Pahalgam Repercussions – the Gloves Are Off

Since the Kargil War in 1999, India has experienced several major terrorist attacks, many attributed to Pakistani-backed groups. These attacks, often involving suicide bombings and targeted assaults, have resulted in significant loss of life and have strained relations between the two nations.   

Significantly, the Mumbai Terror Attacks (9 Nov 2008), a series of coordinated terrorist attacks, resulted in the deaths of over 160 people. The Pulwama (19 Feb 2019) suicidal attack resulted in the deaths of 40 CRPF jawans traveling in a convoy on their way to Srinagar. The attack was claimed by Jamaiyat-e-Islami (JeM), a Pakistan-based terrorist group. Pakistani-backed terrorist groups linked a series of bomb blasts in the city of Surat, Gujarat, to the Surat Bombing (2019). The blasts resulted in several injuries and damaged infrastructure. Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has been the site of several terrorist attacks, suicide bombings, and targeted assassinations carried out by various Pakistani-backed militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), JeM, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and others, including Middle-eastern terror group HAMAS, who conferenced and coordinated a terror attack in Pahalgam Tourist Resort on 22 April 2025 in Bahawalpur just a few days before, singling out 26 innocent Hindu male tourists and injuring many, many more. Ever Since the Indian government abrogated Article 370 in 2019, stripping J&K’s semi-autonomous status, asserting more federal control, and splitting J&K into two union territories, J&K and Ladakh, political tensions in the region have escalated and paved the way for the Indian government to issue residence permits to non-Kashmiris who were previously banned. The passing of the Waqf Law added fuel to the fire in Pakistan.

‘Aasteen mein samp palna’ translated in English means ‘keeping a snake in one’s sleeve,’ and is used to describe someone (Pakistan) who is secretly plotting harm or betrayal against us (India)—someone India trusted after the dismembering of Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and the signing of the ‘Shimla Agreement’ in 1972 but is deceptive. It is a metaphor for a hidden enemy very close to us, deceptively behaving well but always ready to strike.

While Pakistan has witnessed a significant increase in terrorism-related incidents, the same enemy—whether it be former East Pakistan, now Bangladesh—has also instigated unrest in its provinces, initially in Sindh but now intensifying in Baluchistan and the former North West Frontier Province (NWFP), now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This increase is primarily due to the growing influence of the TTP, LeT, and numerous other fundamentalist militant outfits.

The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2025 ranks Pakistan as the second-most terrorism-affected country, adversely affecting the security environment, with neighboring countries and its own two provinces of Baluchistan and Pakhtunkhwa facing the most significant terrorism challenges. It is believed 2 Pakistan-based terrorists supported by equal numbers of J&K-based terrorists with many open terrorist supporters and sympathizers carried out the most heinous and dastardly attacks targeting Hindu tourists.

Al Jazeera news channel reports that the Al-Faran terrorist group abducted six foreign tourists in Pahalgam in 1995. One of the tourists was killed, another escaped, and the remaining four were never found. However, Pakistani terror groups’ attacks on tourists in J&K were uncommon. The Pahalgam attack has had a significant impact on the livelihoods of marginalized Kashmiris, including pony-horse riders, labor, small and large hotels, taxis, and tourism, as well as the reputation of Kashmir as a terror-free destination.

Government of India’s (GOI) Stand

• PM Modi reiterated in no uncertain terms that India will destroy every terrorist and their backers following the killing of 26 Hindu tourists in Pahalgam by Pakistani terrorist organization(s).
• The country closed its main border crossing point at the Wagah-Attari border.
• Expelled Pakistan’s defense, Naval, and Air attachés.
• Suspended Indus Water Treaty (IWT) with immediate, mid-term, and long-term initiatives so that Pakistan does not get a drop in the Indus River water, affecting its agriculture-based economy adversely.
• No trade between the two countries.
• Cancelling visas for all Pakistanis visiting India and returning to their country.

Pakistan has equally responded by closing its airspace to India, expelling Indian military diplomats, setting aside the Shimla Agreement, warning India that suspending the IWT is an act of war, and canceling visas for Indians visiting Pakistan. Though not officially heard, it is rumored that Pakistan anticipates China will significantly stop or regulate water flowing in the Brahmaputra to India as crucial support to its bosom friend Pakistan in its crises.

Implications for India 

• Expose Pakistan, who for long has been accused of openly aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan. 
• Exposing the Pakistani atrocities in East Pakistan by aggressive and proactive diplomacy culminated in the creation of Bangladesh. 
• Exposing Pakistan for sponsoring, supporting, training, and motivating terrorist attacks like 26/11, Pathankot, Pulwama, Delhi, Pahalgam, and other places in India. 
• India MUST not have only US-centric policies. India needs to engage in proactive diplomacy and participate in bilateral and multilateral discussions with the United Nations (UN), as well as other countries with stakes in Afghanistan, including the US, the UK, the European Union, China, the G-20, the G-7, and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The Quad group, comprising Japan, India, Australia, and the US, is interested in strengthening a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region to contain China’s influence. ASEAN- The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional grouping for promoting economic, political, and security cooperation among its ten members—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—and even the OIC—the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation—as many support the Indian and South Asian concerns over Pakistan’s sponsored terrorism. Almost all countries of the EU, Israel, Southeast Asia, Australia, the US, and Japan, and even traditional Pakistani allies like Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and Qatar, have supported India in these dastardly acts of terrorism committed from across the border. 
• Expose Pakistan as a country with shrinking minority communities since its creation—Christians, Sikhs, Ahemdias, Hindus, Shias, Pashtuns, Sindhis, and Baluchis; all exposed to draconian blasphemy laws, systemic persecution, blatant abuse, forced conversions, and desecration and destruction of their places of worship. 
• The Army-supported Pakistani puppet government must prove its legitimacy, protect its citizenry, including Shias, other minority groups, and women, and get due recognition from the community of nations and the UN to function as a terror-free, peaceful country. 
• To divert global attention from its role and complicity in Talibanizing Afghanistan, Pakistan is quite clever to raise the bogey of Indian excesses in J&K. Pakistan, the world community, and the United Nations must make it clear that J&K is an integral part of India, and Pakistan should cease coveting it. 
• India must caution Russia and China, who are seeking cooperation from the Taliban, about their major interests, as terrorists are no one’s friends. While Russia is seeking buffer of small but strategic Muslim Central Asian Republics between Afghanistan and Russia,  the Chinese in Afghanistan are eying US$ 1 trillion worth of minerals and ensure a secure environment for their infrastructure projects, the isolation of Uyghur militants who can be reached by Taliban by infiltrating through the rugged and narrow 57 km international border with Afghanistan and security of the CPEC- The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) being developed to transform Pakistan’s economy by modernizing its road, rail, air, and energy transportation systems and to connect the deep-sea Pakistani ports of Gwadar and Karachi to China’s Xinjiang province and beyond by overland routes. Once established, the Taliban would create a ruckus for the Pan-Islamic Talibanization of the CARs, Xingjian, Baluchistan, and Iran for the creation of Greater Pashtunistan and have no sanctity of the Durand Line defining the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. 
• India also needs to caution Iran about the exploitation of Hazara Shias by the fiercely Sunni Taliban. Iran is highly annoyed by the numerous reports of sectarian violence. 
• All major stakeholder countries have divergent priorities and interests, such as the US, Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, and India. India is following sound diplomatic initiatives, talking to these countries, and shaping the contours of dialogue with the Afghan Taliban. Despite the negative geostrategic security implications, India has invested around $3 billion in Afghanistan, making it one of the largest donors for developing infrastructure such as highways, dams, power projects, parliament houses, and so on. International aid cannot flow to the war-devastated country until the world community legitimizes and recognizes the government. It is reported that China has set its eyes on investment opportunities in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and is urgently providing $30.96 million worth of humanitarian aid like grains, winter supplies, vaccines, and medicines to Afghanistan—more to keep the Taliban on its right side than to meet the needs of the Afghan people. With peace in the region, many countries, including India, are willing to provide long-term aid to the war-torn nation. China is eyeing Afghanistan for its long-term strategic interests to exploit its mineral wealth and peace and tranquility in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. While the Taliban has expressed a desire to seek investments from India, India must wait and observe. Only once the Taliban government has demonstrated a satisfactory track record of governance can India recognize it and proceed with its reconstruction efforts to mitigate hunger, disease, malnutrition, and overall development. 
• The Taliban lacks everything essential for good governance—administrators, economists, financial experts, doctors, hospitals, technicians, IT experts, agricultural scientists, educationists, and the list can be endless—that can be easily sourced from India if peace and tranquility prevail in the country. The Taliban must be made to realize that if the pool of trained manpower in all spheres is missing, there will be negative implications for the economy and growth in Afghanistan, as was the case in the earlier Taliban government in Afghanistan. 
• The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has retained Pakistan on its ‘Grey List’ for funding, money laundering, and financing. India, an active member of the FATF, must expose Pakistan and its notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for supporting terror groups like the Haqqani and the Talibanlikesd, al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and Jaish-e–e-Mohammad (JeM) and downgrade them to the ‘Black List.’ 
• India needs to stabilize relations with countries around Pakistan and China and highlight to the world the human rights violations and subjugation of democracy in Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the POK and the autonomous regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, highlighting Tibetan and Uyghur suppression. We could discreetly train and support their dissident elements, like Mukti Bahini in East Pakistan, to fight for their liberation from their oppressive masters. India should think about changing its stance on the Tibet project to show the world how the Chinese have suppressed their independence and human rights. 
• India must improve relations with its neighbors—Bhutan, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and the Maldives—by giving them liberal industrial, military, and economic aid and helping in developing their infrastructure rather than acting as a big brother, as some of them feel. We must ensure these, along with the ASEAN countries, are weaning away from the Chinese influence by promoting trade, transit, tourism, and regional security amongst the ASEAN countries. 
• We must diplomatically prevail on Russia to regain its erstwhile superpower status and distance itself from China. No one can deny that the former Soviet Union was India’s greatest ally during the liberation of Bangladesh in the 1971 War.  
• We need to develop lateral and horizontal roads and networks crisscrossing our entire land borders with Pakistan and China with alternate routes for the faster movement of goods for the locals and troops and their logistic support.
• Both the Pakistanis and the Chinese are the world’s most notorious hackers. We need to develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) and measures to protect our public, defense, and private domains from their attacks, counter them, and deface their sensitive sites. 
• Our biggest failure in all the wars that we have fought has been the total lack of strategic, tactical, and battlefield intelligence. We must improve our capabilities and resources for intelligence gathering and its interpretation—HUMINT technology, satin technology, and IT must be dovetailed, and we must have adequate numbers of translators and interpreters of the dialects in which our adversaries communicate. AI and drones must be incorporated into all of our operational thinking.
• India must persistently pursue economic and diplomatic initiatives to become a member of the UNSC and the Nuclear Nuclear Group (NSG), despite China’s vehement opposition. Why China? China needs to learn that India is not its enemy but another democratic, secular, peace-loving, and progressive country. 
• India must improve the gross domestic product (GDP), economy, and standards of living of its masses with dignity. We must jointly and universally eliminate poverty, ignorance, and poor health care. 
• We must review the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), making short-, medium-, and long-term plans to starve Pakistan of precious river waters on which its agricultural economy is based.
• We need to improve our internal security, protect our vulnerable areas and points, and take punitive action, destroying anti-national elements, terrorists, and their supporters with appropriate reforming and rehabilitation actions.
• Many military thinkers feel, that since India, Pakistan, and China are nuclear powers, chances of a long-drawn-out conventional war are minimal. However, short, swift wars and skirmishes to take local strategic or tactical advantage cannot be ruled out. 
• We must realize that our initial thrust to eliminate Pakistani-based terrorists should be across our J&K, in Pak-occupied territories, to keep the issue localized with vigilance and internal security of all our vulnerable areas/ints (VA/VPs) beefed up appropriately.
• India faces multidimensional threats from the combined Chinese and Pakistani land and air threats, along with terrorism that can be unleashed to vitiate and nibble at our territorial integrity and way of life. To combat the combined threats of Pakistan and China to our national security, sovereignty, and dignified way of life, we must be prepared, and proactive, and possess significant economic, diplomatic, and military strength. 

Many Pakistani intellectuals, journalists, seculars, liberals, and think tanks have criticized Pakistan’s role in the Talibanization of Afghanistan. Khalid Umar, a Muslim Pakistani residing in London, holds distinct views and states in his writings that ‘Celebrations in Pakistan over the Talibanization of Afghanistan are a blessing in disguise for India, and Pakistan has fallen into a trap as Afghanistan is a bankrupt, landlocked country with no industrial, agricultural, or services industry base. It is a country that exported only terrorism, hashish, and asylum seekers and had 14 wanted men on the UNO’s blacklist as its ministers.

The interior minister is the most wanted on the FBI’s list. The Prime Minister is suspected of having destroyed the Bamiyaniyan Buddha.

The Deputy PM was arrested in 2010 and was in Pakistani jails for 8 years until Jan 2019 and released on orders. 

The Intelligence chief was arrested in 2001. Hunger, starvation, and a shortage of commodities will soon drive the warlords to hunt and scavenge anything they encounter.

Afghanistan will implode first and then explode. Afghanistan is a land bereft of resources. We thought that the fate of stan was already miserable enough, but I am sure the real suffering for Pakistan has just begun.

Media Management

We need to manage our media most intelligently and discreetly. Every time a terrorist incident like the one in Pahalgam that could have been prevented occurs, our media, particularly the TV, becomes extremely active.

Since 22 Apr 2025, like in the past, all news TV channels—English, Hindi, or regional—are 24×7 with scores of retired generals, admirals, and air marshals as ‘RAKSHA VISHEHAGYAS’ (defense analysts/experts) day in and day out giving out their military plans and how to tackle terrorism from across the border along with the support of many R&AW, IB, journalists, and a fleet of diplomats.

Some of our experts frequently switch between different channels, resulting in a continuous stream of information. I have never seen or heard the Israelis, Ukrainians, Chinese, Russians, Germans, or Japanese ever discussing their military or space plans in TV studios, but our experts even discuss all the impending plans, courses, and options open to us.

Undoubtedly, in the process of boasting, we unintentionally reveal some of our plans and intentions to our adversaries, to our greater disadvantage. Print and electronic media play a pivotal role in the fourth estate in a vibrant democracy like India. However, we must ensure our media consistently refrains from engaging in hysterical, sensationalized reporting due to the potential negative impact on our progress. We must be objective and constructive in our reporting with appropriate psywar themes for our people and our enemies and refrain from winning the war or cricket World Cup through hysterical media reporting.