In an exclusive interview with Sreenivasan Jain, founding member and executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management Ajai Sahni discusses Operation Sindoor and its impact, India’s military strategy and geopolitical stance following the military clash with Pakistan, and the discrepancies in the government’s narrative.
Sahni asks if Operation Sindoor has effectively deterred Pakistan. “Unless you can demonstrate to me that some kind of deterrence has been in fact imposed upon Pakistan and on the terrorists. I see no evidence of that in the immediate situation. We have to look to the future. We can already see that we are getting threats from terrorist groups including Jaish-e-Mohammed whose headquarters at Bahawalpur were destroyed,” he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that Pakistan caved in under pressure from India, and its DGMO called and said that they will not support terrorism anymore. But Sahni says the DGMO has no authority to make any such assurances. “That’s the genius of the current system…You can say anything and there is no way to validate or invalidate it. Today we have a situation where the prime minister, or at least the government, has rejected any idea that we went or discussed the whole conflict with Trump. Trump makes a clear claim that he mediated the ceasefire. We say there was no such mediation…You have two world leaders making completely irreconcilable claims…Go figure,” he said.
He claims that though the government has talked about muscularity, historically, India has sought nothing more than defensive parity with Pakistan. “That has not changed under this government. So if you tell me that we can simply walk over to Pakistan and plant our flags in Islamabad next weekend, I think you are living in a world of absolute delusion.”
Watch.
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