ISLAMABAD: Another term for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would mean India’s continued hostility towards Pakistan, said former defence minister retired Lt-Gen Naeem Khalid Lodhi.

Speaking at a discussion at Islamabad Policy Institute (IPI) on a book ‘India’s Surgical Strike Stratagem, Brinksmanship and Response’, Gen Lodhi feared greater instability in the region in case of Mr Modi’s success in elections because of the hawks who surround him.

The book has been authored by Prof (Dr) Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, a scholar on global politics, nuclear proliferation and national security, who teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University and is also IPI’s advisory board member.

The book critically scrutinises the operability of ‘Surgical Strike Stratagem’ particularly in the context of Pulwama incident and examines the legal status of India’s so-called ‘surgical strike’ operation under international law.

The former defence minister suspected that the intensity of hybrid war imposed on Pakistan could be increased and that there could be more actions like the so-called ‘surgical strikes’, if Modi was to get another term.

Author Dr Jaspal, speaking on this occasion, feared that the anti-Pakistan rhetoric was not just about elections. He worried as to where Modi’s increasingly irrational behaviour would lead the two countries to and the region at large.

He said the most troublesome part of the post-Pulwama military stand-off was that India mobilised its nuclear delivery vehicles and Modi turned up the nuclear rhetoric, but not only Western media and intellectuals remained silent on it, the local media too did not pick up this nuclear dimension of the conflict.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2019