From Trump's Ceasefire to Sacrifies of Kashmiris: The Missing Pieces in Modi’s Address to the Nation

Addressing the nation Monday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi—with his characteristic rhetorical flourish and theatrical skill—sought to convince his countrypeople that the ceasefire between India and Pakistan was only a pause in Operation Sindoor after inflicting devastating damage to terrorists and their handlers across the border.Drawing new red lines around the tentative truce between the warring countries, PM Modi declared that further talks with the Pakistan government would be only on terror and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). He also warned that he would not succumb to nuclear blackmail by Islamabad—and that the Indian Armed Forces were battle-ready to fiercely punish any fresh provocation.Unfortunately, for India’s political strongman, even as he recorded his televised address, thousands of miles away, US President Donald Trump was busy puncturing the former's narrative implying that that ceasefire was forced on Pakistan after being brought to its knees. Modi Hails Op Sindoor, Skips Mentioning US Minutes After Trump Reiterates RoleThis is the third time in the past few days that the US leader—even more anxious than PM Modi to dominate headlines—has boasted that it was him and his henchmen, Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who brokered peace between the two nuclear-armed nations. The first time was Trump’s pre-emptive announcement on his social media platform about the ceasefire even before the Indian and Pakistan governments could do so. This was followed within hours by another tweet, giving more details of midnight efforts by the US administration to persuade India and Pakistan to cease hostilities while bestowing a patronising pat on their leaders for coming to their senses. Trump even went to the extent of offering to mediate in the Kashmir conflict, which he claimed with typical ignorance of history had been going on for “a thousand years”. Trump’s latest intervention in the guise of off-the-cuff remarks at the start of a daily White House briefing on 12 May is even more demeaning to PM Modi who has assiduously cultivated a larger-than-life stature both at home and abroad. He has now claimed to have browbeaten both the Indian prime minister and his Pakistani counterpart to shrink back from the edge of a nuclear conflict by threatening to stop trading with the two countries. With the US President continuing to haunt him like a voluble Banquo’s ghost, PM Modi is finding it difficult to manage the game of optics at which he is normally so adept. Interestingly, in his speech, PM Modi stuck to his usual rhetoric as he chose not to address the US' claims of 'brokering' an end to hostilities. Neither did he mention Trump's offer to mediate in the Kashmir issue.While the leaders of Pakistan publicly thanked the US President in their address, India chose to not even acknowledge the elephant in the room.Instead, PM Modi stressed repeatedly evoking imagery of the 'sindoor' being wiped off the foreheads of sisters and mothers, even as he remained silent on the plight of Kashmiris, relentlessly attacked internally by Islamophobic media after 22 April, leading to numerous incidents of violence against Kashmiri migrants. The latter may have since returned home—only to be caught in a no man's land with the rest of the Kashmiris.Modi's 'Muscular Nationalism' in Focus, Murmurs of Discontent in Saffron CampAt home, the US' statements and the internal silence over it, have not only given political ammunition to the Opposition but rattled the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s own support base that's used to worshipping the PM as 'Vishwaguru'.Abroad, PM Modi, who used to take pride in his back-thumping and hugging familiarity with top international leaders, has been seriously embarrassed by Trump bracketing him and Pakistani leaders as two sides of the same coin.Despite strenuous efforts by a captive mainstream media and appointed social media cheerleaders, PM Modi appears to be facing a crisis of image. The hastily called ceasefire did not sit well with a jingoistic war-mongering Frankenstein’s monster that his own ruling party has so far egged on—if not sponsored—seeking further escalation. This lunatic fringe growing by the day had wild unfeasible expectations about the halted military skirmish between India and Pakistan over the Pahalgam massacre—and had seriously thought that the Indian Armed Forces would capture PoK and free Balochistan on the lines of Bangladesh. The absence of tangible proof highlighting crippling losses to Pakistan—and the impression that the Modi government had succumbed to US pressure to call a ceasefire before declaring a killer blow to the enemy—is the subject of several tweets in social media, openly expressing their disappointment with the PM. Vicious trolling of Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and his family for merely announcing the ceasefire by social media zealots calling for a holy war against Pakistan underlines this anger. That is unlikely to be defused by PM Modi’s 'tough' speech last night.Trump Cannot 'Broker' Kashmir or Indo-Pak Conflicts, MEA Must Say SoClearly, both the PM and the ruling party need to do more expectation management among their supporters on the way forward in the conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir. The government has an extremely challenging task ahead navigating difficult internal security, military, and diplomatic terrain to fight against an enemy who is both unscrupulous and persistent. Regardless of the surface bluster, PM Modi is surely aware of the perils of allowing policies to be dictated either by ultra-nationalist hysteria or domestic political one-upmanship. With Pakistan unlikely to attempt a terrorist or military adventure right now, the immediate challenge may well be on the diplomatic front. Islamabad will most probably try and internationalise Kashmir by playing up the spectre of a narrowly averted nuclear conflict in the subcontinent.One of the major takeaways from the events of last week is that in a world where old strategic certainties are no longer valid with President Trump in the White House, India—which considers itself as an independent power—may be at a temporary disadvantage to Pakistan historically less squeamish about international mediation.There needs to be clever and calibrated diplomatic moves led by the PM himself to help India corner Pakistan on the international stage on the question of exporting terror, as we had once been quite successful in doing more than a decade ago.Finally, PM Modi and on his instructions the BJP, would do well to build on the unity displayed during last week’s border conflict by all communities and groups regardless of religious, caste, linguistic and political rivalries. With the loss and livelihoods in Kashmir both by the Pahalgam killings and the devastation wreaked in border areas by Pakistani missiles, drones and artillery shells, the PM should make a special effort to ensure communal peace in this long-troubled border state (now a Union Territory) of the country. (The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist and the author of ‘Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati’. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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Topics: Operation Sindoor