BENGALURU – Even after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire on May 10, following four days of high-stakes military confrontation, both sides are still rattling sabres.
Newspapers in both countries have depicted their respective prime ministers with fists raised and eyes blazing. Television anchors added even more combative language as they analysed the speeches.
Both sides are actively trying to shape perceptions of what the fighting across the Line of Control (LoC) – or the de facto border between the nuclear-armed neighbours – has achieved and, most importantly, who has “won”.
How they frame their wins and losses will have a bearing on not only the strength of the ceasefire and future bilateral relations, but also the political performance of each leader’s party at home, analysts say.
Accusing Pakistan of having a hand in an April 22 terror attack that killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam, in Indian-held Kashmir, India’s military on May 7 struck nine “terror infrastructure” targets in Pakistan.
Pakistan, which denies involvement in the April attack, responded with artillery fire across the border into Indian-held Kashmir.
Tit-for-tat hostilities ensued, marked by claims, counterclaims and disinformation on both sides, till the conflict was paused by the ceasefire that US President Donald Trump said was brokered by Washington.
Immediately after the ceasefire, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif praised his military’s “professional and effective” response to what he described as Indian aggression.
He credited the military for reducing Indian military depots, ammunition storage places and airbases to ruins. India panned this claim as “a tissue of lies”.
In a national address on May 12, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “The world saw how Pakistan’s drones and missiles crumbled like straw before India’s powerful air defence systems… Pakistan had planned attacks at the border, but India struck deep into Pakistan’s heart.”
He added: “Following India’s aggressive action, Pakistan began seeking escape routes. It started appealing globally to de-escalate tensions.”
He warned that India would keep a close eye on any state-sponsored terrorism, and the “new normal” would be to treat every terror attack as an act of war that will get “a fitting response”.
Mr Modi also said trade talks and terror cannot go together, and “water and blood can’t go together” – which analysts interpret as a signal that both the trade freeze and recent suspension of the 65-year-old Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan on water distribution will remain in place.
Islamabad had said in April that “any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan… will be considered as an act of war”.
Victory signals will win votes
Mr Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, said that compared with Mr Sharif’s “relatively modest” speech, Mr Modi’s had “more belligerence, conditionalities and policy assertions”, which have definite implications for India-Pakistan relations.
The “new normal” is that if there are any further transgressions by Pakistan, India will use targeted force against terror infrastructure, as it did in the recent conflict, he added.
“The tough nationalist stances are meant for the domestic audiences,” Mr Sahni said.
The rhetoric seeks to mollify domestic hardliners who are attacking the Modi government for stopping the conflict too quickly.
Mr Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party faces elections in the eastern state of Bihar around November. Analysts say the party could ride the wave of nationalist sentiment to victory – if military tensions stay in focus.
“Though it is early days to talk about this, by doing what he talked about and striking deep into Pakistan territories – among them, Bahawalpur, Muridke and Rawalpindi – and by avenging the women who lost their husbands and sons in Pahalgam, (Modi) may well have ensured the support of a large constituency of women for his future political battles,” political analyst Neerja Chowdhury wrote in The Indian Express.
People gathering at a border post in the frontier village of Chakothi, near the Line of Control, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on May 11.PHOTO: AFP
Pakistan rallies against common foe
In Pakistan, the conflict has been a great unifying force.
“Before the conflict, Pakistan was very politically polarised and the masses suffering under the bad economy were critical of the military and the ruling administration it supported,” said Professor Murad Ali, chairman of the department of political science at Pakistan’s University of Malakand.
“But standing up to a powerful, economically superior India has boosted the popularity and image of the Pakistan government and the military,” he said.
Citizens in cities from Islamabad to Karachi took to the streets, waving national flags, playing patriotic songs, and dancing.
“Our army has emerged as one of the finest and most professional forces,” Mr Mohsin Gilani, a 56-year-old resident of Islamabad, told The Straits Times.
In Karachi, a city often marred by political polarisation, even supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf – once anti-military for its alleged role in Khan’s imprisonment – joined in the celebrations.
A large gathering formed on Shahrah-e-Faisal, Karachi’s main thoroughfare, where people raised portraits of army chief Asim Munir and burned an effigy of Mr Modi in defiance.
Mr Amin Ansar, 30, who joined the victory rally, said: “We had lost trust in the army because of its political interference. But this war reminded us of its real strength, its battlefield prowess.”
An Indian police officer (right) standing guard in Srinagar, Kashmir, on May 12.PHOTO: AFP
Field realities don’t matter
The competing political narratives have overtaken the ground realities of the conflict on both sides of the border.
In New Delhi, at a press briefing on May 11, Indian military officials said Pakistani firing across the LoC killed five Indian soldiers, and Pakistan lost 40 soldiers. They also said 100 terrorists were killed as they hit nine targets in Pakistan on May 7.
They also claimed to have “downed a few Pakistani planes” but did not offer details.
The Pakistani military said on May 13 that at least 40 civilians, including 15 children and seven women, were killed and 121 others injured in Indian missile strikes across Pakistan last week.
According to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of the Pakistani military, 11 members of the Pakistan Armed Forces were killed and 78 others sustained injuries.
Pakistani officials earlier claimed Indian fighter jets crashed or were shot down by Pakistan in an aerial clash on May 7. International media reports on telling debris seemed to add credence to these claims, but India has not confirmed anything.
When asked about the claims during the May 11 press conference, India’s director-general of air operations, Air Marshal Awadhesh Kumar Bharti, said that “losses are part of combat”, but that the forces had “achieved the objectives” and “all the pilots are back home”.
Foreign military and strategic analysts said that if India’s French-made Rafale fighter jets were indeed shot down by Pakistan’s China-made J-10C Vigorous Dragon jets, it would be the first combat loss for the Western aircraft that is considered one of the world’s most capable.
Regardless of who won this round of fighting, analysts say that the use of modern weapons like armed drones for the first time across the LoC presented a new challenge for both nations.
“The truth of what really happened will unfortunately not be known to more than a handful of strategists. There lies the danger of nationalist narratives – amplified by pliant media in both countries. Going forward, attitudes, future plans and military strategies could be shaped by the mythology and not reality,” said Mr Sahni.
- Additional reporting by Ashraf Khan
- Rohini Mohan is The Straits Times’ India Correspondent based in Bengaluru. She covers politics, business and human rights in South Asia.
- Ashraf Khan is a Pakistan-based journalist who has been writing on geopolitics, economics, the environment and human rights for wire agencies for the past 25 years.
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