‘Modi re-emerges: humbled, hurt, and unreformed’

Qamar Bashir

This is apropos three letters to the Editor from this writer carried by the newspaper on Tuesday, Wednesday and yesterday. Despite his thunderous declarations, India’s prime minister Modi could not undo the most significant outcome of this conflict: the re-internationalization of the Kashmir issue. For years, India had worked to suppress international discourse on Kashmir. But now, thanks to its own aggression, Pakistan gained sympathy, legitimacy, and diplomatic traction. US President Donald Trump once again offered mediation, forcing India to confront the very topic it sought to bury. Operation Sindoor, contrary to Modi’s celebratory framing, will be remembered not as a triumph but as a strategic blunder. It exposed the limitations of India’s military, the hollowness of its regional hegemony claims, and the perils of using warfare as an electoral tool.

India’s dream of uncontested regional supremacy has been reduced to rubble. Its myth of military superiority lies shattered. The chest-thumping nationalism that sought to project dominance has instead exposed deep vulnerabilities. From this humiliation, India may take years to recover—if at all. For now, the illusion of the subcontinent’s sole superpower has gone up in smoke, replaced by wreckage, remorse, and rhetorical retreat.--Concluded