‘Modi re-emerges: humbled, hurt, and unreformed’

This is apropos a letter to the Editor from this writer carried by the newspaper yesterday. Crucially, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi ignored how India had to turn to Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the US to plead for de-escalation. While portraying Pakistan as the one seeking ceasefire, it was India—bloodied and embarrassed—that sought mediation.

Modi attempted to mask this diplomatic retreat by saying it was Pakistan that “contacted our DGMO” and “begged for peace,” but the timeline and international reports suggested otherwise. From May 5 to May 10, India’s Prime Minister vanished from public view.

In those tense days of peak escalation, Modi chose silence. His disappearance was not tactical restraint but a tacit admission of miscalculation. When he finally returned to deliver his May 12 speech, it was less a declaration of victory and more an exercise in damage control.

His rhetoric turned to nuclear threats and pseudo-moral posturing. He vowed to respond to future attacks on Indian terms, claimed that India would no longer tolerate nuclear blackmail, and blurred the lines between governments and terrorists.

He decried Pakistani officers for offering funeral prayers for those killed, presenting it as evidence of state-sponsored terrorism. Yet, the speech revealed more desperation than dominance. He further championed India’s “Made in India” weapons and New Age Warfare capabilities, asserting that the operation validated indigenous defense manufacturing.

However, it was evident to the world that India’s weaponry failed to protect its skies or maintain strategic superiority. Most ironically, some of those weapons malfunctioned and fell on Indian soil—a bitter embarrassment Modi dared not mention. Perhaps the most overlooked and revolutionary aspect of this confrontation was Pakistan’s demonstration of indigenously developed soft warfare capabilities.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025