IN the aftermath of the befitting reply by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in the February 2019 crisis, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) took control of India’s media to craft a distorted narrative. In desperation to portray the embarrassing events as a triumph for Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, the Indian media continues to craft a series of fairy tales.
While the general elections are approaching in India, the box of BJP lies has been flung open. In continuation to this, a BJP enthusiast disguised as a former Indian diplomat has penned down a book titled, “Anger Management: The Troubled Diplomatic Relationship between India and Pakistan.” The author, Ambassador Ajay Bisaria, was Indian High Commissioner to Islamabad during the 2019 crisis.
The supposedly fiction work is a part of the Indian disinformation campaign aspiring to supplement PM Modi’s new quest for power. Similar efforts are being made by the Saffronised Bollywood with propaganda movies like Tejas and Figher to create a false sense of superiority of the Indian Air Force (IAF).
The claims by Amb Bisaria suggest that India’s threat to target Pakistani territory with missiles coerced Pakistan into releasing the captured Indian pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, who lost his aircraft in a dogfight with PAF’s JF-17 Thunder jets. Amb Bisaria asserts that under India’s threat to launch missile attacks inside Pakistan, the then Pakistani PM requested a phone call with Mr Modi, which was rejected. This ‘strong man’ diplomacy, according to the former ambassador, led to the release of the captured pilot.
These counter-intuitive claims may resonate well with the Indian masses, serving the political narrative of Mr. Modi but fail to inspire rational minds. The claims resonate with the Indian PM’s assertions that any harm to the captured pilot would have led to the ‘Qatal Ki Raat’ (the night of murders). This sensational account reflects nothing but the Indian masses’ penchant for Bollywood drama. The fictitious account lacks a logical foundation and denies the philosophy of deterrent stability. Seeing a seasoned diplomat coming up with such assumptions is hard to believe when seen separately from the Hindutva-dominated socio-political landscape of India.
After being deprived of the traditional strategic advantage in 1998, India resorted to a desperate recourse to the Cold Start Doctrine. This approach aimed to achieve strategic objectives against Pakistan below the nuclear threshold. Pakistan’s counterstrategy is based on augmenting conventional capabilities and creating full-spectrum deterrence.
India, in response, has been looking to find space for establishing a ‘New Normal’ i.e., a limited offense below the nuclear threshold against Pakistan. The underlying philosophy of Pakistan’s largely ambiguous doctrine rejects even the minutest possibility of a limited or low-intensity conflict between the two nuclear powers. It asserts that any armed confrontation in the region will be a precursor to a catastrophic full-blown nuclear exchange. Since then, this guiding principle has been at the core of Pakistan’s deterrent power against India. Pakistan’s effective response capabilities at the conventional level backed by operational, tactical and strategic level preparedness in the nuclear domain have proven potent in deterring India during multiple crises.
PAF’s efficient response in 2019 was an indication of the same strategy that successfully re-established deterrent stability in the region. It is worth noting that during the whole crisis, it was the Indian leadership that used the ‘N’ word, thus putting question marks on their so-called ‘No First Use’ narrative. In this context, Amb Basaria’s claims fail to explain the strategic realities that unfolded during the crisis. PM Modi’s threat of missile attacks inside Pakistan was rather endorsing Pakistan’s position that India’s aggressive posture is detrimental to regional stability. It also reflects that India’s attempt to achieve strategic objectives against Pakistan without escalating the conflict met an incredible failure.
The claims made by the former Indian envoy are devoid of logic, reflecting the propagation of BJP’s anti-Pakistan rhetoric and a visible lack of understanding of the contours of deterrent stability in South Asia. As the balloting day in India draws nearer, one must prepare popcorn boxes for the upcoming spectacle of sensationalist dramas unfolding from BJP’s Goebbels-inspired propaganda machinery. It’s time to be ready for a political theatre that might just rival the entertainment value of a blockbuster Bollywood movie!
—The writer is a senior researcher at Centre for Aerospace & Security Studies, Lahore.
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