Wednesday, May 14, 2025

An Open Letter to Modi and Amit

‘WHERE DID YOU GO WRONG? 

An Open Letter to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah:

Iqbal Latif

©️ Iqbal Latif, 2025 – All rights reserved

Dear Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Shah,

WHY I’M WRITING THIS LETTER

I write not as a rival or an opposing nationalist. I write as an observer of history — someone who believes that when the stakes are nuclear and the region is combustible, truth must speak louder than pride.

This letter is not about vengeance. It is about accountability. It is about the need for strategic humility — because when miscalculations are made by those who command armies, silence is no longer a virtue.

India did not just conduct an operation — it altered the regional equation. And in doing so, it exposed itself to a kind of parity it had long denied existed. This is not written in fury. It is written with the sober clarity that follows strategic catastrophe.

You didn't just miscalculate militarily. You misread doctrine, misjudged adversaries, ignored geopolitics, and violated the fundamental balance that holds this region back from the brink.

CENSORSHIP AND STRATEGIC DELUSION

For years, your ecosystem silenced every voice that warned of humility. Every analyst who questioned the overhyped Rafale deal was branded anti-national. Every former diplomat who suggested negotiation was mocked as weak.

Your media, led by figures like Arnab Goswami, turned complex realities into loud nationalism, drowning out strategic wisdom. You surrounded yourself with mirrors—not advisers. So you walked into war with the illusion that a $4 trillion economy could buy supremacy. That prestige equals deterrence. That no one would dare challenge you.

And yet, you were met with missiles you claimed were inoperable. Airborne platforms you called obsolete. And a doctrinal web you failed to even detect. 

ABROGATION, PROVOCATION — AND NO INVESTIGATION 

You triggered the largest regional escalation since Kargil with no forensic investigation, no satellite imagery, no international inquiry — just nationalist theatrics. You abrogated water-sharing treaties under the Indus Waters Treaty — one of the few civilizational frameworks that even war had never dismantled.

You announced: "Not a single drop of water will go to Pakistan." That is not posturing. That is hydrological warfare — a war crime under international humanitarian law.

And then you ordered preemptive strikes, assuming fear would force capitulation. That a “pauper state” would crumble under one night of terror. Instead, Pakistan’s response forced a tactical withdrawal within hours.

WHERE DID YOU GO WRONG?

You believed in mythology over telemetry. You trusted media projections over satellite data. You assumed PR events were strategy. You thought silencing dissent was strength. You mistook Pakistan's composure for collapse.

And when reality hit—with Pakistan’s advanced radar and missile systems—you realized the enemy wasn’t theatrical. It was doctrinal.

A DOCTRINE YOU NEVER UNDERSTOOD 

When your 70 jets took off, they were met by a digital kill web. Your $290 million Rafales — costing three times more than Pakistan’s entire fleet — were shadowed, jammed, and turned back. Some never returned. Your drones, meant to create Gaza-style fear, became decoys. 

Your S-400, touted as the region’s most advanced air defence, failed. Nine out of ten Pakistani missiles struck airbases across Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Central Command. All while you were still telling the world that Islamabad had fallen.

THE STRATEGIC FALLOUT

India’s role as a Quad counterbalance to China has collapsed. Western allies now fear that Chinese-integrated platforms outperform their own. Gulf states, watching this debacle, now view Pakistan and China as a serious axis of deterrence.

You were not teaching a lesson. You were being taught one—live, recorded, and replayed by every war college in the world. Karachi Did Not Fall. Delhi's Doctrine Did.

Let’s be clear: Karachi is operational. Asim Munir is in control. Pakistan's political structure remains intact. But India's doctrine of swift, punitive retaliation is broken. Not symbolically—operationally.

You could not penetrate. You could not suppress. And you could not deny the truth long enough.

FROM SUPERIORITY TO SOLITUDE

India’s economic muscle turned into strategic inertia. Modi’s image as a master of escalation? Gone. Instead, what's left is a sobering realization: Missiles don’t care who wrote the press release. Doctrine eats ego for breakfast. This Was Your Strategic Miscalculation. 

In trying to fragment Pakistan, you exposed your fault lines: Economic overreach. Doctrinal under-preparation. Moral disregard for the rules of war. 

And so I ask you — Where did you go wrong? You went wrong when you believed power makes you untouchable. You went wrong when you waged war without understanding the consequences. You went wrong when you thought water, war, and silence could be dictated.

This wasn’t David vs. Goliath. This was Goliath talking too loud — and David listening, waiting, then striking where it mattered. And history, Mr. Modi, does not forget moments like these.

YOU DIDN’T JUST LOSE GROUND, YOU LOST THE STRATEGIC NARRATIVE 

You thought Karachi was Pakistan's jugular. You spoke of choking its port. You moved INS Vikrant into the theatre with an air of inevitability. You told your followers Karachi would evaporate.

But here is your unspoken nightmare: What you planned for Karachi — Pakistan showed it could return to Mumbai. Your eastern ports—Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Paradip—are no less exposed. This is not escalation. This is equalization.

STRATEGIC PARITY

You have, through your miscalculation, delivered parity to Pakistan. Pakistan has gained respect as a strategic equal—not a footnote pauper state. Where once you dismissed its deterrent capability as “tin-can missiles,” you now face a neighbour whose conventional force can hold your trillion-dollar economy at gunpoint.

This wasn’t just about firepower. This was about resolve — missiles launched not from underground silos — but from villages, with elders overseeing their launch. What you saw as poverty, the world now sees as cool hardiness. What you mistook for fragility, the world sees as doctrinal maturity.

And the greatest irony? You legitimized Pakistan's conventional deterrence. The idea that Pakistan is imploding and cannot be trusted with nuclear arms has been disproven — as the world witnessed the calm, articulate briefings of the Pakistan Air Force. Pakistan has emerged not as a reckless actor, but a disciplined nuclear power — capable of restraint, resolve, and deterrence.

You didn't just fail to teach a lesson. You destroyed your deterrence architecture. You waged a war — and walked out without leverage. And in doing so, you redefined South Asia’s balance. A balance that now precludes impulsive war on every provocation — especially from militants, you couldn’t stop on your soil.

WHO WON? WHO LOST?

Was it the side with the $85 billion defence budget and global brand-name weapons?

Or the one with doctrine, resilience, and the courage to hold its ground under fire? Was it the nation that launched seventy jets and returned in silence? Or the one that absorbed, responded, and rewrote the rules of deterrence?

The answer lies not in slogans or parades — but in the silence of grounded aircraft, the craters at forward airbases, and the new strategic map that is now being drawn.

And you weren’t the victor.

Respectfully,

Iqbal Latif

PS

WHY I WROTE THIS LETTER

I wrote this letter not out of rivalry or hostility—but as a reality check for a narrative that has spiralled into a dangerous myth. The Indian media—led by voices like Arnab Goswami, Major Gaurav Arya, and General Bakshi—has transformed national strategy into a spectacle of slogans, not substance.

This letter is a call to return to facts over frenzy, to military doctrine over television drama. When a billion lives hang in the balance, we cannot afford to mistake soundbites for strategy or nationalist theatrics for battlefield truth.

If India’s air force is grounded, its economy vulnerable, and its deterrence exposed—someone must say it. Not with hate, but with historical responsibility.

Iqbal Latif

No comments: