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It is important to distinguish between political terrorism and criminal terror.

India’s retaliation against the Pahalgam terror attack, codenamed ‘Operation Sindoor,’ has been widely endorsed in India’s domestic politics, but not so internationally, as seen in the attempted global outreach by the all-party delegation. Since the terrorists handpicked mostly Hindu men on April 22, the retaliation – brand-named with the patriarchal Hindu motif of matrimony – may have had some appeal in certain quarters. However, the ceasefire provides an opportunity for a mid-course assessment and possible course correction for the Modi government.

Winners and losers

Firstly, this was not another Indo-Pakistan war: its military scope was limited to India’s strikes against terrorist bases and infrastructure in Pakistan, as well as neutralising Pakistani escalatory strikes against Indian military targets. An important diplomatic component was ‘keeping in abeyance’ the Indus Water Treaty of the Nehru-Liaquat era, the stoppage of bilateral trade. In the four-day military operation, there were no territorial conquests, no prisoners of war and no captured arms. There was only pictorial evidence – awaiting fact-checks – of destroyed drones, airfields, terrorist bases, and burial scenes with coffins. India denied claims of having informed Pakistan of its targets, though it asked Pakistan to not retaliate after the Indian strikes. India’s possible losses have not been published or acknowledged by the government but are well-known. As per the Indian defence attaché to Indonesia, these losses on the first night of conflict were due to the political restraints imposed on the military by the Modi government.

Winners and losers of such an operation are difficult to assess, and, either way, the outcome remains contested. Unlike 1971, when the Pakistan army publicly surrendered to the Indian military leadership, there was no such public evidence. Some evidence suggests India’s military succeeded in achieving its limited objectives: damaging some of Pakistan’s terrorist bases and allied infrastructure, and by neutralising most of Pakistan’s attacks.

The Modi Doctrine and Pakistan

But Pakistan asserts the Pahalgam terrorism was ‘homegrown,’ without any evidence of Pakistani involvement provided so far by the Modi government, and claims India’s air raids in Pakistan were acts of aggression. So far, India has failed either to explain the security lapse that enabled terrorism in the ‘high security’ state or to apprehend any of the four culprits despite a massive hunt. Instead, India has arrested some ‘Pakistani infiltrators, informers and agents’ after the Pahalgam terror incident. 

Pakistani leaders are meeting friends and allies across the world, seeking to replenish lost weapons and drones, particularly in Turkey. Pakistan has also managed to scuttle India’s attempt in the UN Security Council to declare Pakistan the hub of global terrorism, or to assign it any role in Pahalgam. Pakistan was appointed to lead the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee as its vice-chair. While ‘Operation Sindoor’ was ongoing, the IMF sanctioned its nth ‘bailout’ package of $2.1 billion to Pakistan, followed by some more from the World Bank (incidentally, now headed by an India-born US national). The Asian Development Bank has also approved a $800 million bailout package for Pakistan.. While India has achieved an upper-hand militarily, diplomatically, Pakistan has the edge.

Therefore, the all-party Indian delegation’s global travel conveyed India’s message contained in the Four Point ‘Modi Doctrine’ for fighting terrorism. This global travels may have been imaginatively crafted as the non-military component of Operation Sindoor, especially its public profile for mass communication, representing vocal politicians from India’s many diversities. 

Impact of the delegation

But its impact is unlikely to be strikingly different from the military operation: high-decibel triumphalism in India’s domestic politics and a critical underappreciation of India’s military victory within the global community. Together, they are unlikely to be the most successful recipe against global terrorism or India’s ‘war’ against Pakistani terrorism. This is not because of any lack of talent or motivation in the delegations; the ruling party has limitations of talent in its ranks and it could hardly be faulted for using the opposition parties for the delegations.

Their limitations lay in their agenda, because most countries maintain their own systems of information and intelligence on significant global events for quick responses, which are unlikely to be changed in a hurry. The delegation’s visit may at best convince the hosts that India values their support in its ‘war’ against Pakistani terrorism. 

Therein lies the problem: most countries across the world already oppose terrorism as a global menace requiring collective global opposition; they may reiterate this along with the Indian delegation, but beyond that, few, if any, may be willing to commit support – militarily or otherwise – to India’s ‘war’ against Pakistan. Any such ‘war’ would have to be India’s own. Even before the Indian delegation had left, the US Chief of Strategic Central Command publicly acknowledged Pakistan’s ‘phenomenal role’ as an ally in the war against terrorism; its Army Chief – a Field Marshal after Operation Sindoor – was invited to the US military academy. China is offering its fifth-generation fighter aircraft to Pakistan, even before India has access to similar technologies. This assessment suggests that Operation Sindoor, despite its military-technological claims, has incubated new challenges to India’s national security, encompassing both domestic politics and global diplomacy.

Militant nationalism

Firstly, it has unleashed a phenomenal escalation of triumphant militant nationalism in domestic politics, flaunting ad nauseam India’s new military and economic clout, as manifested in the Prime Minister’s ‘

MAGA + MIGA’ rhetoric. Politically rewarding for the ruling party as the proclaimed architect of this ‘New India,’ such political assertions cannot be reassuring for the nervous, even beyond Pakistan. Even in India’s democratic polity, such a milieu inhibits critical assessment of Operation Sindoor, particularly the Modi Doctrine’s critical component of treating all terrorism in India as war against the state, thereby restricting the operational autonomy of all democratic institutions and citizens’ fundamental rights. Theoretically, this enables Pakistan to manipulate India’s democratic governance by periodic acts of terror. The Opposition has been on the defensive after the inclusion of its talented communicators in the global outreach program and singing eulogies for the operation across the world; back home, they are unlikely to remain credible critical commentators of the operations. But the point to note is that if the ‘Modi Doctrine’ is part of India’s official policy against terrorism, it has many risks.

Pakistan’s security establishment, with its support for proscribed groups and domination over its elected government, is in no mood to back down. Even otherwise, all the critical components of state power – such as its religious ideology, military domination and nuclear arsenal – are predicated upon adversarial relations with India. From its origin, it remains the proverbial ‘neighbourhood serpent’ for India’s national security; and, however ‘dysfunctional,’ ‘oppressive,’ or ‘failed,’ the state is unlikely to ‘wither away.’ While our national security goal should be geared towards unhinging the coalition of its state power, as long as it persists, it would be unwise to treat its nuclear arsenal as ‘nuclear blackmail.’ Till now, India has been lucky on this score, but the trigger in the finger of any bigot or general is risky. More sensible for India would be to attempt ensuring greater monitoring of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal by UN agencies, if possible.

Besides, it is important to distinguish between political terrorism and criminal terror. While both need streamlining of internal security instruments to prevent them, unclaimed acts of terror should all be treated as crime and dealt with accordingly. But political terrorism, when so acclaimed, also involves political negotiations. Before that, India must tone down its public trumpeting of ‘MIGA’ aspirations, to be credible advocates of secular-democratic movements in the neighbourhood by challenging oppression and deprivation of their regimes as a lesser evil than India’s domination.

Aswini K Ray is retired professor, JNU.

This article was originally published on The Wire.
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.