“Pakistan proposes, India disposes” on the lines of “Man proposes, God disposes” is the message India sent to recidivist Pakistani leadership through Operation Sindoor. Pakistan has, time and again, tried to destabilise India using terrorism to wage proxy wars. But the flawlessly executed Operation Sindoor by India proved that Pakistan may initiate, but it is India that will finally determine the outcome of its plans.
Retaliating against the barbaric terror attack in Pehalgam by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists, India targeted and destroyed terror camps spread across Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) through Operation Sindoor. By specifically targeting only terror camps, avoiding collateral damage to civilians and military infrastructure, India deliveed a focused and proportionate response, leaving Pakistan no moral excuse for escalation.
Pakistan, which owes its existence to the two-nation theory, believed India’s religious diversity a vulnerability which it could exploit to destabilise and even balkanise India. The way the terrorists selected their victims in Pahalgam made it clear that Pakistan aimed to stoke communal strife within India, especially between its Hindu and Muslim populations. Instead, Pakistan received a response that shattered many of the illusions it was living under.
Indians dealt the first blow. They stuck to their pluralist civilisational ethos and displayed unwavering unity, nullifying Pakistan’s sinister designs and dealing a fatal blow to the two-nation theory. Two weeks later, Operation Sindoor ended many more fantasies the Pakistani leadership harboured.
Given India had already executed surgical and Balakot strikes, Pakistan believed the only option left to India was to escalate further and launch a full-scale war. Pakistan calculated that India could not jeopardise its world-leading economic growth and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity provided by America’s tariff wars to become a global manufacturing hub by jumping into a war.
Another myth Pakistan harboured, based on its two-nation theory, was that Islamic nations would rally behind Pakistan, a fellow Islamic country. It also assumed that the West, including the US, EU and the UK, would give in to its nuclear blackmail and constrain India’s response. Would India dare a two-front war if it attacked Pakistan, given that China is an all-weather friend of Pakistan? Or so it dreamt.
Over the past decade, India has grown from strength to strength. India’s defence preparedness and weapon capabilities have risen multi-fold. India’s fastest-growing economy will be the fourth-largest globally by the year-end. The EU and the UK are wooing India for Free Trade Agreements. India has excellent relationships with Islamic nations, barring a few exceptions, and counts Islamic nations like the United Arab Emirates as staunch allies. India enjoys close friendship with Russia, while being a member of the Quad, a grouping of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Even Chinese President Xi Jinping has been for an Elephant-Dragon tango.
Blinded by its hate towards India and smarting under previous defeats, the Pakistani leadership could not see the obvious. Neither could it grasp Modi’s resolve nor his crystal-clear strategic thinking: that’s why the terrorists Pakistan sent left a message with the widows of the victims: “Tell Modi”.
Operation Sindoor shattered all of Pakistan’s illusions in one go. India escalated its response by launching multiple attacks and reaching deep into Pakistan’s heartland, while still limiting the attacks to targeting terrorists and not Pakistan in general, giving Pakistan no justification to escalate further. US Vice President JD Vance’s comments a day after India conducted Operation Sindoor reflected the global response to India’s strikes. In a media interview, the Vice President said the US would not get involved in any India-Pakistan war, which was fundamentally not its business.
By now, Pakistani leaders must have realised they were outmanoeuvred and outgunned by India. That it has become a pariah in the global community, given its record of using terrorism as an instrument of State policy for decades, as stated by its leaders on live television. However, that might be too much to expect from Pakistan’s military leadership, whose primary motive is to retain its control over the country.
How the Pakistani leadership reacts is anybody’s guess. But one thing is for sure. “Cherapakuraa Chedevu” – “don’t harm, for you will be harmed” is a popular saying in Telugu. Pakistani military leadership, if it continues on its current path, will reap the harm it intended for India. Given that its economy is in shambles, a war with India will sap whatever lifeforce remains, wrecking it beyond repair. Once the economy fails, all bets are off.
Given the sectarian strife in Pakistan, the weakening of its military, coupled with the conditions in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Sindh, it is easy to see that a four-nation theory will soon overshadow the two-nation theory in Pakistan.
(The author is BJP TS spokesperson)
