
BK: Actually, the Pakistan Air Force had the upper hand, and were more effective in using the military technologies and platforms they have -- the Chinese J-10C multi-role fighter armed with the Chinese PL-15E long range air-to-air missile and the Swedish Saab Erieye Airborne Early-Warning and Control System. This was until Indians began relying majorly on its medium-range attack missiles -- the Brahmos, and on the Russian S-400 layered air defence system to neutralise PAF's offensive air movements.
RS: Modi’s address to the nation, warning that India will not cease to retaliate in full measure if future terrorist activities take place, seems to have had zero impact on Pakistan. Three terrorists were gunned down by security forces in Shopian. How then should we deal with Pakistan?
BK: Had we taken Haji Pir and/or Skardu, the message would have gone across that every Pakistan Army ISI-sponsored terrorist incident in India would result in Pakistan losing significant territory in PoK. It would have been a substantive deterrent and disincentive -- that equation of terrorism leading to loss of PoK territory. But this sort of strong punitive policy requires a powerful political will, which this country has never manifested in its military actions (barring in the 1971 War).
Rashme Sehgal is an independent journalist. The views expressed are personal.
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