India sought glory, and when the achievement of glory became the war-fighting aim, the only way you ended up fighting was a war of reputation. Ideally, a war of reputation is fought to influence perception and control of a given narrative. In a war of reputation, an actor would use all measures short of war to harm the reputation of an adversary.

India was doing so over a long period, spreading misinformation, manipulating public opinion of the audience at home and abroad, and engaging in negative publicity against Pakistan. It should have understood the limits of the reputational war it was fighting and should have desisted from undertaking a military adventure against Pakistan and making it part of this reputational war.

Two great differences were highlighted during this period of short Indian aggression: the difference in technology and the nature of the two adversaries. India lost the battle of supremacy of the technology, and while undermining our national resilience, it ignored, with disastrous results, the extent of our national enthusiasm and spirit.

Post-Pahalgam India is a different India. Its political and military reputation is dented. It has lost one of the most essential components of power politics that makes any power great — military credibility. Post-Pahalgam, at the apex of the Indian pyramid of political and military mediocrity stands PM Modi, an impulsive leader who's violent and aggressive ambitions now threaten peace and security of the entire region and need to be controlled and held back.

His external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, made a laughing stock of himself by claiming that Pakistan was informed about the Indian........

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