November 21, 2024

After years of carrying out a proxy war against India by training Kashmiri and other youths, sometimes even Pakistani nationals who were later abandoned as stateless actors, Pakistan bore the brunt of India’s might when 12 Mirage jets went deep inside the Pakistani territory and destroyed terror factories and launch pads. In the process, India has set a new benchmark on how countries should respond when threatened with a neighbouring country that harbours, trains, supports and sends terrorists into its territory.

Pakistanis, as usual, have started denying that India has inflicted any damage, even to the terror camps. They obviously cannot admit that India has destroyed these camps because for years they have been denying the existence of such camps in their country. The Pakistani army has started Operation Cleanup by which they will now clear the whole area and leave the marks on a vacant territory to show that the bombs were dropped helter-skelter by the Indian jets scurrying to return after the “brave” Pakistani air force responded by scrambling its jets.

They have also taken media persons to Balakot but have not taken them anywhere near the hilltop where the Jaish camp was located. Obviously, everything is not cleaned up there now. They will show the media the other areas where a few bombs might have been dropped to confirm that nothing serious happened. After the cleanup is complete, the media will be taken there to show nothing happened. But how will Pakistan deny the existence of the Balakot camp when satellite pictures confirm it? How will they explain where it vanished overnight? How will Jaish bring its dead commanders before the media to prove what India is saying about their liquidation in the air strikes?

The Pakistanis are in a state of flux. They are amazed that despite Imran Khan’s bravado, when in a television address he warned India that Pakistan will retaliate strongly if India takes any action against it, India has chosen to attack and that too after crossing the LoC with IAF jets, something that has not happened for the last 48 years after the 1971 war. They are also embarrassed that while the whole world knows that the Pakistani army is on high alert, especially after the experience of the last surgical strikes, the India Air Force has struck with ease. The military establishment and the political leadership there have held a series of emergency meetings. A joint session of the parliament has been called tomorrow to discuss what steps should be taken next.

If Pakistan takes the strike as what India is saying – a pre-emptive, non-military strike – then it has only propaganda and diplomatic responses open to it. But if it takes it as an attack against its country, which is most likely, then the military establishment would press the political leadership to free its hand. Reports have started pouring in that Imran Khan has given a free hand to the army which is already talking about responding at “a time and place of its choosing”. If there is a military response from them, war, either limited or full-fledged, would become unavoidable. In the middle of all this, Pakistan continues to be in denial mode. There are no terrorists in Pakistan and they do not support them, the country is still saying. Obviously, it wants to keep its options open on the proxy war it conducts against India. But after these strikes, it knows that it will have to pay an increasingly high price for continuing its efforts to destabilize India.