What Got Us Ceasefire – Strike On Terror, Nuclear Spectre Or A Trade Scare? Did India completely dismantle the terror network in Pakistan, it set out to do by launching Operation Sindoor?
The answer is a definite no. Our forces did hit at the heart of terror machine in Pakistan, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. But, we managed to bomb the buildings of terror schools instead of eliminating the terror masterminds like Hafiz Sayeed or Maulana Masood Azhar. In all likelihood they will build another structure of brick and mortar and may be lot of steel, to train another batch of bloodhounds.
Does that mean we failed to achieve our goals?
Not exactly, I would say. We should have hit at the root cause of terror incidents in India – Pakistan Army and their rogue intelligence agency – Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) which have been funding the terror networks but also training the new recruits. We could not do that because hitting at the army or ISI headquarters would have resulted in a full-fledged war which none of the two nations could afford at present.
We wanted to teach them a lesson. We wanted to send a message that enough is enough and India would not tolerate any misadventure like Pulwama or Pahalgam. Death of each Indian citizen would be avenged with (to quote Mr Modi’s words) perpetrators to be chased to the end of the earth and punished.
We have been successful in sending that message across. We have damaged their airfields, disabled their air defence systems, bombed their strategic locations, some very close to their air headquarters or the residence of their army chief. The message is clear – we are not Israel which has been pounding Gaza mindlessly killings hundreds of women and children, but we are not like ostrich either who would close our eyes in face of violence.
We have been able to send that message loud and clear – not only to Pakistan but to the entire world. Nobody could have been stated it more clearly than PM Modi who said – Operation Sindoor hasn’t been stopped. It has just been suspended. We are observing Pak’s further moves and our next response will depend upon its future actions.
Did we agree to a ceasefire on our terms or on terms set by United States of America?
There still is some ambiguity over this. US President Donald Trump tweeted about the Ceasefire some time before it was to be announced by the two countries. Then again on May 12, he announced at a press conference minutes before Prime Minister’s televised Address to the Nation –that the ceasefire was brokered by him.
This time Trump elaborated further – I told both India and Pakistan that we will stop the trade with them if they did not stop the war. And they said, please don’t stop the trade, we will stop the war. And they did.
He also spoke about a nuclear threat implying probably that having exhausted all military actions without any damage to India, Pak had threatened to resort to the nuclear weapons which made Trump intervene in the war.
PM Modi too announced in his address – Terror and Trade cannot go hand in hand. He did not acknowledge Trump’s claim nor did he repudiate it. He just chose to ignore it, thus letting the suspense hang fire. However, he did claim that the ceasefire was done on the explicit request of Pakistan’s DGMO (Director General of Military Operations) to India’s DGMO on Sunday afternoon.
PM Modi did not specifically refer to Trump’s diatribe on the nuclear threat but he did debunk the threat by saying – India has called off Pakistan bluff on carrying terror activities on the pretext that it was nuclear nation.
PM Modi asserted that India reserved the right to start its operations again if Pakistan breached it. Pakistan did send in some drones and projectiles inside Indian borders couple of hours after the ceasefire agreement, but India refused to start hostilities, considering these to the act of some rogue elements within Pak establishment.
However, he did not name China for unequivocally supporting Pakistan, morally, financially, technologically and with arms and ammunitions. It was as if China was fighting a proxy war against India, just like NATO countries fighting the proxy war against Russia in Ukrain.
Did we squander the gains of battlefield on negotiation table?
Indian government is often subjected to this accusation – especially after 1965, 1971 and 1998 wars with Pakistan. This time too, a large section of people was unhappy that Modi government too didn’t take the hostilities to their logical conclusion.
Their grouse: We didn’t hit at the root cause of terror. We didn’t finish off the terror network. All we achieved was destroying some buildings and eliminating some purported terrorists, not all.
What They Wanted: If Pakistan was almost in surrender mode, as PM Modi would have us believe, India could very well have bargained for the key terror masterminds hiding in Pakistan. Dons like Dawood Ibrahim, Hafiz Sayeed or Masood Azhar are responsible for killing of thousands of innocent India. India could have bargained for PoK, which PM Modi referred to in his speech, almost as an afterthought. Or at least, India could have asked for unconditional release of innocent Indians locked in Pakistan jails for several years on trumped up charges – like Kulbhushan Jadhav (who was arrested in Iran and smuggled to Pakistan) and Sarabjit Singh.
