In this Q&A, Indian Professor in Peace and Development Research, Swati Parashar, and researcher Ravi Dutt Bajpai, at the School of Global Studies, provide their insights into the conflict and future scenarios.
How did India respond to the Pahalgam terrorist attacks?
In the normal course, India was to follow the standard international conventions and request Pakistan to investigate and serve justice to the perpetrators of this attack. However, there is a reasonably long list of attacks on Indian civilians by Pakistan-based terror organisations.
In all such previous attacks including in Mumbai in 2008, when 164 people were killed by terrorists who came from Pakistan and shot people at different locations in Mumbai, the Indian government has sought Pakistan’s help to bring these terrorists to justice and to dismantle the terror infrastructure. India argues that the dossier of evidence sent to Pakistan, after such attacks, has produced no actions.
This massacre of unarmed civilians in Pahalgam led to large-scale outrage in India, and the national government resolved to take unilateral punitive actions against the Pakistan-based perpetrators of this terrorist attack.
In the early morning of 7th May 2025, the Indian Defence Forces launched Operation Sindoor, with twenty-one precision strikes across nine key targets on Pakistani territory. India claimed that each target was a terrorist training camp or a launch pad to infiltrate India. These strikes involved missiles and drones launched from the Indian territory without crossing the international border or airspace.
How did the war escalate?
Since Operation Sindoor, Pakistan retaliated with drone and missile attacks on civilian targets and several Indian cities on the 8th of May. India responded with attacks on Pakistani cities and evacuated its border areas with Pakistan where firing and shelling continued, killing civilians. Although major world powers asked the two countries to exercise restraint, attacks further escalated on May 9th and 10th, targeting each other’s air bases and military installations. The Indian military press briefing revealed that Pakistan had not closed its air space for civilian flights, as is the norm, putting civilian flights to risk amidst continued air attacks from both sides.
How was the ceasefire negotiated?
Finally, an abrupt social media post by US President Donald Trump, on the afternoon of May 10th announced that the two countries had agreed to an immediate ceasefire. Pakistan seemed relieved and grateful to Trump; India downplaying the US mediation.
The ceasefire violations occurred on May 10th itself but since then military exchanges have stopped. India has clearly stated that any further terror attack on its territory will be treated as an act of war and will be met with a befitting response. There is some speculation that the approval of the $1.1 billion payout from the IMF to Pakistan on the 9th May might have, among other things, played a role in mediation and building pressure by the US. American media claims that the mediation efforts intensified after they received credible and alarming intelligence reports of a ‘dramatic escalation’ of the conflict. They contacted the Indian Prime Minister, asking him to talk to the Pakistanis, who had already indicated they were ready for talks.
The ceasefire story, its terms and conditions and what happened behind the scenes is still unfolding.
What is the reason for continued hostilities between India and Pakistan?
Pakistan, a country carved out of India in 1947 and based on the two-nation theory, claimed Hindus and Muslims not as two distinct religions or cultural identities but as two different nations. Right after the partition in 1947, Pakistan claimed the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (a Muslim majority princely state) as part of its territory, although its ruler formally acceded to the Union of India. Pakistan was able to occupy a part of it through guerrilla warfare and Kashmir, thus remains divided between the two countries becoming a conflict flashpoint. In addition to the Kashmir conflict, Pakistan based jihadi groups have launched several terror attacks inside Indian Kashmir and other parts of India, leading to perpetual hostilities. Both countries have nuclear capabilities since 1998, making this one of the most dangerous conflicts of the world.
Pakistani establishment has made statements about using nuclear weapons if necessary in any conflict with India. Importantly, China and India currently are the only two nuclear powers to formally agree to a No First Use (NFU) policy, as part of their nuclear deterrence.
What is the link of this conflict to terrorism?
Even after the grand narrative of “the War on Terror” in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks on the United States, Pakistan has launched several horrific terrorist attacks on India. Some of the more recent attacks include, the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai in 2008, in which a group of Pakistani terrorists killed 165 people. The Pathankot air base in India came under a terror attack in January 2016, in which several security personnel were killed. Again, in September 2016, the Indian army camp in Uri came under terrorist attack and 19 army personnel were killed. In February 2019, in Pulwama, the convoy of the Indian paramilitary forces, the Central Reserve Police Force, came under terrorist attack and 40 police personnel were killed.
In the aftermath of every such attack, the Indian government has shared detailed information, including nearly 20 letters rogatory (or judicial requests), detailed dossiers, and the DNA samples of terrorists related to these terror attacks. In some cases, Indian authorities have shared the call detail records (CDRS), chats/messages of terrorists with their Pakistan-based leaders and handlers, and financial details of the front organisations of these terror outfits. Even today, Pakistan has not charged a single individual, nor have they allowed the Indian investigators any access to the accused.
In the post- 2016 and 2019 attacks, India launched surgical strikes on the terrorist camps in the border areas of Pakistan. The significant change in the Indian approach is the determination to launch punitive strikes against suspected terror outfits deep within Pakistani territory, which had been an inviolable sanctuary for such terror groups within Pakistan. Operation Sindoor was part of that strategy.
Why were the stakes so high for escalation this time?
In the previous two surgical strikes on Pakistan based terror infrastructure by India, Pakistan claimed to have lost nothing significant, and with the lack of visible and verifiable evidence, these narratives could not be challenged. However, on this occasion, there was plenty of evidence of the damage caused by the Indian strikes as part of Operation Sindoor, with loss of lives, property and terror infrastructure. This was bound to result in a strong military response from Pakistan resulting in a full-fledged military exchange, short of being declared a formal war.
What are the potential scenarios for a further escalation and breach of the ceasefire?
Despite the ceasefire, the Indian side has clearly indicated that any act of terror in India perpetrated by Pakistan based groups or individuals would be treated as an act of war and would be met with a strong military response.
There is a meeting of the Director General of Military Operations of both countries today, 12th May 2025. The situation is still unfolding, and we will have to see what happens to the water sharing treaty and other diplomatic relations, including people to people exchange and activities.
What did we learn?
While it is hard to determine the scope and intensity of the war so far, with both sides claiming strategic victories and losses for the other, the modern technologies of war and large-scale information warfare make this a very dangerous scenario. The mainstream media and social media coverage on the war made it difficult to ascertain truth from falsities and propaganda. The TV channel bravado, social media cheer leading and celebratory write ups on both sides did not take into account that civilians and military personnel had died and there was massive damage to military infrastructure.
Neither state can afford and sustain a war like this for a long period of time, and both are dependent on massive arms imports from countries like Turkey, US, Russia, France and Israel.
President Trump said that millions of innocent people would have died, without the immediate cessation of the military exchange, indicating that the nuclear threat was very real – and perhaps also the reason for US mediation.
