NEW DELHI, June 14: At least a month before war drums resonated over the border, the Indian military high command had told the parliamentary standing committee on defence that the country had only a wafer-thin edge over Pakistan in terms of military capabilities, and that it would be unwise to go to war, The Times of India reported on Friday.

It quoted a prominent member of the defence committee as saying that in separate presentations in April, the army, navy and the air force had reported that India’s superiority over Pakistan’s military was barely 1:1.2 and India’s superiority had come down from the level of 1:1.7 which it had during the 1971 war.

The committee member, who agreed to talk to the newspaper only after de-escalation of tension between the two countries began, claimed that irrespective of its hard posturing, at no point in time had the government taken any decision to go to war.

“Its sole objective had been to draw the attention of the international community and to mount pressure on Pakistan,” he claimed.

The newspaper said the military headquarters had in fact observed that Pakistan had superior capabilities in several areas, specially in the field of missiles.

“All the major cities in India are within the reach of Pakistan missiles and number of strategic targets as well as number of people likely to be affected are much larger than those in Pakistan,” the unidentified parliament member said.

The military headquarters had also informed the defence standing committee that ever since the troop mobilization began along the Indo-Pakistan border reached its peak, the military was incurring a daily expenditure of Rs600-700 million. Also, since the Dec 13 terrorist strike against the Indian parliament, the total expenditure incurred by the military was a whopping Rs40 billion.

“Standing committee members were also told that given the ground realities, a short surgical strike, either against terrorist camps in (Azad) Kashmir or against strategic targets in Pakistan, was not possible. The war was bound to be a prolonged one unless interrupted by a nuclear strike or heavy international pressure,” representatives of the army, navy and air force reportedly said. —JN