By Ravi Joshi – Joint Secretary (Retd.), Cabinet Secretariat

Yesterday, on 10th May, the Government of India (GoI) declared a ceasefire on the Operations that it had launched on 7th May into Pakistani territory across the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB). There has been a lot of dissatisfaction across the country in the minds of our people as well as the media channels.

This has arisen due to serious misunderstanding of the objectives of this Operation (I am choosing to call it an ‘Operation’ because it was not declared as a War by our government, though Pakistan termed this as an ‘act of war’). We must recall here that Prime Minister Modi declared in a speech in Bihar on Apr. 24 that India would track and destroy the perpetrators of the Apr. 22 terror attack in Pahalgam and their ‘backers’ supporters in Pakistan. This speech of Modi laid down the ‘Mission Objectives’ of this Operation.

The objectives were limited to destroying the headquarters of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which is widely known to be the parent organisation of ‘The Resistance Front’ (TRF) that carried out the attack in Pahalgam. Of course, we also struck at the headquarters of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) in Bahawalpur and of the Hizbul Mujahideen in Muzaffarabad when India launched missile, drones and air attacks on 9 specific locations, five in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK), across the LoC and 4 in Punjab across the IB. This was the first time since the 1971 war India was launching attacks into Pakistan territory across the IB.

We had great success on the first day in hitting out at the LeT Headquarters, though Hafiz Sayeed, its Chief, was not killed but some of his associates were reported dead. Similar was the outcome in Bahawalpur when, according to reports, ten of Mohd. Azhar’s (the Chief of JeM) close relatives were killed, though he himself was not present in that mosque. There were no military casualties as we did not strike at military locations.

Our government had clearly declared these strikes to be ‘measured, calibrated and non-escalatory’ in nature. Obviously Pakistan was going to retaliate and it soon did on the night of May 9-10 hitting out at 26 locations across the LoC and IB. Pakistan too launched missiles, drones and loitering munitions and fighter jets. We were successful in intercepting and neutralising a lot of these incoming missiles and drones thanks to our newly acquired S-400 missile defence system from Russia, called ‘Triumf’ that we have named as ‘Sudarshan Chakra’. Still there were some damages to civilian life and property on our side Jammu, Rajouri, Kupwara and Samba sectors. One ADM, Rajkumar Thapa died in Rajouri when a missile struck his house. Though the Pakistani side attacked in various locations in Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat, there was very limited loss of life and property on our side. Of course, one must give sufficient margin of error to mis/disinformation which is normal in times of war and is generally categorised as part of the Psy-war (Psychological warfare) operations.

Now let me address some important questions that I have been hearing in my discussions with people informally, as well as on the Kannada News Channels that I have been taking part since 7th May: Firstly, that Modiji should not have declared ceasefire at this stage, when we clearly had an upper hand in the battlefield and that too without achieving the objectives that Indians had long cherished and were made to believe: that is,  re-occupation of PoK and one more dismemberment of Pakistan by separating Baluchistan from it, as was done by Indira Gandhi in 1971.

Here I would like to remind them as to what was the Mission Objectives of this war as PM Modi had announced. Clearly PoK and separation of Baluchistan were not on the agenda today. And as far as destroying the terror outfits in Pakistan were concerned, our strikes did manage to substantially affect their locations and more than anything else, have sent a terrifying warning to them that ‘we know where you are hiding and we will get you, whenever we want.’ That is the most important and salutary effect of this Operation.

But as the Founding Editor of this newspaper (Star of Mysore) K. B. Ganapathy wrote in a poem, recently, the terror factories will shift their location and they will be back in business after a while. Well, that fear is very much present, and terrorism cannot be completely rooted out in Pakistan. That can only be done by the people and the civil governments of Pakistan by sending their Army back to the barracks and removing them from the scene of political power. War, on the other hand, will make the Pakistan Army stronger and more indispensable as the guarantor of its security.

My other argument is that this Operation which had turned into an undeclared war was now rising one step at a time, every day, on the escalatory scale and was getting into a dangerous and unpredictable territory. We must understand that we are dealing with an Army that is accountable to no civil authority and to none but the Army Chief General Asim Munir himself and he is a well-known Islamic fundamentalist with a Jehadist mindset. Such a person at the helm is a danger to his own country and to all the neighbours.

He is capable of the most desperate act as his country is already economically bankrupt and his inventory of stocks, as per reports, was not going to last more than two weeks of war. In such a situation he could have led this region into a nuclear catastrophe.

Second complaint I heard is that we have been forced by USA to accept this ceasefire and we have lost our autonomy, an essential component of our Sovereign decision-making power.

This point must be seen in the overall context of the New World Order that has emerged after President Trump coming to power in the US. Everyone knows that Trump is extremely mercurial, and egoistic, always putting himself in the centre of the situations where he is least wanted or appreciated. But the problem he has the power to ruin countries that he does not like or listen to what he says and that’s an inescapable reality.

Though we have now accepted a ceasefire, apparently brokered by Vice-President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio of the USA, we have made clear that this decision preceded a mutual discussion between the DGMOs (Director General of Military Operations) of India and Pakistan. We have also rejected that further negotiations will take place in a neutral country, thus reasserting our right to negotiate only bilaterally with Pakistan as per the Shimla Agreement of 1971.

Finally, there were some initial reports that Pakistan violated the ceasefire agreement, but those reports have stopped coming after 11 pm last night. So, I believe that the ceasefire is holding as of now. Hopefully, the danger of an unpredictably escalatory war with         Pakistan is over as of now.

Note

If we think Modi’s Mission is accomplished, I am afraid Mr. Modi was chasing a mirage or a Pakistani ghost. Modi has not hunted down the terrorists who killed the tourists, much less till the end of the earth as he had vowed, unless his idea of earth is the LoC of PoK. He has neither got the actual perpetrators of that gruesome terror attack nor their ‘backers’ as he has promised to the 140 crore people of India.

 Anyway it is only a ceasefire. Modi can always rekindle the fire if negotiation, if any, does not deliver to him what he has promised to his people.

I only hope the merchants of weapons will not take Modi for a jolly good ride like they did with Modi’s predecessors in office in 1947-48, 1965, 1971 and 1999 Kargil War.

India’s new security doctrine declared yesterday (May 10, 2025) says that it would from now on consider every instance of terrorism directed against it as an ‘act of war’ and would respond with a declaration of war. We have seen many ‘doctrines’ bandied about in the world being good not even on the negotiation table.

What happens if Pakistan-backed terrorists attack periodically? Are we going to declare war each time there is a terrorist attack? It will be a self-created trap and will only aid the threat of Pakistan that vowed to bleed India with a thousand cuts.

Terrorism is Pakistan’s war against India by other means to take over Kashmir. This is because, it cannot wage an open war against India and win.

Therefore, it is imperative for India to grab this Ceasefire opportunity and negotiate to handover peacefully the “stolen” PoK to India and live in peace.

— K.B. Ganapathy, Sr. Journalist