The gruesome April 22 terror attack on tourists near Pahalgam in the Kashmir Valley cost 26 lives. Underlining the brutality was the singling out of non-Muslim males and close-quarter assassination. It was intended to shock, subvert peace in the state and damage the revived tourism-based economy of the Kashmir Valley.Multiple red flags were fluttering for a while. The US vice-president, J.D. Vance, and his Indian-origin wife Usha were on a visit to this country with their children, exuding informal bonhomie. Islamabad, meanwhile, was missing from President Donald Trump’s initial meet-and-greet list. Next is the intemperate speech by Pakistan’s Army chief, Gen. Asim Munir. He resurrected the two-nation theory, despite its debunking by the 1971 India-Pakistan war and Bangladesh’s creation. He boasted about the distinctiveness of Pakistani Muslims, ignoring DNA evidence which shows most Pakistanis having South Asian ancestry. Finally, he described Kashmir as Pakistan’s “jugular vein”. The April 22 attack required more than impromptu decision-making. Masterminded by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, which the general had once headed, it was underway as Gen. Munir shared his distorted vision. Pakistan’s Army domestically has a serious image problem due to the uncontrolled terrorist attacks by the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) and Baloch Liberation Army (BLA). A military standoff with India provides the requisite distraction. Also relevant is the hijacking of a Pakistani train by the BLA on March 11 with 400 people aboard, including military personnel. The Balochistan election was held in 2024, like in Kashmir, the legitimacy of which the BLA questions. Pakistan’s military forthrightly named India and Afghanistan as “enablers and facilitators”. Finally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was commencing his official trip to Saudi Arabia, which got aborted, as the Pahalgam attack occurred. Pakistan has always resented its “brothers” among the Gulf ruling families engaging the Modi government. These factors heightened the possibility of terrorist attacks. The lack of anticipation by the security and intelligence agencies is thus inexplicable. Were the governments in Delhi and Srinagar lulled into complacency by their own propaganda about the 2019 constitutional changes and extended President’s Rule achieving normalcy? In retrospect, different governments tried dealing with Pakistan using dialogue, mild deterrence or even periodic pull-back. But the Narendra Modi government, after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in August 2019, chose the path of “no dialogue” till terrorism ends. Diplomatic relations were downgraded, the visa policy tightened, people-to-people contact minimised and trade and commerce choked. India acted as if Pakistan had ceased to exist, facing economic collapse and diplomatic irrelevance. Such tactics can work for coercive diplomacy in short bursts, but not as a permanent strategy. If anything, Pakistan’s China dependence mounted, with China ensuring Pakistani subsistence. China is currently distracted by the trade dispute with the United States, making it more accommodative towards India. Thus, it may be China that restrains Pakistan rather than the US. What then are India’s options with regard to Pakistan? Firstly, the BJP’s hyper-nationalistic politics entraps it. It retaliated in 2016 by sending raiding parties across the Line of Control (LoC) to attack militant camps. In 2019, after the Pulwama terror attack, which killed 46 paramilitary personnel, the government launched an air attack against the militant training facility at Balakot. With the Lok Sabha elections weeks away, it benefited electorally. Coincidentally, it was during President Donald Trump’s first term. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, while in Vietnam, coordinated with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to contain the escalation. Prime Minister Imran Khan, still the Army’s favourite, had them hand back a captured Indian Air Force pilot. Did the mediators make any commitment to Pakistan about India resuming dialogue after the election? Today, Pakistan is refusing to hand back even one BSF jawan, Purnam Sahu, who inadvertently crossed the border. The BJP, after the 2019 elections, decided instead to implement its old Kashmir agenda of abrogating Article 370 and ignore Pakistan. The US state department has conveyed “full support”, though secretary of state Marco Rubio advised India to act responsibly for long-term peace and stability in South Asia. US defence secretary Pete Hegseth told defence minister Rajnath Singh that India has the “right to defend itself”. Britain, after calling the attack “despicable”, also recommended a “measured approach”. Iran’s foreign minister Syed Abbas Aragchi arrives in India on a two-day visit on May 7. With the US threatening to punish any country buying Iranian oil, his focus would be on bilateral trade. India has announced interim measures like downgrading diplomatic relations further, ejecting all Pakistani nationals, suspending the Indus Water Treaty, etc. But a kinetic response is awaited. The government assumed that the Balakot attack had established deterrence. The Pahalgam attack negates that. Because the Pakistan Army and Air Force are well equipped and backed by a nuclear arsenal, India has limited options. It can launch a symbolic attack, aerial or ground, on a terrorist facility. That may fail as Pakistan would have already relocated its jihadi assets. Pakistan would then retaliate in kind. To reestablish deterrence, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal must be neutralised. It was speculated that after 9/11, the US had an emergency protocol to quickly grab or destroy Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Since then, Pakistan has increased its number to over 100 and scattered them for their protection. It is no coincidence the Pakistan Army weaponised terrorism against India only after developing nuclear weapons. If the weapons’ destruction with certainty is impossible, then the alternative is to build a missile defence system like Israel’s Iron Dome plus. Protecting India in its entirety may be impossible, but half a dozen important political, economic and financial centres can be covered. That would deflate Pakistan’s confidence that its nuclear weapons deter India from a limited war to occupy Pakistani territory, degrade the Pakistan Army or even take out the ISI and terrorists’ leadership. Ukraine has shown that wars can be fought against antagonists with nuclear weapons. Nations possessing nuclear weapons have red lines, which usually mean a threat breaching its core territorial possessions or sovereignty. Pin-pricks like the Balakot attack have symbolic domestic advantage. However, the Pakistan Army loses neither face nor suffers tangible damage. Meanwhile, the existing policy can continue by encouraging entities in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to bleed the Pakistani military. But India must not stall the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood or diminish support to the civilian government in its development efforts. Finally, diplomacy must be resurrected. If the old route of dialogue failed to stop terrorism, the new approach of boycott has failed as well. The solution lies in real deterrence and frank dialogue. The writer is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry. He tweets at @ambkcsingh.
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