Pahalgam - A Inflexion Point ?

Talking about what happened on 22nd April’2025 is irrelevant since enough and more has been said about the incident. This is an attempt to ruminate on the incident from a different perspective.

While every such attack is obviously planned, the micro level planning seems different from other terror attacks on Indian soil. The unique features.

1. The terrorists did not kill a single woman or child.
2. They targetted only men and that too after ascertaining their religious identity with a 3 way test.
3. The killings were not generic or random – but with a clear target.
4. They wanted to convey a clear message of challenge when they told the women they spared – Go Tell Modi.

The other features of the attack which even if conjectures are as below.

1. The terrorists knew that PM Modi would be in Saudi Arabia. Coincidence or otherwise, the last time an attack happened coincided with the visit of the Saudi Crown Prince.
2. The day coincided with the presence of USA VP JD Vance.
3. The time selected coincided with the firing practice at the nearby range.

As mentioned, this was neither random or wanton killing to create terror, disrupt the economy etc. There was a predetermined objective and plan being carried out to the last letter especially with a 3 way identity test of victims – THAT takes time, patience and DISCIPLINED focus to follow orders. With my limited knowledge, your usual jihadi, even if well trained, would invariably be impatient to run. He will do jugaad. The professionalism and precision with which the entire operation was carried out to me, indicates this was a Pakistani special forces commando group that carried out the attack. I said this on X on 24th and 5 days later I felt vindicated with this news report.

Other aspects that give credence to this judgement are the significant intelligence failure, the visible anger, comments and response by the Indian govt, the alacrity with which most Muslim political parties and leaders, including the Hurriyat, PDP, AIMIM, bent over backwards in “real time” to openly acknowledge that “Hindus” had been singled out, condemn the attack, take out candle marches, wear black bands and distance themselves as much as they can from the incident.

Even after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack that saw 4 days of mayhem, 175 killed or when 15 were killed in a Kashmir village in 2018 or 41 killed in the Pulwama attack in 2019, the nation saw anger, the Govt spoke tough words – but not once did we see any of those named above react the way they are now doing. The otherwise stone-faced PM was visibly upset and the fury on his face apparent. That he chose to speak in English at a public event in Bihar pointed to a very different situation. This was not a terrorist attack – this was war on India by the Pakistan Army on Indian soil.

Maybe this was their version of a surgical strike, but the Pakistan establishment with this attack has changed all rules of the game hiterto in place since decades. Terrorism has been taken to the next orbit where a nation is now proudly aligning with it, as against playing victim like so far. Key examples.

1. Gen Asim Munir the Chief of Army staff gave one of the most vituperative speeches which dwarfed even the language used by random jihadis. This was no more about Kashmir, this was going back to the foundation – Hindu versus Muslim – and clearly articulating that the two can never coexist. The only thing he did not say, for now, even getting Kashmir will NOT be victory, Hindus need to be wiped out for them to claim victory. There is a HUGE message on policy shift here.
2. The Defence Minister of Pakistan Khawaja Asif simply did not care to even deny their involvement in terrorism. He wore that badge proudly in front of a global TV audience, even if he tried to blame USA and UK.
3. A senior officer, Colonel Taimur Rahat, working in the Pakistan embassy in London, gestured to the protesting public about slitting their throats while holding a poster of Wing Commander Abhinandan. They had pre-planned how to react when the public assembled with music, dance etc. The Pakistan embassy in Delhi ordered cakes – for whatever reasons. Those posted in a diplomatic role are expected to show restraint, at least in public.

All these and more, show a very different Pakistan. This is no longer strategic recalibration, but what I call – changing the rules of the game. As an aside, irrespective of how this will play out, Pakistan has set a new bar for the global community. A bar so high, that nations can get motivated to be vocal and open about their criminal or other intents without a fig leaf of shame. Gone are the days when a nation will show restraint and decency at least in public, even if internally they are different. This will be like murderers, rapists, other criminals proudly accepting who they are and updating their LinkedIn profiles.

What prompted this humungous change in Pakistan is anybody's guess, but like always I see the smell of money, power and control at its core.

Lets look at some matrices to check.

Individuals using internet	27% (56 % for India)
Percentage of armed forces personnel in labor force	1.3% (0.6% for India)
Central Govt debt as percentage of GDP	55% (47% for India)
Net trade, balance of payment	Minus 27 Billion $ (Minus 86 Billion for India)
FDI current nett of balance of payment	Minus 2.4 Billion $ (Minus 14 Billion for India)
Firms using banks for investment	5.5 % (56 % for India)
GDP per person	1,365 $ (2,481 $ (for India)
GDP per person employed	17,372 $ (23,340 $ for India)
GDP with world rank and share	338 Billion $, 45th and 0.32%)  (3.6 Trillion $, 5th and 3.36 % for India).

Just as an aside, Bangladesh has a GDP of 440 Billion $, a growth rate of around 6% and 32nd in global ranking. While the current year can change for Bangladesh – a compelling question is – whether the sudden changes in Bangladesh, amongst other things, prompted by what one calls “hostile takeover” in business parlance by Pakistan as a strategy to trigger a war?.

Just see the GDP growth from 1961 and over the last 10 years to see how Pakistan has fared.

All Data sourced from the World Bank website

All data sourced from the world bank website

The key aspect of the Pakistan economy which never seems to find focus in the media, op-eds, when they talk about terrorism, military dictatorship/ lack of popular democracy is the fact that the Armed forces are the biggest business house in Pakistan.

The Pakistani AF run everything from bakeries, banks, insurance companies, universities, petrol bunks, oil and gas exploration, sugar mills, security, employment services, farm lands to golf courses. Pakistan's largest corporations are controlled by the military. At last count the number of commercial enterprises was more than 100. Musharraf famously boasted of “exceptional” military-owned banks, cement and fertilizer plants.

Pakistani AF controlled over 30% of the manufacturing and 10% of all private assets in a 2008 report. Today the commercial assets of the AF are said to be over 40 Billion Dollars – around 12% of their GDP. The nett worth of Tata Sons is supposed to be about 100 Billion $. They also own about 12% of the land mass. Pakistan has a external debt of around 130 Billion $ which is over 40% of GDP. Indirectly one can say 5% of this debt is the private business interest of the AF or about 6.5 Billion which is around 17% of the private assets owned by the AF.

A nation like Pakistan which had a negative 0.04% GDP growth last year, inflation of 38%, the overall economy has been collapsing very fast. While the defense expenditure as a percentage of GDP seems to be reducing over the last 20 years, the expenses by Pakistan have been higher than India.

All data sourced from the world bank website

Given the kind of financial integration the businesses run by the Army has with the Pakistan economy and about 20% of the Government budget goes for defense spending, what we see is a round tripping that was bound to go out of control at some point. Whether we are seeing that now is a moot question.

The bottomline is that the Pakistan economy is in shambles and history has shown that whenever a nations economy is about to drop into an abyss, citizens would revolt since they no longer have anything to lose. When such a nation is controlled by its army, people will blame them and any revolt would be a revolt against the Pakistan army itself. To me Pakistan is very close to this existential crisis.

Nations in such a existential crisis use war as a diversionary tactic which will catalyse emotions but then an enemy needs to be identified. For 78 yrs, Pakistan had indoctrinated their citizens about India being the enemy, Kashmir as the key issue. That story has run out of steam. They have raised the bar to a higher orbit where Hindus are the enemy and Kashmir the jugular vein.

They needed to trigger a war and that explains the comments of Gen Asim Munir, how Hindus and Muslims can never live together. Its totally illogical to take up this point, when he already has a Pakistan since 1947. This point is, well, pointless. If he thought that this would galvanize riots between Hindus and Muslims in India, it has had the exact opposite effect at least publicly and initially.

The Muslim leadership in India has been the most vociferous in their opposition to what happened in Pahalgam, sections of the secular liberal Aman Ki Aasha brigade are running for cover and some even accepting that they have been wrong in their idealistic hopes. Some secular liberal Aman Ki Aasha folks are suddenly writing op-eds about the history of terror attacks on India where “Hindus” have been killed and even using the word “WE” when referring to these. True that one political section of India, predictably the Congress has been the only one that is totally at odds with the rest of the nation, talking a different language, even questioning the testimony of the families of the victims, calling the whole thing as propaganda. They even claim that the allegation of religious profiling is the imagination of a disturbed mental state of the victim families. This political suicide needs to be discussed separately.

Early days yet, and what may or may not happen, what can be done, implications of current decisions by both nations, are all a different subject for another day. For now, its clear that Pakistan desperately wants war, driven by their economic compulsions and even the civlian govt is in line with this strategy – but triggered by India. Many on this Pakistan team are openly having wet dreams about nuking India.

The key question that awaits an answer is – will India oblige them or let them cook in their own curry using the vastly superior economic strength and resilience that India has.