Pahalgam and After: India's 'New Normal' is Far From Ideal

The number of Muslims killed by the jihadis in J&K is many multiples of the Hindus killed, writes Ajai Sahni.

It was abundantly clear from the outset that neither country was prepared for a full-scale war, and both were seeking a face-saving way out.

(Photo altered by The Quint)

As expected from the moment when this phase of conflict commenced, after a relatively brief engagement, both sides have proclaimed a great victory and walked away, not only from the fighting, but from the enveloping hysteria that had been orchestrated, with their domestic constituencies celebrating the power, the bravery and the genius of their respective Armed Forces.

It was abundantly clear from the outset that neither country was prepared for a full-scale war, and both were seeking a face-saving way out.

But a visible intervention by US President Donald Trump hardly represents such a face-saving option for India.

Indeed, even as New Delhi maintains a dogged silence on Trump’s role in the ceasefire that was abruptly established, essentially after a tactlessly drafted Trump message on X (formerly Twitter), the reality is that a third party has been allowed to intercede in a bilateral India-Pakistan issue for the first time since the Simla Agreement of 1972. This is certainly a net gain for Pakistan, which has long sought the internationalisation of its ‘core issue’, disrupting more than half a century of stasis, and must be counted among the presently uncertain costs that Operation Sindoor may have inflicted on India.

Drawing (and Reading Between) New Red Lines

Prime Minister Shehbaaz Sharif proclaimed a great victory fashioned by Pakistan’s Defence Forces shortly after US President Donald Trump’s ambush announcement of the Indo-Pak ceasefire, on May 10 itself, and declared on the day of Youm-e-Tashakkur, a day of thanksgiving.

Prime Minister Narender Modi’s declaration of victory was longer in the coming, and expressed much more than appreciation for India’s Armed Forces.

He spelled out elements of a strategy for the future, declaring, particularly, that Operation Sindoor had only been paused, and could be resumed if Pakistani mischief manifested itself again, and that this was a ‘new normal’; that talks and terrorism, trade and terrorism could not go together.

Crucially, Prime Minister Modi asserted that India would no longer yield to Pakistan’s nuclear blackmail.

In itself, Modi’s speech outlines a future strategy and redraws many lines in the India-Pakistan relationship.

By declaring it as the new paradigm of response for acts of terrorism, it is evident that the Government regards Operation Sindoor as a signal success. The Prime Minister’s formulation is, further, more flexible than the earlier Government assertion that “Any future act of terror in India will be considered an act of war against the country and will be responded to accordingly.” The latter position established a threshold of response that was simply unsustainable and provided no margin for calibration.

Nevertheless, the ‘Operation Sindoor model’ reflects little strategic or operational diversity and simply promises more of the same, probably on an escalatory trajectory.

The military option remains the principal paradigm of response and there is no hint, as yet, that a wider strategy is contemplated against Pakistan’s future mischief. However, Prime Minister Modi’s statement that “blood and water cannot flow together” does indicate that some other means to inflict harm on Pakistan for its misadventures may be contemplated.

Prime Minister Modi’s ‘new normal’ appears to be a sword of Damocles suspended perpetually over Pakistan’s head, at least on first sight; but it hangs, equally, over India’s.

While Modi has declared that India would no longer succumb to ‘nuclear blackmail’, such a position will only help Pakistan raise the nuclear bogey – now with the additional dimension of the purported Indian nuclear threat – every time there is armed conflict between the two countries.

It is useful to recognise, moreover, that it is not Pakistan alone that has sought to exploit the nuclear bogey; President Trump has also used the menace of a nuclear conflagration to feed the sense of crisis and justify the necessity of US intervention to impose a ceasefire. Crucially, if a military response to future acts of terrorism becomes India’s default option, the process of internationalisation of the dispute would only magnify with each iteration of the newly normalised Operation Sindoor, overturning more than five decades of stasis.

Op Sindoor's Polarising Optics

Operation Sindoor was a poorly considered lashing out in the wake of a truly tragic – but far from unprecedented – atrocity.

For those who seek to inflame communal passions by projecting the Baisaran massacre as a reprehensible innovation, it is useful to recall that the terrorist jihad in J&K commenced with the targeted killing of, and atrocities against, the Kashmiri Pandits; and targeted incidents against Hindus have been routine – directed against pilgrims, ‘outsiders’ and, this time around, against tourists.

Crucially, the number of Muslims killed by the jihadis in J&K is many multiples of the Hindus killed.

The highest civilian toll was in 1996, for instance, when 114 Hindu civilians were killed by the terrorists, while 1,175 Muslim civilians lost their lives to the terrorist bullet and bomb.

The worst year in terms of Hindu civilian fatalities was 1990, at the early stages of the jihad, with 177 Hindu civilian fatalities; but even at this stage, 679 Muslim civilians also lost their lives. Crucially, the Indian state’s duty of protection is not limited to the lives of Hindus alone; every citizen, irrespective of faith, deserves equal protection.

The thousands of deaths and the unrelenting suffering Pakistan and its proxies have inflicted on the people of Kashmir – and across the country – demand a response. But military responses do not, and must not, exhaust India’s policy and strategic spectrum.

Operation Sindoor has once again demonstrated the unpredictability of military adventures, the uncertainty of war.

Playing a Game of Unintended Consequences

There is little doubt that India redrew many established lines in this operation; but so did the Pakistani response. Theatres of conflict are fraught with unintended consequences, and this is more the case in the unstable South Asian environment.

Crucially, a wide range of alternative instrumentalities exists to impose potentially unbearable costs on Pakistan, and India would do well to frame a very much more varied and substantially non-military strategy of coercion.

Moreover, India’s strategies must be framed within a far more realistic assessment of the situation in J&K. Despite some terrible tragedies from time to time, the clear reality is that India has been the victor in the conflict with the Pakistan-backed jihadis; the victory is not yet complete, but much of the road to decisive success has been covered.

The hysterical assessments that are put out by the present regime from time to time are products of a radical ideological perspective, not of objective security evaluation.

Not only have India’s security forces established overwhelming dominance in J&K, there has been a steady erosion of the legitimacy of the Pakistan-backed jihad among the people.

This was dramatically illustrated by the spontaneous protests across the Valley – and these were truly unprecedented – in the wake of the Baisaran massacre. These are opportunities that need to be built on, not wasted in polarising rage.

(The writer is founding member and executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management. He can be reached @Ajai_Sahni. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)