Vermillion Lines

Operation Sindoor and the delusion of deterrence

- SUSHANT SINGH

SOMETIME ON 7 MAY, Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai, India’s director general of military operations, called his Pakistani counterpart, Major General Kashif Abdullah. At 1.05 am, India had launched Operation Sindoor—airstrikes targeting what the Narendra Modi government described as “terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed.” Ghai called Abdullah “to communicate our compulsions to strike at the heart of terror ... but the request was turned down with an intimation that a severe response was inevitable and in the offing.” Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Pakistan’s director general of inter-services public relations, confirmed that the two DG-MOs had spoken. “We clearly told them that we would only talk once we had responded,” he said in a BBC interview.

In his first public statement about the operation, on 15 May, the minister of external affairs, S Jaishankar, boasted about this conversation. “Even at the start of the operation, we had sent a message to Pakistan saying we are striking at terrorist infrastructure and not the military, and the military has an option to stand out and not interfere,” he said during a media interaction. “They chose not to take that good advice.” Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition, was quick to pounce. “Informing Pakistan at the start of our attack was a crime,” he posted on social media, asking who had authorised the call and how many aircraft India had lost as a result. Jaishankar’s ministry dismissed Rahul’s post as an “utter misrepresentation of facts,” clarifying that “at the start” did not mean “before the commencement.” It did not, however, clarify when the call took place. On 26 May, Jaishankar reportedly told a parliamentary committee that the call was made half an hour after the operation concluded, and after the government had notified the media.