Indian diplomats and envoys in various parts of the globe have swung into action in the last one day or so trying to explain the Indian position vis-a-vis its most decisive fight against Terror especially emerging from Pakistan and the multiple aspects linked to Operation Sindoor.
“For us, Kashmir is a bilateral issue (with Pakistan), not an international issue,” High Commissioner of India to Singapore Shilpak Ambule told Bloomberg TV.
“For us, the word mediation does not work with the Kashmir issue". To a question on Indus Water Treaty, he said:
"Well, we have very clearly said that till the time there is cross border terrorism, the ITW stays in abeyance".
India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire on May 10 after four days of heightened tensions following Indian attack on terror bases inside Pakistan.
The US said it helped mediate the de-escalation, but India has maintained that the truce was a result of bilateral talks.
"If you see the Indus Water Treaty when it was negotiated it was in Pakistan's favour..... There were lot of restrictions on us for using the resources in our side of the border. Now those restrictions are not in place once we put the Treaty in abeyance," he said.
PM Narendra Modi's speech on May 12 evening -- marked a new and refreshed beginning in more ways than one.
Now it shows -- New Delhi's readiness to cross Pakistan's nuclear red lines.
This is certainly a a break from decades of strategic restraint on terror and the entire game will now have to be rebooted. The Indian Air Force during the Operation Sindor (now paused) has struck targets across 11 airfields in under 90 minutes.
At one go, Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai (India's DGMO) has said that over 100 terrorists were killed.
The Prime Minister in his broadcast said -- "The era of nuclear blackmail is over".
He was referring to Pakistan's long-standing 'strategy' of using its nuclear arsenal not as a tool of national survival, but as a political cover for fomenting terrorism across the border in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India.
India will no longer allow Pakistan's nuclear capabilities to shield state-sponsored terrorism, the Prime Minister was very firm.
The government said that in the last 25 years since 2000, at least 24,000 people have lost lives in India in terror-related violence and arson.
This doctrine — developed by Pakistan's military establishment under General Zia-ul-Haq and later articulated by Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai in the early 2000s — outlined four 'red lines' that would trigger nuclear retaliation: loss of territory, destruction of military infrastructure, economic strangulation, or internal destabilisation. It was intended to prevent any Indian conventional military response to cross-border provocations.
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was hardly about deterring the military or external forces.
It was simply showed as something to 'deter' the Indian political leadership from taking actions against terrorists hiding and given open shelter place and training hubs in Pakistan.
The Prime Minister has announced now that India will strike precisely and decisively at the terrorist hideouts developing under the cover of nuclear blackmail.
"We will not differentiate between the government sponsoring terrorism and the masterminds of terrorism. During Operation Sindoor the world has again seen the ugly face of Pakistan, when top Pakistani army officers came to bid farewell to the slain terrorists.
This is strong evidence of state-sponsored terrorism.We will continue to take decisive steps to protect India and our citizens from any threat."
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| Air Marshal A K Bharti and Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai |
India's nuclear program, publicly acknowledged in response to Pakistan's growing capabilities in the 1990s, had until now functioned largely as a counterbalance. However, successive Indian prime ministers — from Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Manmohan Singh — stopped short of authorising military strikes inside Pakistan, even in the face of mass-casualty terror attacks.
PM Modi's decision to authorise full-spectrum air strikes at the outset of Operation Sindoor signals a doctrinal rupture.
ends
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