It’s the year 2018. India prepares to head to poll next year. “Narendra Modi is facing an unexpected image problem: he’s starting to look weak,” writes Nikhil Kumar in an analysis for CNN. Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party lost a number of key state-level elections in December 2018, with the Congress vanquishing the BJP in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh. The charisma of Modi, who has portrayed himself as the champion of the poor, is waning amid growing unemployment, rising inflation, agrarian crisis, rampant corruption, and the Rafale deal controversy.

And then Pulwama happens.

On Feb 14, 2019, 40 Indian reserve police personnel are killed in a suicide attack on their convoy in the Pulwama district of the disputed Jammu and Kashmir state. As if the BJP was waiting for this godsend; the Modi government quickly dumps blame on Pakistan, dial up tensions with its neighbour, and starts drumming up war hysteria at home. Modi and his cabinet aides make sombre public appearances with the coffins of the dead police personnel draped in the national flag. National security and jingoism become the single agenda of BJP’s election campaign as party leaders trigger a raucous chorus of calls for revenge. Suddenly, the issues that haunted Modi are drowned in the cacophony of jingoistic frenzy.

And then Balakot happens.

On Feb 26, 2019, Indian jets violate Pakistan’s airspace, fly over the densely-wooded Balakot area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and bomb a purported militant training camp.