There are likely to be many readers who may find eerie similarities between what India is undergoing today and what Israel experienced in the aftermath of October 7, 2023.
On the morning of April 22, about five masked terrorists entered the scenic town of Pahalgam in the Kashmir Valley, where tourists from all over India were enjoying themselves. However, rather than firing indiscriminately, they proceeded to ask frightened holidaymakers at gunpoint to recite the Kalima. Most of the tourists were Hindus, and their failure to pass this Islamic test led to the males in the group being shot in the head. Others were made to take down their trousers before their wives and children in order to verify their faith, and then shot. A total of 26 males—24 Hindus, one Christian, and a Muslim local who tried to resist—were killed.
Indian intelligence believes that at least two, if not three, of the gunmen were terrorists from Pakistan. This assessment has been reinforced by the claim by a group called The Resistance Front that it carried out the massacre.
TRF, which is a reincarnation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (which had carried out the horrible attacks in Mumbai in 2008), had organized a show of strength a few weeks earlier in the Pakistan-held part of Kashmir.
Among those who participated in the terrorist jamboree were representatives of Hamas, an organization that is a source of inspiration to the Islamists in the region.
On the strength of credible evidence, India has consistently maintained that behind the fig-leaf of providing political and diplomatic support to the Muslim separatists in Kashmir, Pakistan has actively fuelled terrorism targeting India.
In 1999, while the civilian leadership was talking peace with India, Pakistan’s military undertook a sneaky bid to occupy the heights of Kargil that would cut off Kashmir from the rest of India. The move backfired horribly.
However, it didn’t stop audacious attempts to target India. In 2008, the Pakistan military remotely controlled a surprise attack by well-trained LeT jihadis on Mumbai. The attack, lasting four days, led to the killing of 175 people.
In 2008, the then Indian government invested heavily in diplomacy to try and secure justice for the victims. It didn’t work. Despite strong condemnations of violence by the world community, there was little progress in dismantling the terrorist infrastructure located in Pakistan.
India's change of tactics against Pakistan
In 2014, following the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India changed tack and abandoned its do-nothing approach. Following devastating attacks on the Indian army in 2019 in Kashmir, India mounted retaliatory attacks inside Pakistani territory. However, they were largely symbolic in nature and aimed at assuaging domestic sentiment.
At the same time, diplomatic relations with Islamabad were downsized to a bare minimum, and both countries withdrew their High Commissioners.
Pakistan responded hysterically in 2019 when, following Modi’s second consecutive election victory, India amended its constitution and removed Kashmir’s ‘special status’. In short, the constitutional ambiguity of the province was removed, and Kashmir became a full-fledged part of the Indian Union.
Islamabad felt that this would trigger a popular revolt and make life impossible for the Indian government. There was indeed an intifada of sorts, marked by stone pelting at soldiers and a few terror attacks. However, these proved ephemeral, and by the end of 2024, the Indian government felt confident in organizing provincial elections that were widely acknowledged to be free and fair.
As tourists rushed back to enjoy the scenic splendour and the region witnessed a significant upgradation of its infrastructure, the normalisation of Kashmir was seen to be a success story of the Modi government.
It is at this juncture, perhaps just as the administration had let down its guard, that the terrorists returned with renewed vigour on April 22.
Whether the government in Pakistan planned and executed this outrage will always be a subject of speculation. The military in the country exercises a parallel authority and is largely unaccountable. A section of it could well have given the green signal since the different terror groups have operated under its protection and patronage.
The 1999 conflict in Kargil and the devastating attack on Mumbai in 2008 were directly linked to the Pakistani military, despite the pretence that freelance jihadis had taken matters into their own hands. It is suggested that the Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens in Gaza in October 2023 were a source of inspiration for TRF.
India’s sharp response, much sharper than the symbolic retaliation of 2019, may have surprised many India-watchers who felt that the economic costs of a war with Pakistan would be too huge a price for the country to bear. The reasons why India’s political leadership shed inhibitions were two-fold.
First, the targeted massacre of Hindus and the accompanying assertions of Islamist triumphalism made a sharp military response unavoidable. The intemperate comment of the 57-year-old Pakistani army chief General Asim Munir—dubbed the Jihadi General—in the week preceding the Pahalgam massacre had, in any case, incensed public opinion in India.
Second, that the victims were drawn from different parts of India made the break from diplomatic bluster and symbolic strikes more politically palatable.
The perception in Pakistan is that a conflict involving two nuclear powers would prompt the international community to urge restraint and de-escalation. Since the focus would be on Pakistan’s response to India’s Operation Sindoor on May 7, the international clamour for de-escalation would create a moral equivalence between the terrorists and the victims. It is possible Islamabad was driven by the experience of how Israel was held back in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre.
Apart from the backing of China, Turkey, Somalia, and Azerbaijan, Pakistan’s claim to victimhood has not received the backing it hoped for. The Western powers may not have echoed Israel’s understanding of India’s right of self-defense, but their appreciation of the importance of India’s economy has shaped their ambivalence. US Vice President J.D. Vance’s characteristically blunt “It’s none of our business” has set the tone. This includes the wariness of the Islamic countries of the Middle East to stand by Muslim Pakistan.
There is no expectation in India that the conflict will go on for too long. India’s principal objective is to pressure Pakistan to disengage from patronizing Islamist radicals with universalist pretensions. Islamabad’s tensions with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and a separatist movement in Baluchistan may propel a climbdown before too long.
The writer is a Distinguished Fellow of India Foundation and a former Member of Parliament.