Widespread outcry against sudden “ceasefire” without teaching Pakistan a lesson notwithstanding, what matters is that India did achieve its objective of punishing those responsible for terror attack in Pahalgam by smashing two main terror headquarters in Bahawalpur and Muridke. It was better to wrap up the operations as fast as India could.
Probably for the first time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is faced with a challenge to his decision of cutting short the anti-terror campaign against Pakistan. There is a common refrain that since he knew hostilities had to be ceased sooner or later, he should have bid a few days more and inflicted as much damage as could have been possible on Pakistan. Cutting short the campaign has not gone well across the country. Everyone expected it this time to be a once for all battle.
But, that is easier said than done. India was not fighting Pakistan alone. As it is emerging now, Pakistan was heavily supported and armed by China, which had a dual purpose in supporting Pakistan against India. One, it could contain India’s rising economic and global influence by keeping it entangled in a war with Pakistan and two, it wanted to counter the western powers like the United States, which are seen getting closer to India. And all this support to Pakistan against India did not come at much cost to China.
It is now widely being acknowledged that despite huge support from China in terms of weapons and fighter planes, Pakistan was getting cornered. India unleashed and inflicted heavy losses on Pakistan, particularly on its Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi outskirts, believed to hold the nuclear warheads and the Rahimyar Khan air base. These strikes drastically reduced Pakistan’s striking capacity.
The western powers, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom were quite apprehensive of the conflict spiralling out of control between the two nuclear power states. Pakistan reportedly dropped open hints of resorting to “nuclear option” for obvious reason that it had almost completely exhausted its traditional weaponry.
For India, the purpose had already been served in the very first strikes by hitting nine places where terrorists were being trained and then sent to India. The two main places, Bahawalpur headquarter of Jaish-e-Mohammad headed by Masood Azhar and Muridke headquarter of the Lashkar-e-Taiba headed by Hafiz Saeed were successfully targeted with heavy casualties to terrorists hiding there. Pakistan had been continuously denying the existence of any such camps. India completely smashed the terrorist training facilities and, according to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, killed about 100-odd terrorists who were either trained or undergoing training in these camps.
The fact that such ‘madrasas’ act as nurseries for producing radicalised militants was admitted in the Pakistan parliament by country’s defence minister Khwaja Asif, saying that the “students of these madrasas” are used as “second line of defence”. India has successfully smashed that “line of defence”. India has proved it to the world that Pakistan was training and producing terrorists who were resorting to acts of terror in India.
Plus, India has now raised the bar in its anti-terror campaign that in case of any such incidents taking place, which are traced to Pakistan, India will hit deep inside Pakistan. So far, India exercised complete restraint, except for 2016 and 2019 in the aftermath of the Uri and Pulwama terror attacks, respectively.
That way India has changed the terms of engagement. It is not an ordinary thing to breach the sovereignty of a country by hitting it deep inside its borders. This is actually humiliating for any country. India did it to Pakistan and killed the terrorists there. India has already conveyed with these strikes that terms of engagement have now changed and that should act as a deterrent against any further misadventure.
“Ceasefire” had to take place in any case, it was just a matter of time. After all, the two countries would not be at war for eternity. Continuing with the hostilities would not have delivered anything extra.
Rather, it would have consumed more energy and more resources. Besides, it would have caused immense hardships to tens of thousands of people living along the border from Jammu and Kashmir to Gujarat. The ceasefire has come as a great relief for all of them.
Also read: Why counterterrorism needs reinvention
Certain questions are understandably being asked about the role of the United States, particularly after President Donald Trump announced the “ceasefire”. Does that really amount to “third party” mediation? Not actually. When two countries are at war with each other, obviously there is a high unlikelihood of them coming together on their own. There are always facilitators. If it were not the US, it could be China, which remains an ally of Pakistan, while being hostile towards India.
The war, or the hostilities, had to end and the sooner they end, the better it is for everyone. Ending hostilities needs as much courage as starting them. There will always be people who would find fault in everything and they are trying to find fault with the “ceasefire” as well. What matters is that India avenged the killing of 26 innocent tourists by striking at the root of terror deep inside Pakistan. There was no point in prolonging the hostilities.
Taking back Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir or decimating and breaking Pakistan into several parts is definitely a tall order that will take a lot of time, energy and resources. And that certainly was not the agenda this time.
Follow us
