The good news is that the Indian pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman is coming home on Friday. We can unhesitatingly compliment Pakistan for showing grace. And respecting the Geneva convention. Abhinandan’s Mig Bison had strayed into the Pakistan-controlled air space while giving chase to an intruding F-16 of Pakistan on Wednesday. He shot down the Pak plane but he himself took a hit.
Captured by the villagers, he was badly beaten before being rescued by an officer of the Pak army. The concerned army major too heeded the Geneva convention and we should be grateful to him, especially when two of the three pilots captured during the 1999 Kargil war were brutally tortured and killed. India asserted that no concessions were made for the release of the captured pilot.
We can also be happy that the process of de-escalation, signaled by the release of the Wing Commander, is underway. President Trump, now in Vietnam for talks with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, told a press conference that the war-like situation between India and Pakistan was ‘coming to an end.’ However, Pakistan sent a contrary signal by withdrawing troops from Baloochistan for detailing them on the LOC with India.
This may well be a precautionary move given the tensions between the two neighbours. Another happy development is that thanks to the aggressive Indian diplomacy, the US, UK and France have yet again launched a move in the UN Security Council to designate JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist. China is unlikely to endorse the resolution, though it too has resiled from its earlier stand on specifically naming the JeM as a terrorist organization.
There were reports that two Pakistani jets sought to intrude into the Indian space but were beaten back by the IAF on Thursday morning. Also, Pakistan suspended the Delhi-Lahore Samjhauta Express was a cautionary measure. In any case, there would hardly be any traffic given the prevailing situation. Notably, the confusion which led the spokesman of the Pak army to first claim that it had two Indian pilots in custody and within hours correcting himself to admit it had but one Indian pilot is now easily explained.
It seems he mistook the second jet that fell in its territory to be an Indian. Later, on realizing that the second jet was actually their own, a F-16, photographs of whose fuselage were put out by western news agency, he corrected himself. Meanwhile, if Pakistan seems to be in no position to wage a prolonged armed conflict with India, its reasons lie in its sinking economy. A near-bankrupt treasury, it has barely a week or two worth of foreign exchange. Its currency is sinking, having lost fifteen per cent against the dollar in recent months.
It costs 140 Pakistani rupees to buy a dollar, which is, in case it is available with the banks. Its share market exchanges are in a free fall since Pulwama. Its balance of payments situation is so adverse that the State Bank of Pakistan reported between July last year and January this year the deficit was $ 24 billion while current account deficit stood at $111 billion. The size of Pakistan’s economy is $ 315 billion.
In comparison, India’s economy, sixth largest in the world, is nearly $ 2.5 trillion. On purchasing- power-parity, Indian economy is actually nearly dollar nine trillion. As for the size of the military, men and machines et al, India is more than double. The point is that Pakistan can hardly sustain a conventional war against India. And even in nuclear terms, our arsenal far outweighs Pakistan’s.
Yet, it is unlikely that Pakistan will give up its evil ways. Pakistan lying low due to its self-inflicted wounds, India will make a grave mistake if eases pressure. Indira Gandhi committed a Himalayan blunder releasing the huge pressure on Pakistan following the Bangladesh war. Freeing nearly one lakh prisoners of war and retaining small tracts of land, she let off the hook a defeated and humbled Pakistan.
Outwitted at the negotiating table by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she gave away what the Indian armed forces had won on the war front. Accepting his word that the LoC would be converted into the international border, Bhutto pleaded not to reduce it in wiring for fear of being lynched when he landed at the Lahore airport, a gullible Durga Mata missed a golden opportunity to end the costly conflict in Kashmir. Modi, on the other hand, can be relied upon not to fall for any such trap.