Pakistan: The land of delusion squeezed between two illegitimate power centres

How do you deal with a problem like Pakistan? This question has vexed Indian policymakers and the political establishment for several decades. We are none the wiser despite several wars and kinetic conflicts, the latest of which took place just a few days ago. At the heart of the problem is a revisionist state where the public stays in a state of permanent suspension of disbelief, while its all-powerful military runs a rentier economy and conjures up alternative realities at will.

Consider, for a moment, how Pakistan fared in the latest battle. We already know well enough about the 11 of the 12 key Pakistani airbases hit by Indian missile strikes, some of which are still inoperable.

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It suggested a complete failure of Pakistan’s China-supplied air defense system. The fact that Pakistan couldn’t protect its sensitive air assets, nuclear weapon storage sites or even nuclear command and control centres is a telling commentary on its incompetence. It explains why Pakistan’s beleaguered army chief “went running to the United States seeking immediate intervention.”

That the Pakistani DGMO, carrying a message of cessation of hostilities, was made to wait several hours before the Indian side even agreed to take the call on May 10 tells you who emerged with the upper hand. As the fog of war slowly lifts, the magnitude of Pakistan’s loss is slowly becoming clear.

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The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has lost 20 percent of its infrastructure, including hangers, hardened air shelters (HAS), critical maintenance equipment and several of its fighter jets, such as an airborne early warning SAAB-2000 aircraft (AWACS) flying 300 km inside its own airspace. These are expensive beasts, even more so for a rickety economy like Pakistan’s that survives on doles.

The SAAB Erieye-2000 flying radar was struck by India’s S-400 SAM system that was activated 11 times during the conflict. That’s not all. According to media reports quoting Indian defence sources, PAF lost one C-130 J medium lift aircraft, a JF-17 and two F-16 fighters to air-launched SCALP and BrahMos missiles. India also struck a Chinese-made LY-80 air defence system and took out the prized HQ-9 in Karachi using UAV and loitering munitions, reports Hindustan Times.

Pakistan also lost over 50 airmen, including squadron leader Usman Yusuf when Indian missiles struck Pakistan’s Bholari airbase at Sindh. The loss of so many lives, as well as high value assets within a span of a few hours would have demolished the swagger and sapped the confidence of any military outfit. But this is Pakistan. Its army has ‘never lost a war’. Within a few hours of the ceasefire that was agreed upon in distinctly dishonourable circumstances for the ‘Lumber One’ military, the Pakistanis declared a “win”, sparking nationwide ‘celebrations’.

As if at the flick of an invisible switch, Pakistan created an alternative reality where its all-powerful military not only beat back a much larger adversary, but scored an important tactical victory that further tightened the military’s grip over every aspect of Pakistan’s politics, society and economy.

Consider also the fact that within days of a demoralizing defeat, army chief Asim Munir was promoted to the rank of a Field Marshal, only the second military officer in Pakistan’s history to get the honour after General Ayub Khan in 1959. Khan, having ousted then President Iskander Mirza in 1958, helped himself to the title a year later.

With Munir’s ‘promotion’, Pakistan now has two illegitimate power centres in military and civil domains. Not even Shehbaz Sharif, heavily dependent on the military for survival, believes in his own legitimacy as the prime minister. Riddled with allegations of corruption, poor governance and lack of agency, the Sharif government had become deeply unpopular. As did the military, which for the first time in several decades was facing an organic pushback from the Pakistani middle class – that threw its lot with jailed former prime minister Imran Khan – for the military’s outsized influence on Pakistan’s polity.

The war with India changed everything. Battlefield reverses notwithstanding, Pakistan’s military was able to create an in illusion of victory in an ‘existential’ battle against India, with the aid of some creative myth making.

Losses were quickly hidden, the DGISPR shaped the counter-narrative on a war footing pressing into service dubious claims, fake news, AI generated video clips and round the clock press briefings. With the aid of the Western media’s discourse power that bought into Pakistani claims that Chinese-built J-10s shot down up to five Indian aircraft, including several Rafales, the narrative coup was complete.

Pakistan is now firmly under the grip of military nationalism, and the new generation of army sceptics has been bought over. The tide of popularity has swung in favour of the hitherto unpopular Munir in such a way that the jury is out on whether Munir adorned himself with the title of Field Marshal (Failed Marshal would’ve been more accurate), or whether Sharif, eager to curry favour with the new ‘hero’ of the Pakistani masses, decided to be a little creative.

Either way, as the Pakistanis celebrate their hard-earned ‘win’ over India with a formal dinner with Munir as the ‘showstopper’ Pakistan.

Not even the mightiest of India’s cruise or ballistic missiles may destroy Pakistan with efficacy from within the way Pakistan’s military can. The most popular mass leader in decades is in jail under strictest of charges and harshest of conditions. The rebellion has been snuffed out. Sharif’s writ lies eroded even further, and Pakistan is lurching ever so close to another military dictatorship. The vexing questions on the Rawalpindi generals’ control over politics, economy, judiciary and even the media have now been put to rest. The military first claim to the poverty-stricken country’s resources finds renewed public mandate.

None can save Pakistan from its dance of death. Its embrace of instability, religious fundamentalism and the population’s collective somnambulance.

The writer is Deputy Executive Editor, Firstpost. He tweets as @sreemoytalukdar. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.