While the military details of the recent skirmish between India and Pakistan from 7-10 May 2025 are being compiled, this Op-ed deals with the implications of this bruising standoff for India, and peace in South Asia.

First, the South Asian balance of power or precisely the Indo-Pakistan power equation stands greatly altered, besides the global military balance. An overconfident power-drunk India under a supposedly iron-like, tough talking Modi with the stature of a god, imbued with a false sense of supremacy, self-righteousness, hubris and arrogance, and buoyed by surging economic success, stands humiliated, compromised and much shorter than the stature it aspired and acquired.

A much smaller, weaker, divided and quieter Pakistan has given it a well-deserved drubbing of a lifetime in a resolute, calibrated and timely riposte. The jingoistic Indian media and the manipulative Hindutva cohort, who ratcheted up war hysteria to unknown frenzy and had captured most of Pakistan in their imagination under litany of falsehoods, today stand crestfallen and biting dust. India has lost a lot in the perceptual domain than it is willing to acknowledge.

The West Plus led by the US, and China, the wavering Arab world, SAARC nations and even Russia look at this totally unnecessary skirmish as grave error of miscalculation and overreach by New Delhi. The US might be soul-searching if they were betting on the right horse to stand up against a rising China. This episode has badly exposed India's international standing, its ability and capability and its staying power.

Second, Indian diplomatic corps is greatly embarrassed internationally for sticking to its Pakistan-originated terrorism mantra, and the military........

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