By Salman Lali
South Asia’s geopolitics has always been a game of shadows, where alliances shift like desert sands and narratives often cut sharper than missiles. Into this volatile terrain steps Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, Field Marshal General Asim Munir, whose rise on the global stage has provoked an unmistakable tremor in India. From Islamabad’s perspective, this is about exposing the deeper currents of India’s insecurities—born of partition, amplified by post-colonial anxieties, and sustained by a fragile and false sense of regional preeminence.
Field Marshal General Asim Munir’s recent prominence—from his appearance at the 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin to his unprecedented White House engagement—has unsettled India’s strategic establishment. His image, magnified in Indian media coverage, is not just that of a Pakistani general but of a specter reminding India of the resilience and relevance of its western neighbour.
The SCO Summit: India’s Strategic Paranoia Laid Bare
Indian media’s reaction to General Asim Munir’s presence at the SCO Summit reveals far more than reportage. Outlets such as The Print emphasised the symbolism of his arrival—separate from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s delegation—casting it as evidence of Pakistan’s military overshadowing its civilian leadership. Other reports went further, focusing on General Asim Munir’s meetings with President Xi Jinping immediately after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit concluded, interpreting the choreography as a deliberate counterweight to India’s diplomatic standing.
What emerges is not analysis but anxiety. By highlighting General Asim Munir’s interactions with Xi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Indian coverage frames Pakistan as a spoiler to India’s regional aspirations. Yet from Islamabad’s perspective, this is a strategy, not a spectacle. General Asim Munir’s presence underscores the centrality of Pakistan in shaping South Asia’s future and signals Pakistan’s refusal to concede space to India in a multipolar Asia. The Indian media’s fixation on Field Marshal General Asim Munir, often accompanied by dismissive commentary about Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, betrays a deeper truth: Indian discourse now regards Pakistan’s military diplomacy as existentially threatening.
Shekhar Gupta’s Freudian Detour: Between a Mercedes and a Dumper
The anxiety reached a telling metaphor in veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta’s widely discussed analogy. India, he wrote, is the sleek Mercedes, while Pakistan under Munir is the “dumper truck” looming in the rear-view mirror—ungainly, menacing, and dangerously close.
This imagery inadvertently exposes India’s subconscious fear. For all its claims to refinement and stability, India’s sense of rising power is haunted by Pakistan’s unyielding resilience. Gupta’s characterization of General Asim Munir belongs to a long tradition of Indian depictions of Pakistani generals as ambitious strongmen. Yet such portrayals reveal more about Indian insecurity than Pakistani intent.
From Islamabad’s vantage, this is a useful projection. India’s own record—from “surgical strikes” to the Balakot episode—is filled with rhetorical bravado masking strategic vulnerability. Gupta’s metaphor inadvertently casts Pakistan not as irrational but as the force India cannot ignore—powered, in this case, by renewed American interest.
The White House Luncheon & Cracks in Modi’s Diplomatic Façade
If the SCO Summit unnerved India, the White House luncheon between General Asim Munir and U.S. President Donald Trump shook it to its core. On 18 June 2025, Field Marshal General Asim Munir became the first Pakistani military leader to be honoured with such an invitation, unaccompanied by civilian officials. The symbolism was unmistakable: Washington was signalling that Islamabad’s military establishment remained indispensable.
Indian media erupted in outrage. Commentators painted the meeting as a betrayal, particularly against the backdrop of U.S.–India trade disputes and New Delhi’s tensions with Iran. Opposition figures such as Rahul Gandhi seized on the event, branding it evidence of Modi’s failed foreign policy and Washington’s pivot away from New Delhi.
For Pakistan, the luncheon represented far more than a meeting. General Asim Munir’s gestures—including nominating President Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize—highlighted a pragmatic recalibration. Washington, transactional as ever, saw in Pakistan a partner with enduring leverage: experience in Afghanistan, relevance in counterterrorism, and potential in critical minerals and digital finance. India, meanwhile, confronted what it most feared: abandonment by an ally it believed secure.
The Pahalgam Crisis: A False Flag, A Strategic Defeat
The April 22, 2025, Pahalgam attack, which claimed 26 civilian lives, thrust the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff into the crucible of crisis. India swiftly blamed Pakistan and launched airstrikes without producing verifiable evidence. Islamabad denounced the assault, calling it a false flag designed to justify Indian aggression.
The confrontation escalated rapidly, with nuclear rhetoric entering the frame. Yet General Asim Munir steered Pakistan through the storm—holding firm on deterrence while deploying backchannel diplomacy. The result was striking: India’s claims faltered under international scrutiny, while Pakistan emerged as the restrained and mature actor. At the United Nations Security Council, New Delhi found itself isolated, its narrative undercut by the absence of proof.
For India, the episode reopened the wound of partition, with Kashmir once again at the heart of its psychic torment. For Pakistan, it was vindication: General Asim Munir’s steadiness preserved deterrence, prevented full-scale war, and forced India into retreat.
General Asim Munir as a Political Weapon
Inside India, Munir has become a potent symbol—used by the opposition to underscore Modi’s diplomatic failures. Congress leaders, particularly Rahul Gandhi, cite his White House welcome and his global prominence as evidence that PM Modi’s personalised diplomacy has backfired. Rather than securing India’s rise, they argue, Modi has left the country exposed to tariffs abroad and assertiveness at home.
For Islamabad, this internal Indian discord is nothing short of a strategic gain. Where Indian media caricatures General Asim Munir as a “religious general,” the western media and think tanks read his actions as calibrated statecraft—forcing India to confront the contradictions in its self-image. Policymakers in New Delhi must wrestle with the clash between the superego of international respectability and the id of confrontation. General Asim Munir, in this dynamic, is not simply an adversary but a mirror—reflecting India’s unresolved contradictions back upon itself.
A Knight on the Chessboard
Ultimately, the Indian fixation with General Asim Munir says less about Pakistan than it does about India. His presence on the world stage—at Tianjin with Xi, at the White House with Trump, in the crucible of the Pahalgam crisis—has forced New Delhi to confront its deepest anxieties: fear of encirclement by China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh; fear of abandonment by America; and fear of irrelevance in a region it seeks to dominate.
From our perspective, General Asim Munir is what the Indian media portrays him to be: a knight: disciplined, deliberate, and agile. His manoeuvres have reaffirmed Pakistan’s relevance in a multipolar world, while India’s façade of assured dominance has begun to crack under the weight of its own projections.
