logo
India-Pakistan tension and the Subcontinent's challenge

India-Pakistan tension and the Subcontinent's challenge

Indian Express09-05-2025

India has defined how it would respond to cross-border terror attacks emanating from Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). It will hit back. The Indian Air Force accomplished the missions it was tasked to undertake across different targets in Pakistan. In response to the dastardly, tragic and bigoted terror attacks in Pahalgam, India has upped the ante by not only hitting terror camps in PoK but also in Pakistan, and taking a series of non-kinetic measures aimed at exerting pressure on Pakistan. Whether all this will dissuade the Pakistani elites from continuing to pursue the lost cause of claiming all of Kashmir, or of trying to destabilise India's economic growth process, remains to be seen.
While Pakistan has begun its response to the air strikes on May 7, India will counter whatever action it takes. This is now the bottom line, and there is unity on this across the broad political spectrum.
However, it should also be clear to all sides that neither India nor Pakistan can undertake and sustain an all-out military campaign without seriously hurting themselves. The losers in an India-Pakistan war will, in fact, be the people of India and Pakistan. It is now established that India and Pakistan will engage in tit-for-tat hits every time one side suspects the hand of the other. Pakistan has explained away the Pahalgam terror attack by referring to the attack on the Jaffar Express in which 25 men were killed. The response of the international community suggests that few countries are willing to believe the version of only one side. While there have been more takers for the Indian version of events, Pakistan has also been able to find supporters.
The challenge before the two nations, indeed the challenge across the Indian Subcontinent, is for the many nations that have come into being over the past century to find leaderships that can usher in a new era of regional and domestic peace and development across the Subcontinent. Regrettably, there is a short supply of such political leadership in South Asia. The region has been held back since its liberation from colonialism by its internal struggles with its own history, geography and the ghosts of the past.
The South Asian tragedy is the belief among many in most countries of the region that they can somehow hitch their wagon to the rest of the world and pursue development without improving relations with their own neighbours. India's creditable economic performance over the past quarter-century led many to believe that India could continue to rise without settling its disputes with its neighbours. To an extent, that has been possible. However, if India is pulled into a long-drawn war it will be hurt economically.
This may well be the desperate aim of a declining Pakistan. In the past, India-Pakistan wars have been brief, and international efforts ensured early declaration of a ceasefire. In the present global and regional environment, and at this stage in India's rise, it is not clear whether adequate pressure would be and could be exerted by outside powers for a full-scale war to be quickly terminated. It is in the interest of both countries and the region as a whole that the current phase of hostilities does not escalate into a full-scale military conflagration.
Once the dust settles and both countries emerge from the 'fog of war', the political leadership in both countries must take a longer view of what constitutes regional security and defines a regional environment for sustained economic development. Whose interests are served by continued disputes about territory? Who benefits from communal and regional divides within each nation and across the region?
For all the wisdom of grand strategists on both sides of the border, neither side is today able to define a new framework for regional peace and security. The last time an effort was made, howsoever tentative and limited in scope, was in the period 2000-2007 under the leaderships of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, went along with their initiative for a while but he was soon ousted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government have since rejected the so-called 'Manmohan-Musharraf' formula for peace and security.
Today one would be mocked for even mentioning that formula. However, mention it one must. The Indian economy is on the verge of emerging as the fourth-largest economy after the United States, China and Germany. It has just overtaken Japan. Despite all the challenges it faces at home and all the inadequacies of the Indian growth process, India has the opportunity to continue to rise and engage the world on favourable terms.
To imagine that India can do so without securing its own neighbourhood is a fantasy of many contemporary analysts and strategists. What India's neighbours — Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka — are trying to tell India is that they can raise the costs of growth if they are unable to secure any benefits from it. The Indian policy of the last decade, which has come to be identified with the Modi government, of imposing costs on difficult neighbours, may deliver short-term benefits but is imposing costs, too.
The Indian political bravado that we will reclaim PoK helps match the Pakistani rhetoric about getting hold of Kashmir, but neither will ever happen. That was the point of the Simla Agreement, the Lahore Declaration and the Manmohan-Musharraf formula. All the major powers — the US, Russia and China — have backed the idea that the Line of Control is, in fact, the international border. Hotheads in both countries today reject such a solution. However, realists on all sides know that there is no escaping from the reality on the ground and that this reality can only be altered at high cost to all.
The writer is founder-trustee, Centre for Air Power Studies and distinguished fellow, United Service Institution of India

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

SC junks Pakistani Christian's plea for citizenship ignoring CAA cut-off
SC junks Pakistani Christian's plea for citizenship ignoring CAA cut-off

Time of India

time17 minutes ago

  • Time of India

SC junks Pakistani Christian's plea for citizenship ignoring CAA cut-off

Supreme Court NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain the plea of a Goa-born Pakistani Catholic man, who sought a direction to the Centre to allow him citizenship under Citizenship Amendment Act , 2019 citing religious persecution in Pakistan even though he arrived in India six years after the Jan 2014 cutoff date. Jude Mendes, who was born in Goa to a Pakistani national in 1987 but completed his studies at Karachi in Pakistan, arrived in India in 2016 on a long-term visa which has been extended till June this year and even got his Aadhaar card made in 2020. He married an Indian woman in February this year. Three days after the Pahalgam terror attack on tourists by Pak-backed terrorists, India on April 25 cancelled all kinds of visas given to Pakistani nationals. However, long term visas, which Mendes has, have not been revoked. Mendes' visa expires on June 20. Advocate Raghav Awasthi told a partial working day bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Manmohan that "the Petitioner is born in India and is a Roman Catholic which being a minority community is heavily persecuted in Pakistan. He cannot travel to Pakistan to renew his passport which is expiring on 20.06.2025 due to the threat to his life and that therefore, he ought to be granted extension of his long-term visa. " The petitioner said in the event of his deportation to Pakistan, the petitioner who was born in India and now lawfully married to an Indian citizen, would face imminent threat to his life because of extreme religious persecution in Pakistan. At present he works as a chef in Goa. But the bench said that he would have to move the Bombay HC for the relief he is seeking. The petitioner's lawyer withdrew the plea to move the HC. Under CAA, India had resolved to grant citizenship to those individuals from minority communities who have been persecuted in neighbouring countries on the ground of religion. However, the law stipulated that they should have entered India prior to Jan 1, 2014.

How Manusmriti Will Guide DU Students
How Manusmriti Will Guide DU Students

Time of India

time24 minutes ago

  • Time of India

How Manusmriti Will Guide DU Students

New Delhi: Students in Delhi University will now be taught how the varna or caste system organises society, how marriage helps build a "civilised" social order, and how morals regulate individual behaviour. These lessons form the core of a new Sanskrit course titled Dharmashastra Studies, which has Manusmriti as a primary text. Manusmriti, whose proposal for inclusion in the law and history honours syllabus was earlier held back by the administration amid backlash, has made a comeback, this time as essential reading in this discipline-specific course. Alongside it, other Hindu religious texts that had drawn similar objections, such as the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Puranas, have also been included in this course. The paper, introduced as a core course under the discipline in the current academic session, carries four credits and is open to undergraduate students with working knowledge of Sanskrit. DSC or Discipline Specific Core refers to courses within a student's chosen field of study that are mandatory for their programme. According to the stated objective of the course, "Ancient Indian society, in terms of whole and its parts, has been depicted in the texts compiled in Sanskrit known as 'Dharmashastra'. The 'Dharmashastra Studies' course aims to make students acquainted with the rich tradition of Indian Social, Political, Economical, Legal thoughts." Regarding the learning outcomes for the course, DU says that "students will know that Indians were not anarchic, they evolved well-structured society where normative institutions were established. They will understand the real meaning of the term 'Dharma'. Students will find the great aim for the life of an individual. They will be acquainted with Indian methods of regularising Society." The course is divided into four units. Unit I, titled "Concept of Dharma", covers how society was structured through normative institutions in ancient India. It will explore "Dharma as a normative and ethical element" and includes a survey of key texts such as the Sutra and Smriti literature, commentaries, the Kautilya Arthashastra, Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas. Unit II delves into the content of Dharmashastra, which is categorised into Achara, Vyavahara and Prayashchitta. The unit introduces students to the concept of Achara or behavioural codes — focusing on how the varna and ashrama systems organise society and individual life, how marriage and education contributed to a "civilised" order, and how practices like yajna and daana helped build social cohesion. Unit III is focused on Vyavahara and polity. It explains the ancient Indian legal system, including types of disputes, civil and criminal law, courts and evidence procedures. It also discusses governance structures such as monarchies, qualifications of rulers and ministers, and political theories like the Mandala theory and Shadgunya. Unit IV covers Prayashchitta, or penance. It includes lessons on different types of sins and prescribed penances like fasting, donation (daana), ritual sacrifices (yajna), pilgrimages, and post-death rites like shraddha. Primary readings for the course include texts such as Apastamba Dharmasutra, Boudhayana Dharmasutra, Vashistha Dharmasutra, Manusmriti, Yajnavalkya Smriti, Narada Smriti, and the Kautilya Arthashastra. This canon of ancient Hindu religious and philosophical texts — particularly the Manusmriti — has long been the subject of academic and public debate for its social prescriptions, especially concerning caste and gender. Last year in July, Delhi University vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh rejected the proposal to include Manusmriti and Baburnama (Memoirs of Babur) in the university's history curriculum. The university also stated that no such proposals will be entertained in the future. TOI reached out to Om Nath Bimali, head of the department of Sanskrit, to seek his comment on the inclusion of Manusmriti but did not receive any response. A request seeking vice-chancellor Singh's reaction also did not elicit any response.

Why patriotism is no substitute for morality
Why patriotism is no substitute for morality

New Indian Express

time35 minutes ago

  • New Indian Express

Why patriotism is no substitute for morality

Articulating such issues in the language of everyday ethics is not easy. However, with the use of metaphor and storytelling, our moralists need to do so. Democracy, in that sense, is always a futuristic framework which has to be built into the choices we make today. Every choice now is one for the future. India, if it wishes to remain democratic and survive beyond majoritarianism, must consider a more supple, unconventional and innovative democracy. Let's take an example. The great Nicobar project has been a source of tremendous controversy. Indian environmentalists and journals have assembled a formidable critique of it. Yet, after the Pahalgam incident, these environmentalists are treated as anti-social and antinational. Today, within the national security state, not only have external and internal security been combined, but also war and development. The Great Nicobar project is now viewed as a military initiative aimed at countering China. It is China, more than Pakistan, that is a threat to democracy. China has even fewer problems with genocide. One has to open up new dialogues and perspectives on China. One of the most critical and urgent problems we will face is a set of dams China is building above the Northeast. These dams can annihilate the economy of the Northeast and become a tool for ecocide. The challenge is how to dialogue with China on such a critical issue that involves the life, livelihood and fate of marginal groups on both sides of the border. The question is about handling such issues democratically. The problemsolving faces new problems of the future that we have not thought about as a polity. In this context, one has to rethink the importance of peace and Gandhian thought. Gandhi did not spend time thinking about either the concentration camp or the atomic bomb—those are the limits his idea of satyagraha has to meet. We are facing not just mechanical obsolescence, but more a genocidal exuberance. India has to rework itself as a civilisation. Reinvent itself as a democracy. Its current frameworks, though successful thus far, may not survive in the future. We need to talk to China differently. We need to create a politics that transcends the Trumps. We need to create a vision of South Asia that goes beyond the current frameworks of the United Nations. Peace can no longer be a restricted, passive word—it has to invent possibilities, alternatives that go beyond the immediacy of war. This is democracy's greatest challenge: to invent a future where peace remains central to the visions of South Asia and the world. Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist associated with the Compost Heap, a group researching alternative imaginations. (Views are personal) (svcsds@

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store