It is a vicious cycle. A major militant attack occurs somewhere in the India-administered Kashmir or in India, and with the snap of a finger, New Delhi blames Pakistan for sponsoring it.

Indian allegations are always followed by some punitive diplomatic and military measures against Islamabad, as the politicians in the teeming country of 1.46 billion people vow to bring perpetrators of the attack and their backers to justice. Pakistan, a country of 250 million people, also plays tough and matches the Indian measures blow-by-blow. 

Result: the two South Asian nuclear rivals get dangerously close to a full-blown military conflict until some hasty diplomatic efforts by friendly countries manage to prevent an all-out military confrontation.

This has been the pattern of relations between Pakistan and India for more than two decades now, triggering military standoffs, border skirmishes and even cross-border air strikes.

But since the hardline Hindu nationalist government of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, the frequency and ferocity of such standoffs have only increased and intensified.

The Modi government not just walked away from bilateral talks in 2016 in the aftermath of a militant attack in Uri, but in an attempt to exert pressure on Pakistan, it strictly ensured that no bilateral cricket series took place between these two cricket-mad countries. 

India last visited Pakistan for a bilateral series in 2006, while Pakistan went to play a bilateral series there in 2012-13. 

It was the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and subsequent incidents of violence in the India-administered Kashmir that led to the complete suspension of bilateral talks and cricket between the two sides. 

On the other hand, Pakistan repeatedly called for talks and to keep politics and the playgrounds separate. But Modi’s India remained adamant, taking a firm position that normal bilateral diplomacy and cricket are not possible with Pakistan until it continues to support what New Delhi alleges as terrorism.  

The latest escalation

The April 22 terrorist attack at the picturesque tourist spot of Baisaran Valley, near Pahalgam in the India-administered disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, has again brought the two countries to the brink of war.

Five gunmen belonging to a little-known militant group, the Resistance Front, had carried out the attack that killed 26 civilians -- 24 Hindu tourists, a Christian and a local Muslim guide. 

And like the past, Indian media took just minutes to hold Pakistan responsible for the atrocity without a shred of evidence, as New Delhi announced a series of measures that further stifled relations between the two rival nations.

The Indian measures so far include further downgrading of diplomatic ties, halting trade, and in an unprecedented and highly dangerous move, suspending the World Bank-guaranteed Indus Water Treaty of 1960, which ensured the sharing of six rivers of the Indus basin – three each – between the two countries.

In tit-for-tat measures, Pakistan also announced further downgrading of diplomatic ties, blocking trade, and banning Indian airlines from using the Pakistani airspace. 

Islamabad has declared that any attempt by India to block the flow of rivers to Pakistan would be considered an “act of war” and would be duly responded. 

Now the world awaits with bated breath whether New Delhi carries out any ground or air strike inside Pakistan or its administered part of Kashmir as Islamabad vows to retaliate against any aggression with its full might.

The world powers, including top officials of the United States, have been in touch with the leaders of both Pakistan and India in a bid to defuse the situation. Russia, China, neighbouring Iran and some of the key Middle Eastern countries all have appealed to the Pakistani and Indian leaders to show restraint and resolve their matters through diplomacy.

From Pulwama to Pahalgam

The standoff between Pakistan and India following the Pahalgam incident is a reminder of February 2019, when both countries came dangerously close to a war following the suicide attack on the vehicles of the Central Reserve Police Force in the Pulwama District of the India-administered Kashmir that killed some 40 security personnel.

At that time, too, India blamed Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed for the incident, but the suicide attacker was later identified as a local Kashmiri youngster, Adil Ahmad Dar.

The Indian allegations at that time were followed by a reckless air strike across the international border on an uninhabited part of the Balakot region in northern Pakistan. Though New Delhi claimed that it targeted a militant camp, the ground evidence was contrary to the Indian claim.

However, the Pakistan Air Force retaliated within hours of the attack and, in a symbolic gesture, bombed close to the Indian military positions from across the disputed frontier of Kashmir.

In an ensuing dogfight, Pakistan downed at least one Indian aircraft, fulfilling its promise of retaliation if attacked. However, the Pakistan Army asserts that it had shot down two Indian fighter aircraft. 

Earlier, similar standoffs were witnessed between Pakistan and India following militants attacking the Indian airbase of Pathankot in January 2016 and the Indian Army’s brigade headquarters near the town of Uri in September 2016.

Even if the world somehow manages to get the latest tensions to de-escalate for now, there will always be a fear that a handful of non-state actors plunge South Asia again into a similar crisis by carrying out an attack targeting the Indian security personnel or the civilians.

Going by the Indian understanding, it appears that New Delhi has put the responsibility for peace in India and its part of Kashmir – one of the world’s most heavily militarised regions – on Pakistan.

Therefore, while firefighting measures are a must to avert a full-blown conflict between the two nuclear powers, it is a must to address the root cause of the problem between the two neighbours.  

Weight of history

Islamabad says that instead of blaming Pakistan, India should look inward for the reasons which led to the armed struggle and militancy on the Indian side of Kashmir, where the United Nations had promised to hold a plebiscite in 1948 to allow Kashmiris the choice whether they want to live with Pakistan or India. That promise is yet to be fulfilled.

Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority region in India, has already been the cause of two major (1948 and 1965) wars and a limited conflict on the Kargil heights in 1999.

A bloody insurgency has also raged in the India-administered Kashmir since 1989, killing thousands of people. In recent years, incidents of guerrilla attacks on the Indian forces have declined, but the region remains volatile as New Delhi has to use excessive force to keep it under control.

As thousands of Kashmiris languish in jails, Indian forces are being blamed for gross human rights abuses, including torture, summary executions, and rape.

On August 5, 2019, the hardline Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi changed the status quo by abolishing Articles 370 and 35-A of the Constitution that gave minimal and symbolic semi-autonomy to the occupied region.

By violating its own Constitutional guarantees, the UN resolutions and bilateral agreements with Pakistan, India made this disputed region part of its union territory against the backdrop a heightened state oppression and a series of regressive measures that included a fresh round of arrests and crackdowns on political workers and the opposition, restrictions on the media and internet.

The Constitutional changes also allowed New Delhi to take measures that would eventually change the demography of Kashmir, raising concerns among the Kashmiri Muslims that they would become a minority on their own land.

In the past, non-Kashmiris were not allowed to buy property or get the domicile of this disputed region, including the right to vote. But the controversial August 2019 Constitutional amendments have changed all this.

International human rights groups acknowledge that the Indian state repression has increased in the India-administered Kashmir following the August 5, 2019, unilateral Constitutional changes.

No way forward

Pakistan says that by destroying the status-quo, India made holding conventional diplomacy and normal relations impossible. Islamabad's then government of premier Imran Khan, while downgrading diplomatic and trade ties with India had announced that it would not hold bilateral talks with New Delhi until it rolled back its controversial Constitutional measures.

The current Pakistan government, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, has continued with its predecessor’s policies, though there had been internal pressure from trade and business circles as well as a section of politicians to open trade with India and bring normality in relations.

Even the peace doves on the Pakistani side find their hands tied as there appear no takers for peace in India. The Indians have made even talks for the sake of holding talks impossible.

Prime Minister Modi's coercive diplomacy is seen giving him political dividends in India’s domestic populist politics, where anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim card sells. While relations with India hardly figure in Pakistani election campaigns, the anti-Pakistani rhetoric is a major selling point in the Indian elections.

For the Modi government, exerting pressure on Pakistan at a time when it appears politically divided and economically weak seems to make more strategic sense than to engage.

However, most of the rival political forces in Pakistan have already closed ranks in the wake of the looming Indian challenge. Even the main opposition party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, has announced it will stand by the armed forces if India attacks, though it has kept its distance from the Shehbaz government even under the current circumstances.

In a nutshell, even if the Pahalgam crisis is somehow averted by international diplomatic efforts, Pakistan and India would continue to maintain their hostile posture against one another for their perceived principled stands as well as domestic compulsion.

No government could afford to blink first in the current charged atmosphere. 

Therefore, a relative period of cold peace remains the best practical option for the two sides for now until some out-of-the-box or mutually agreed solution to the protracted Kashmir dispute is found in which the Kashmiris too should have a say and ownership in line with the UN resolutions.