RECENT escalated conflict between India and Pakistan signifies the necessity of a pragmatic peace process in South Asia.
Since inception, South Asia has been mired in conflict and hostility, primarily over the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan.
Historically, India’s policy on Kashmir has shifted from deferment to refusal and coercion.
Initially, the country took the dispute to the UN and expressed willingness to resolve it in accordance with the Security Council resolutions.
Later, it insisted on holding India-Pakistan negotiations on the Kashmir issue in a bilateral rather than international context.
Finally, India under the Modi government coercively revoked the special status of occupied Kashmir and thus unilaterally declared it a Union Territory on August 5, 2019.
Onwards, India has assumed the Kashmir dispute as a fait accompli.
However, the recent India-Pakistan crisis indicates that India’s Kashmir policy is unrealistic and devoid of ground and regional realities.
Alongside the policy of denial on Kashmir, Modi government has adopted a strategy of coercion as part of hybrid warfare against Pakistan.
This strategy entails military, diplomatic and economic coercion along with other instruments including propaganda, information warfare and use of proxies for internal unrest.
After assuming power in 2014, the Modi government has engaged in military confrontation with Pakistan several times over the terrorist attacks that Pakistan perceives as ‘false flag’ operations.
In each case, India has taken a course intended for diplomatic isolation and economic subversion of Pakistan at regional and international levels.
Indian bellicosity towards Pakistan has also sought contentment of the domestic electoral constituency of BJP, particularly on occasions of regional and national elections.
Following the Uri attack in 2016, India carried out surgical strikes across the LOC into Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Further, the country refused to participate in the SAARC summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November 2016.
After the Pulwama attack in February 2019, India again blamed Pakistan and launched surgical strikes inside Pakistan and sought international isolation of the country.
After five months, it revoked the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir by abrogating article 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution in a unilateral move.
Following Pakistan’s placement in the FATF grey list in 2018, India played a negative role in keeping the country in the global financial watchdog through diplomatic influence, lobbying and propaganda.
Following the persistent pattern, India immediately accused Pakistan for involvement in the Pahalgam attack in Kashmir on April 22, 2025.
As hurried measures, it adopted border closure, diplomats’ expulsion, halting of visas for Pakistani nationals, suspension of Indus Water Treaty, and posturing toward retribution.
Pakistan offered to join any impartial probe into the Pahalgam incident, but India did not give weightage to this proposal.
Despite international calls for restraint, India launched missile attacks on various cities in Pakistan on May 7, 2025.
Subsequently, it used drones to strike sites across major cities and fired missiles at several air bases of Pakistan.
After exercising strategic restraint, Pakistan finally launched an ‘effective ‘counter-attack targeting key military installations in India and Indian occupied Kashmir on May 10, 2025.
As India met an increasing military and psychological loss and the conflict escalated closer to all-out war, India-Pakistan truce was achieved through the US diplomatic intervention.
Influenced by the Hindutva ideology, India has recently intensified the military posturing towards Pakistan as well as the campaign aimed at the latter’s diplomatic isolation and economic sabotage.
India exercised the latest coercion against Pakistan at a time when it was perceived to have attained a clear military supremacy and as the latter was internally unstable and economically weak.
Contrarily, Pakistan responded with remarkable resilience demonstrating reassuring military performance and an exemplary show of socio-political unity.
India failed on the international front as well.
Indian information propaganda and diplomatic attempts could not persuade the international community regarding Pakistan’s involvement in Pahalgam attack.
Yet another military confrontation between India and Pakistan not only exposes India’s hollowed approach to regional hegemony but also proves the centrality of Kashmir in securing peace in South Asia.
Strategically, India’s approach characterized by oppression in Kashmir and coercion vis-à-vis Pakistan is flawed and a negative-sum game for India as well as South Asia.
For a decade, India’s Modi regime has been seeking military domination, internal instability and international isolation of Pakistan.
However, the recent India-Pakistan crisis has not only dashed India’s expectations but also exposed the strategic futility of its approach towards Pakistan.
The Modi government’s approach of employing oppression in Kashmir and coercion towards Pakistan is strategically blind to local as well as regional and global realities.
Locally, India can control the Kashmiris through repressive measures, but it cannot defeat their desire and right to self-determination.
Regionally, it cannot become a regional leader without resolving the Kashmir dispute and accommodating Pakistan in regional cooperation schemes.
Globally, India cannot succeed in achieving international isolation of Pakistan as the latter carries undeniable geostrategic as well as geoeconomic relevance in international relations.
In sum, the averted India-Pakistan crisis underscores the strategic imperative of peace in South Asia.
—The writer is a Professor in International Relations at National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad.
