Modi’s shattered mirage

In a twist worthy of South Asia’s chaotic history, the recent armed exchange between India and Pakistan did more than challenge borders – it upended myths. The mighty, self-proclaimed regional superpower found itself stunned, shaken and strategically outmanoeuvred by a debt-ridden, politically fragile Pakistan.

While Indian media channels screamed headlines like 'Karachi Port Destroyed' and 'Indian Army Marches into Islamabad' – some even flashing graphics of Indian flags flying atop Pakistani buildings – the reality on the ground was more muted and far more humiliating for New Delhi. Pakistan’s response was calculated, precise and surprisingly restrained. What began as a moment of ultra-nationalist bravado for India ended with the wreckage of its most prized military assets strewn across its borders and digital marketplaces in Pakistan.

Pakistani missiles – fired not in rage but in rational strategy – hit Indian military installations with pinpoint accuracy. Drone swarms were neutralised mid-air. Pakistan’s armed forces, long dismissed as outdated and reactionary, exhibited a quiet, deadly professionalism that stood in stark contrast to India’s theatrical aggression. But the real casualty wasn’t Indian infrastructure; it was morale, and more critically, the myth of Modi.

Since 2014, India has been under the thrall of a dangerously revisionist ideology. Narendra Modi and the BJP have rewritten the Indian state’s DNA. What was once envisioned as a secular, pluralist democracy by its founders has morphed into a sectarian Hindu state, increasingly unrecognisable to its own people.

Today, nearly 200 million Muslims in India live under the shadow of suspicion and surveillance. Over 28 million Christians are pushed to the margins, with churches vandalised and pastors arrested. Even the Scheduled Castes and Dalits – numbering over 200 million – face renewed violence and casteist control at the hands of an upper-caste, Brahminical power structure now emboldened by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mothership of the BJP.

Let it be remembered that it was this same RSS ideology that produced Nathuram Godse, the man who murdered Mahatma Gandhi for being “too soft on Muslims". Today, the same worldview has taken India hostage.

Modi's India is not Gandhi's India. It is not Azad’s India. It is an India where dissent is sedition, where universities are raided, journalists jailed and Bollywood co-opted into nationalism. The government boasts of 'Digital India' and moon landings, yet cannot provide safe drinking water to 100 million citizens or stop lynch mobs from roaming the streets.

Worse still, its delusions of military grandeur have now been publicly dismantled. The 'surgical strikes' doctrine that once brought Modi electoral dividends has boomeranged. Pakistan, once thought to be internationally isolated and internally fractured, not only defended its borders but turned the battlefield into a theatre of satire and skill.

Rafale jets – Modi’s prized acquisition – were downed and dismantled. Drone fragments were photographed being collected by Pakistani villagers like hunting trophies. A viral photo of a Sindhi farmer inspecting a broken Indian drone with a cigarette in hand, pretending to be a scientist, became the war’s unofficial emblem. Pakistan showed military competence and moral restraint. Its decision not to strike civilian infrastructure and to respond proportionately has now been lauded even by neutral observers. This stood in contrast to India’s hyperbole.

More importantly, this conflict has exposed the BJP’s soft underbelly: its overreliance on rhetoric over readiness, ideology over intelligence. For all its boasts, Modi’s government was caught flat-footed. No amount of hashtags, WhatsApp forwards, or news anchors in army fatigues could salvage the shock of defeat.

In the end, the war served as a mirror to India’s ruling establishment. What it reflected was not strength but delusion, not unity but division. The war did not begin with missiles but with years of religious polarisation, social alienation and a press that no longer asked questions.

Pakistan, for all its flaws, reminded the region of a fundamental truth: power is not always loud. Sometimes, it comes from silence, timing and hitting exactly where it hurts – not just the target, but the ego behind it.

Modi’s mirage has been shattered. A pluralistic, wounded, silenced India now waits for its turn to reclaim the stage.

The writer is an expert on climate change and sustainable development and the founder of the Clifton Urban Forest. He tweets/posts @masoodlohar and can be reached at: mlohar@gmail.com