May to May

We have come a long way since last May. The Indians haven't. So, who has drawn the right lessons?

Militarily, last May, Islamabad hammered New Delhi. The war was won pretty much the first night when we shot down their Rafales like hunters shoot fattened partridges. The Indians never really recovered from that aerial bludgeoning. A year on, '6-0' remains the headline of the war. The rest is fine print.

But fine print too has lessons. The Indians understood – though are yet to acknowledge – the humiliation of their air force was not an accident, but an outcome of bad leadership, bad policies, and bad employment of good equipment. The Indian air chief should have been fired. Or he should have resigned. The fact that he is still in uniform, and still pretending his jets were not shot out of the dark sky, goes to show the level of professional and moral degradation within the Indian high command. It is, frankly, embarrassing.

It took the battered Indians a while to recover from the shellshock. They responded with missile strikes on various bases. Independent and credible accounts of the four-day war suggest these missiles did do some damage, but nowhere near what the Indians crow about. The lesson for us is to beef up our air defences. I am sure that lesson has translated into concrete action this past year.

Even at that time, there were some in Pakistan who advocated that we had downed their Rafales and they had fired off missiles and it was time to call it even. I had argued as vociferously as I could through TV and print that we must respond forcefully to their missiles and drones. A debate had raged on public platforms. Public opinion was overwhelmingly in favour of hitting the Indians back, and hitting back hard. The anger, the frustration at our delay was palpable. I remember a colleague in Lahore telling me with dismay that his ten-year old son was asking him why we were not blasting the Indians.

There was a reason. Now we know that even inside the decision-making circles a similar debate was taking place. The day before we launched Operation Bunyan-ul-Marsoos, I was speaking with two people considered close to the inner circles, and both were arguing that we had humiliated the Indians on the first night and there was no need to escalate. We were in a good position to declare victory and walk off, they argued. I disagreed. But I also got a sinking feeling that we were preparing to call off a response.

Perhaps we just might have. But the Indians were so cut up about the beating that PAF gave them the first night that they continued provocations till Pakistan had no choice. Well, perhaps that's not entirely true. We always had a choice, and I for one was glad we chose right.

The rest is history. The ferocious barrage of Fatah missiles early morning pulverised Indian military bases and destroyed the much-touted Russian air defence system. Ours was – as the official cliché goes – indeed a "befitting" response.

From that day onwards, Pakistan and India went on different post-conflict tangents. A year later, there is little doubt, the four-day war catapulted Pakistan to new heights and relegated India into a deeper state of collective sulk.

From war victor to peace mediator, it has been quite a May to May journey for us. Through this journey, we Pakistanis have experienced a riot of emotions that have been, quite honestly, rather new – and yes, rather welcome. It had been a while since we coalesced as a nation against the external enemy, and man, did it feel good! Even before the night of the Rafales-downing, Pakistanis had meme-ed the heck out of our snarling neighbours. Our wit cut deeper than their toxic hate. It was heady stuff. Humour soon transformed into national pride and elation of victory. There's something deeply satisfying when a self-proclaimed bully gets a bloody nose. The pompous Indian government and poisonous Indian media had it coming.

From May to May, both are yet to recover.

The US-Iran war and Pakistan's central mediatory role has added to Indian misery. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decade-old policy of isolating Pakistan has achieved exactly the opposite. There is now quiet and grudging acknowledgement among rational Indian commentators that May to May has been a total disaster for India.

But, as always, there are lessons. All said, the Indian military is a professional force, even though it has been infected by BJP's saffron-isation. The Indian high command will most likely have post-mortem-ed their May defeat and taken corrective measures. As must have we. When there is a second round of Maarka-e-Haq – yes, not if but when – we will really need to be super-ready for an enemy smarting from humiliation. Both militaries will of course be looking very closely at the lessons from the US-Iran war. There are plenty.

But for us, one lesson is probably more important than others: how to leverage the May to May military and diplomatic successes for a deliberate and durable journey of ascent. If past is anything to go by, we are not good at this. Success begets belief and belief should spur transformational change. Not incremental change, not gradual change, but radical change that aims to demolish the status quo and unleash a brand of dynamism not generally associated with any Pakistani government. This change, I'm afraid, is not visible. Yet. The business-as-usual approach to governance is guaranteed to dilute the effect of multiple successes in the May to May period.

Learning this lesson is the most urgent need as we celebrate a year that served Pakistan gloriously well.