As expected, Pakistan launched a counterattack on select Indian military targets in the early hours of May 10, signalling the start of a full-fledged conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations.

As world diplomacy failed to prevent the two South Asian rivals from climbing up the escalation ladder, the biggest question remains whether these countries still have time to pull themselves from the brink or are destined to go for a long haul of war and conflict.

In these early stages, it may be too soon to predict, but if the conflict is not managed now, it has all the potential to snowball into a wider war that would have consequences beyond South Asia. Maybe the world powers and the United Nations still have a narrow window to act fast and cap these hostilities.

During the past 48 hours, there have been some hectic diplomatic activities, including phone calls by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief General Asim Munir. Rubio also called Indian Foreign Minister J. Shankar, urging restraint from both sides and expressing Washington’s desire for peace and stability in South Asia.

But neither the new US strategic ally, India, nor the Cold War-era and the so-called war-on-terror old partner, Pakistan, appears to be listening. The monster of war is out and growing strong.    

Pakistan counteroffensive

On early May 10, Pakistan officially claimed to hit multiple targets deep inside India using missiles, fighter aircraft and drones. In the operation code-named “Bunyan-un-Marsoos” (the concrete wall), Pakistan claimed to successfully target the Indian airbases of Udhampur, Pathankot, Bathinda and Sirsa and several other military sites. Pakistani drones penetrated deep inside India, including capital Delhi.

Besides, in a major first, Pakistan disrupted the Indian national power grid through a cyber-attack and hacked several official Indian websites, underlining the changing scope and nature of modern warfare.  

The Pakistani operation came in response to India’s Operation Sindoor launched in the wee hours of May 7, which targeted mosques and civilian neighbourhoods, killing at least 31 people, including children and wounding more than 50. 

The Pakistan Air Force had reacted swiftly to the Indian attack, allegedly downing five enemy aircraft, including three state-of-the-art French-made Rafale.

However, India claimed that it only struck “terrorist sites” inside Pakistan and its administered Kashmir in response to the April 22 killing of 26 civilians at the picturesque tourist spot of Baisaran Valley, near Pahalgam, in its administered Kashmir. The attack was carried out by five gunmen belonging to a little-known group, the Resistance Front.

New Delhi was quick to point fingers at Pakistan, which denied the allegation and offered independent investigations into the attack. But India, without sharing any evidence, first mounted a propaganda drive against Pakistan that eventually led to the May 7 attack.  

Since then, tensions have constantly been on the rise as India launched drone attacks on several Pakistani cities, mounting popular pressure on the Pakistani government to shed its defensive posture and take the conflict inside India by launching a counteroffensive.

Kashmir: The core problem   

The Muslim-majority divided Himalayan region of Kashmir lies at the heart of the protected animosity between an overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-dominated India. Both countries hold parts of Kashmir and lay claim on the region administered by its rival since their independence from the British Raj in August 1947.

The United Nations acknowledges that Kashmir remains a disputed territory and Kashmiris have the right to self-determination under its resolutions. However, Kashmiris are waiting for the promised plebiscite as India has transformed it into the most militarised zone in the world to control its Muslim population.

On August 5, 2019, India unilaterally changed the status of this semi-autonomous region and merged it into the union territory in violation of the UN resolutions, the Constitutional guarantees given to the Kashmiris and bilateral agreements with Pakistan. 

This made the issue more complex as relations nose-dived between Pakistan and India with both accusing one another of waging proxy wars and sponsoring terrorism. Pakistan accuses India of sponsoring a fringe terrorist movement, especially in its southwestern province of Balochistan, while New Delhi holds Islamabad responsible whenever there is a militant attack on its soil or its administered Kashmir.

Non-state actors and peace

Going by the Indian position, the non-state actors now hold the key to peace in South Asia. If any small band of non-state warriors – who may be sponsored by a state or working independently – mounts an attack somewhere in India or its administered Kashmir, New Delhi escalates tensions and even attacks Pakistan without providing a shred of evidence.

This is a dangerous strategy and leaves no room for diplomacy or cooperation in investigations between the two nuclear-armed states. The Indian strategy is also akin to putting the responsibility of peace on its territory and the disputed region of Pakistan.

Pakistan says that it offers only moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri freedom movement, which after hitting a peak in the 1990s continues to simmer against the backdrop of gross human rights violations, including torture, extra-judicial executions and even the use of rape as a weapon of punishment by the Indian security forces.

For example, in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, Ruhullah Mehdi, representing Srinagar in the Indian Parliament, wrote on X that “Kashmir and Kashmiris are being given a collective punishment.” 

His post came in the wake of a massive government crackdown in India-administered Kashmir in which hundreds of Kashmiris were arrested and several houses were demolished by the security forces on a mere suspicion that one of the family members was involved in the Pahalgam shootout or helped the militants. But the security personnel did not provide any evidence before the demolition of the houses.

The Kashmiri leadership says that the gross human rights violations and such crackdowns further fuel anger and alienate the people of Kashmir from India and push many among them towards militancy.

Few options for Pakistan

Amidst this burden of history, Pakistan-India tensions continue to simmer. But since the 1971 war over the former East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh, and the mini-Kargil war in 1999, hostilities of this scale were never witnessed.

This latest round of conflict also smashes the myth that nuclear weapons would act as a deterrence to ensure peace in the region.

India’s hardline Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi has upset the status quo in South Asia; firstly, by making the Muslim-majority Kashmir part of Indian territory and taking measures that would eventually change the demographics of this region; and secondly, through his brinkmanship against Pakistan.

Modi’s critics say that his domestic policies are driven by Hindutva agenda that targets the minorities living in India, especially the Muslims, including framing discriminatory laws against them, while he uses the anti-Pakistan card to further galvanise his Hindu vote bank.

Modi’s policies are divisive and polarising India and threatening peace in South Asia and beyond. Following the Pahalgam killings, Modi appears to have become the hostage of his own Hindutva rhetoric, which bays for blood and action against Pakistan to establish India as a dominant power in the region. The media frenzy and the public pressure forced the Indian government to up the ante by breaching the international border to mount attacks on the so-called terrorist targets.

Pakistan finds itself in a tight spot as a failure to act against Indian aggression would be tantamount to accepting attacks on its cities as a new normal.

Secondly, domestic compulsions, including the pressure from a robust opposition and the general public against the breach of the redline by India, forced the Shehbaz Sharif government to act.  

The dilemma for the Shehbaz government is that even though there are many voices within Pakistan who want to avoid conflict, there appears to be no takers of peace in Modi’s India – at least for now.

As the two sides go for tit-for-tat attacks, the bar of the conflict is steadily rising with the Pakistani leadership saying that any response from India to its counteroffensive would result in a more fierce and strong reaction.

Under these circumstances, some strong diplomatic efforts from the world powers, including the United States, Russia and China, could stop the Pakistan and India war. But given the raging conflicts in the Middle East and Europe, do they have the focus and determination to step in, and help resolve the protracted issues between Pakistan and India?

As this question lingers, South Asia awaits with bated breath the unfolding of another war on the world stage.