Military notes ­— perceptual battle between India and Pakistan

In a series from this week, we shall explore the various dimensions of the May 2025 India-Pakistan stand-off after the Pahalgam carnage on April 22, 2025.

First, what happened in the perceptual world? The aftermath of Pahalgam and Operation Bunyan Marsus (Iron Wall) should demonstrate '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 also 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.

Rabid anchors like Arnab Goswami and military analysts like the froth-fuming Maj Gen Gagandeep Bakhshi and Major Gaurav Arya steered the debate about complex realities into loud nationalism, muting the voices of reason from the few and far between. They turned national strategy into a charade of slogans without substance. India, in doing so, lost its strategic narrative.

Intoxicated with its new-found economic relevance, 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 Indus Water Treaty and humiliate Pakistan. And it failed.

A 'pauper' Pakistani 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 terrorism, which India blames on Islamabad.

The 16-hour 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 – worth inclusion in the syllabi of all staff colleges and war courses.

From the skirmish, neither Pakistan emerged as a dwarf two-foot David, nor India as a loud-talking 10-foot Goliath. India was humbled by the unkindness of the event. Karachi did not fall, Islamabad remained steadfast, and Lahore kept pulsating, with daredevil Pakistanis eulogising their soldiers who were busy firing their deadly arsenal towards India from their fields, from their neighborhoods, and 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 stands 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, which can demonstrate restraint, resolve and resilience. And that its dwarfed defence 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.

Consequentially, Pakistan gains more confidence and relevance, which 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 Modi's Hindutva-laced, RSS dominated, bigoted brand.

Just when detractors thought Pakistan was sliding into a second fiddle status, Modi burnished its image by becoming Pakistan's unlikely brand ambassador, through his absurd persistence and stubborn obsession to turn Pakistan into a pliant state. From being overlooked to being overanalyzed and over-examined, Islamabad is back in global conversations especially among the dithering Arab world.

Second, India suffered doctrinal collapse. 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 synchronised 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.

Literature, at break-neck speed, is coming out with analysts reading, re-reading and analysing the 16 hours of combat that shaped South Asia and the world's military balance. Dassault Aviation's share prices plunged, whereas Chinese defense stocks AVIC, ALD Chengdu surged.

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.

By denying truth to its own people and by constantly lying to unfathomable extents during this war, India lost any remaining credibility for its media, official and unofficial. Modi's strongman image took an irreparable hit, and his tattered ego is littered with strategic miscalculation, economic overreach, doctrinal unpreparedness and moral bankruptcy, exposing India's own multiple fault lines.

The dictum of the history is clear, New Delhi is not the victor in this round, Islamabad is. Bunyan Marsus was 'Pakistan's rendezvous with history' an existential moment of great peril, handled with dignity and precision. Allah be praised!

Continues...