War is serious business

The four-day war between India and Pakistan ended nearly a month ago, but the war continues through other means, including diplomatic outreach to selected members of the international community. For a change, our bigger neighbour feels the urgent need to explain its case to countries in distant regions.

The Indian air offensive started with a Bollywood touch. The attack commenced on the nights of May 6 and 7 under the folkloric name ‘Operation Sindoor’. It's too bad Rahul Gandhi wants to rename Narendra Modi “surrender Modi" as he accused the latter of capitulating before President Trump's calls for a quick ceasefire.

Responding to Narendra Modi's repeated invocation of sindoor, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee chastised him for not honouring his wife's sindoor. “You are spreading garbage of lies”, she retorted, adding that “PM Modi is not the husband of anybody; why aren't you giving sindoor to your Mrs first?”

The world was perplexed at India's silence on its war losses, notably in the epic air battle across the border. The Pakistan Air Force claimed a tally of six to zero, while the Indian counterpart commented that releasing information regarding their losses might benefit the enemy.

War is a serious business with a tradition of releasing daily figures of wins and losses. Our adversary wants to turn war into a shady business, leading to worldwide speculation. Widespread dissatisfaction finally led to the chief of India's defence staff's qualified admission of losses.

Another bizarre element is India's denial of America's intervention that helped in the ceasefire on May 10, in time before things went beyond control.

The international community is monitoring India's hostile posturing, peppered with jingoistic propaganda, since the ceasefire came into effect. Voices ranging from Modi and Rajnath to Arnab and Barkha, and now Shashi and Owaisi, continue spewing venom against Pakistan. Confusing real war with Bollywood ‘nautanki’ seems to have overtaken any sane discourse.

It all goes back to the electoral race raging in India as ten years of Congress-led rule ended in 2014. The RSS had chosen Modi for the top job in recognition of his hateful discourse to work up the Hindu vote. He had burnished his credentials further as the chief minister of Gujarat, where a large-scale massacre of Muslims had been carried out under his watch. As a result, his entry in the US had been banned, but that did not deter the Hindutva high priests from nominating Modi as their candidate for premiership in the 2014 election.

Worse was to come. Modi's premiership was marked by a ruthless hate mantra aimed at pitting people against each other on the basis of religion. It resulted in greater marginalisation of India's 230 million Muslims. Their share in government jobs and the legislature has fallen sharply. They are routinely made targets of segregation, repression and persecution without the premier of 1.4 billion people raising an eyebrow.

A second victory in the 2019 election enabled the BJP to implement its agenda in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir by scrapping Article 370 and 35-A of the Indian constitution, thus ending statehood, though in a heavily militarised territory.

Modi intensified his hegemonic discourse towards Pakistan while Foreign Minister Jaishankar did not tire of classifying Pakistan as irrelevant. The Pakistanis wondered how they could be bad and irrelevant at the same time. The BJP’s pervasive hostility has progressively damaged relations between the two countries.

India's pretext for systematically boycotting its biggest neighbour: its alleged involvement in ‘cross-border terrorism’. This coming from a country hell bent on harming Pakistan in every possible way sounds ridiculous and self-serving.

Modi & Co's atavism needs to be contextualised with their delusional mindset. For instance, his special liking for Bihar. In one of his public reveries, Modi boasted once that the Indians had defeated Alexander the Great in Bihar. No wonder then that he thought of state elections in Bihar when intelligence reports about an impending attack in IIOJK were brought to his notice.

Modi gave no orders to stop the attack and proceeded on a visit abroad after approving plans for what would be done after the attack. The attack having taken place, he cut short his visit and flew back to India to chair a security meeting where the plans to attack Pakistan were approved. The very next day, Modi visited Bihar to address a public rally, primarily vowing revenge without naming Pakistan.

The purpose of his theatrics was to work up the voters against a Muslim neighbour in the hope of winning state elections in November 2025. Similar considerations might have led to his recent foray in Rajasthan, where he propounded his theory of the impossibility of blood and water flowing together, even if that is the norm in every organism – including human beings.

When will the Indians wake up to the perpetual threat Modi poses to a whole nation's intelligence and good sense? The Indian voters deprived the BJP of a clear majority in the 2024 election, making him more irrational.

Modi's hubris might have suffered a setback in the four-day war, but that has not sobered his delusional mindset. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is justified in challenging Modi's divide-and-rule politics. His Best Before Date may have passed, yet he is trying to revive his fortune by resorting to a long confrontation with Pakistan that has the potential to bring grief and suffering to one-fifth of humanity.

The writer can be reached at: [email protected]

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Originally published in The News