2 Blasts in 2 Capitals: India's 'Measured' Response vs Pakistan's 'Blame Game'

'Pakistan's blaming of India for the Islamabad blast is a knee-jerk reaction for its domestic base,' said an expert.

Peace talks based on the resolution of Kashmir issue, is an old trope and so is international mediation.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

An air of uncertainly surrounds India and Pakistan following blasts in their capital cities within 24 hours of each other.

At least 13 people died in the Red Fort explosion in New Delhi on Monday, 10 November, and the suicide attack in Islamabad's District Judicial Complex killed 12 the very next day.

However, the pivotal difference between the governments of both countries is how they have reacted to the strikes.

'Measured' Vs 'Escalatory'

Following the car explosion that tore through New Delhi, the Indian government termed the attack a 'terror strike' and invoked anti-terror provisions like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). However, they have so far refrained from implicating any militant group or country, stressing that the investigation is still underway.

This represents a flip from six months ago, when India had immediately implicated Pakistan and responded by force just days after tourists were shot dead by militants in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam.

India's handling of the Red Fort attack has been far more cautious, thus earning praise from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called New Delhi's response "measured" and "professional".

"They (India) have been very measured and cautious and very professional in how they're carrying out this investigation," Rubio said while addressing the press in Canada on Thursday, 13 November.

On the other hand, shortly after the Islamabad attack, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif didn't waste any time in putting the blame squarely on India and Afghanistan.

"Terrorist attacks on unarmed citizens of Pakistan by India’s terrorist proxies are condemnable," Sharif said in a statement merely hours after the attack on Tuesday.

He also implicated India for a militant attack in South Waziristan's Wana along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where an explosives-laden vehicle rammed into the front gate of a local college.

"Both attacks are the worst examples of Indian state terrorism in the region. It is time for the world to condemn such nefarious conspiracies of India," Sharif said, without providing any evidence to support these claims.

What Explains Pakistan's Blaming of India? 

So the question that needs to be asked is, what explains Pakistan's hostile response to India this time—that, too, without a shred of evidence? Is PM Sharif attempting to put up a front of 'verbal deterrence' to thwart an Indian attack—especially given that the kinetic hostilities during Operation Sindoor are still fresh in everybody's minds?

"Pakistan's response is just a knee-jerk reaction for domestic consumption," says Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, while speaking to The Quint.

"Pakistan doesn't have any proof of India's involvement in the Islamabad suicide attack, but this is a government that is quite shaky and needs to prove its locus standi with the public. They have their own domestic compulsions."

Manoj Joshi

The blasts have come at a politically sensitive time for the Sharif government, which has been receiving flak from the Opppsition, activists, and the judiciary for bringing the 27th Amendment to the Constitution. The Amendment, which was passed by both Houses of Parliament, is predicted to consolidate the authority of its already powerful armed forces, and undermine the Supreme Court by establishing a parallel Federal Constitutional Court.

In other words, if the Amendment is passed, criminal proceedings cannot be brought against Pakistan's highest ranking military officials.

"Amidst intense domestic criticism of the 27th Amendment, Pakistan’s military regime appears to have engaged in classic crisis manufacturing following the Islamabad bombing," says Pulkit Buttan, PhD scholar at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. "By swiftly blaming India without concrete evidence, Islamabad is attempting to divert public attention from its own internal security failures and contentious constitutional changes."

India's Ministry of External Affairs also rubbished Pakistan's allegations, calling it a "predictable tactic" to draw attention away from the country's internal strife.

"India unequivocally rejects the baseless and unfounded allegations being made by an obviously delirious Pakistani leadership," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said during a press conference on Tuesday, 11 November.

Pakistan's blame game is also a shift from its previous policy of blaming India for attacks only taking place in the Balochistan province, which has been a hotbed of seperatist tensions for years.

However, Harsh V Pant, professor of international relations, says that this trend has been changing over the last year or so—and Islamabad's response is in line with this changing trend.

"Pakistan is attempting to complicate matters. They are trying to bring India on an equal footing when it comes to terrorism to try and become frontrunners to frame a narrative: that India also uses terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Given Pakistan's record, that would be very difficult to believe by third parties. But that's how they would want to frame it," Pant tells The Quint.

India's New Doctrine & 'Trump' Factor Complicate Matters

India, on the other hand, faces a different dilemna. Following Operation Sindoor, the Narendra Modi government had announced a doctrine stating that any terror strike in India would be considered an "act of war", and that the perpetrators would not be distinguished from the country sponsoring them.

Since the Delhi blast has already been given the label of a 'terror strike', India's new doctrine states that it will need to be militarily responded to. However, some have also raised the possibility of the Delhi blast being orchestrated by "homegrown" terrorists.

"There are two kinds of terrorists-foreign-trained infiltrated terrorists and home-grown terrorists," said Congress leader and former Home Minister P Chidambaram in a social media post, adding that when he had raised the same doubts during the Pahalgam terror attack, he was "mocked and trolled".

Chidambaram's comments come amid the arrests of several accused, including Muzammil Ganaie, Adeel Ahmad Rather, Shaheen Shahid, and Umar Un Nabi, who are said to be part of a Faridabad terror outfit linked to the Jaish-e-Mohammed.

However, if the government still finds a Pakistan angle, acting on its new doctrine would be easier said than done given how the US' involvement during Operation Sindoor and its fallout had embittered ties between New Delhi and Washington, particularly US President Donald Trump's repeated claims that he had mediated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.

More so, Trump is now considered anything but neutral given his growing closeness towards Pakistan in the last few months. The US President has hosted PM Sharif and Army Chief Asim Munir several times in the White House and concluded a trade deal with them. Further, Pakistan had sponsored Trump for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for "ending" the conflict with India—something New Delhi did not do.

Hence, responding militarily for India would directly involve the US, risking further roadblocks to a slowly improving relationship dented by Washington's imposition of 50 percent tariffs on India goods.

"At this time we are very close to signing a trade agreement with the US. Trump's tone against India is softening, and I don't think there is any reason to annoy the US at this point," says Harsh Pant.

Pant further adds that howsoever heinous the Red Fort attack was, it was limited in its impact because Indian intelligence had a good handle on the situation before it took place, and that one of the reasons it took place the way it did was because of the modules that were busted by security forces beforehand.

"Whether India responds to the blast militarily or not will depend on the cost-benefit calculus of policymakers, but I don't think there should be a reflex action to avenge this attack all things considered," Pant says.

Building an Acceptable Narrative

Yet another factor while deciding on how to respond to the terror strike is building a narrative which is acceptable to the global community. Following Operation Sindoor, the government had sent an all-party delegation to dozens of countries to explain their rationale behind the airstrikes against terror camps in Pakistan. The jury is still out on how successful that outreach had been.

This time around, the additional complication is Pakistan's allegations against India regarding the Islamabad suicide attack as a counter to India's potential allegations against Pakistan in the Red Fort blast.

Hence, if a military response is considered by India, to what extent will 'acceptance' by the global community influence the Modi government's decision?

"The Indian government is often torn between domestic compulsions—of presenting an image of being resolute and tough—and the international community, which requires more than that in the form of proof," says Manoj Joshi.

"For the Pahalgam attack, we haven't presented direct evidence that Pakistan was involved, even though the modus operandi suggests the attackers were Pakistanis. In the Red Fort case as well, the standard of proof will have to be pretty high. And if you don't have that you would have to sell your narrative through PR and social media."

Manoj Joshi

However, other experts suggest that India will not be particularly bothered with the international community if it decides to strike militarily.

Harsh Pant says that a decision to use force, while difficult for any country, is not largely taken on the assumption that the global community will support them.

"Even earlier when terrorism was raging in India, it's not like the world at large was standing with India. It is always taken as a given that, when you use force, some countries will stand with you and some won't. The international community only has a limited say in what a nation does to protect its own interests."

Harsh V Pant

Can Pakistan Attack India First? 

The answer to that question needs to be considered in the backdrop of Operation Sindoor just having concluded six months ago. By now, the Sharif government knows one fact: the Modi government's modus operandi in dealing with terror strikes is military action, as evident by the 2016 surgical strike in response to the Uri terror attack, the Indian airstrikes in Balakot following the Pulwama bombing, and recently Operaration Sindoor in response to the Pahalgam attack.

Predicting that India could find a Pakistan connection in the Red Fort probe sooner or later, can Pakistan decide to attack India first—by banking on its claim of Indian involvement in the Islamabad blast?

Here, too, the jury is divided.

Given the level of influence the Army has over the civilian extablishment, and to subvert attention from criticism over the 27th Amendment, some say that the Pakistan government may well decide to attack India.

"It's quite possible for Pakistan to attack India first given their domestic compusions at this time," says Manoj Joshi.

Arguments supporting this possibility can also be built on the basis of provocative statements issued by Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, who said that the country is in a "state of war" following the suicide bombing. He also said that Islamabad is prepared for a "two-front war"—the implication being India and Afghanistan.

"We are ready for war on two fronts. We are prepared to face both the eastern [India] and western border [Afghanistan]. Allah helped us in round one and He will help us in round two," Asif reportedly said at a public event on Thursday, 13 November.

Meanwhile, other experts suggest that such statements from Pakistan are all bark and no bite, and that Islamabad is unlikely to strike India given the disproportionate degree of action the Indian Armed Forces would respond with.

"For Pakistan to react militarily against India would be suicidal from various lenses, most notably, knowing the consequences of India having to counter-strike almost immediately in a disproportionate measure," foreign policy specialist Lt Gen (Retd) Bhopinder Singh tells The Quint.

Singh further adds that Pakistan's internationally recognised disrepute on matters pertaining to "nurturing terror nurseries" disallows any credible opportunity of preemptive name-calling onto India in a terror-related blame game.