How India Manages the Pakistan Relationship

India-Pakistan relations are defined by a structural conflict rooted in the 1947 partition — involving three wars (1947, 1965, 1971), two near-wars (1987 Brasstacks, 1999 Kargil), the Kashmir dispute, and Pakistan's documented strategic use of non-state armed groups against India. The relationship reached its most dangerous kinetic phase in decades in May 2025: the Pahalgam terror attack (April 22, killing 26 tourists, attributed toThe Resistance Front, a Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy) triggered Operation Sindoor (May 7–10) — India's most extensive cross-border military operation since 1971, striking nine terrorist infrastructure sites in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistani Punjab, followed by escalatory exchanges, a ceasefire, and a period of unprecedented diplomatic isolation for India as the US embraced Pakistan's narrative.

Representational Visualisation: How India Manages the Pakistan Relationship

India's approach to Pakistan is governed by what analysts describe as a "composite dialogue" framework in form — periodic dialogues on eight issue clusters — and a hardened "no business as usual while terrorism continues" posture in practice. Trade has been suspended since 2019 (India revoked Pakistan's MFN status after the Pulwama attack); the SAARC framework is effectively dead since India boycotted the 2016 Islamabad summit; the Kartarpur Corridor (allowing pilgrimage to Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan) is the only bilateral link with any positive content. The 2021 ceasefire agreement on the Line of Control (restoring the 2003 ceasefire) was the only positive bilateral development of the recent decade before May 2025 reversed it.

What You Need to Know

• Operation Sindoor (May 7–10, 2025): India's military strikes on nine terrorist infrastructure sites in PoJK and Pakistani Punjab; the deepest and most extensive India military action since 1971; triggered Pakistani military counter-strikes; India's air defence systems (S-400 operational) repelled Pakistani drone and missile attacks; ORF characterised it as "decisively alter[ing] the security dynamics between India and Pakistan"; US said it mediated ceasefire announced by Trump but was vociferously disputed by India; Trump claimed credit for "stopping a war"; India rejected this narrative vehemently.
• Pahalgam attack (April 22, 2025): 26 tourists (including foreign nationals) killed at Baisaran meadow in J&K; The Resistance Front (TRF — Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy) initially claimed responsibility; India-Pakistan tensions immediately spiked; India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty consultations; Pakistan denied state involvement; Indian security establishment traced perpetrators to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba networks.
• Nuclear dimension: both India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed states (India with approximately 160–170 nuclear warheads, Pakistan with approximately 160–170); India maintains "No First Use" (NFU) doctrine (with caveats on massive retaliation); Pakistan maintains "first use" option as part of its deterrence doctrine against India's conventional superiority; Operation Sindoor was conducted with awareness of the nuclear risk; both sides exercised constraint at tactical levels during the exchange.
• Indus Waters Treaty suspension: India suspended participation in Indus Waters Treaty consultations (August 2025) following Pahalgam; the IWT (1960, World Bank-brokered) divides the six rivers of the Indus system between India (eastern rivers) and Pakistan (western rivers); IWT suspension is a diplomatic instrument, not a cessation of water flows (India cannot immediately alter flows due to infrastructure limitations); the threat of long-term infrastructure development to reduce western river flows into Pakistan has strategic water war implications.
• India-Pakistan post-Sindoor: as of December 2025, relations remained at nadir; Pakistan strengthened its US relationship (Asim Munir White House visits); Pakistan signed Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia; US-Pakistan $1.3 billion military assistance resumed; India viewed these developments as Pakistan successfully exploiting the Sindoor episode to improve its international standing while India's diplomatic isolation deepened.

How It Works in Practice

1. India's policy evolution from engagement to isolation: India-Pakistan relations went through three recognisable phases in the 2014–2025 period: 2014–2016 (cautious engagement, including Modi attending PM Nawaz Sharif's birthday in Lahore, unprecedented for an Indian PM); 2016–2019 (cooling after Uri attack, surgical strikes, Balakot airstrike, further deterioration after Pulwama/Balakot 2019); 2019–2025 (suspension of MFN, Article 370 revocation, J&K reorganisation, and eventual Operation Sindoor 2025).

2. The terrorism-diplomacy nexus: India's fundamental position is that normalisation of diplomatic and economic relations requires verifiable cessation of Pakistan's support for anti-India terrorist groups; Pakistan's position is that Kashmir must be resolved before normalisation; these are incompatible first conditions that prevent composite dialogue from progressing. Both Pakistan's military establishment (which runs Pakistan's India policy) and India's security establishment benefit institutionally from a hostile relationship; civil society and business communities in both countries would benefit from normalisation.

3. Pakistan's strategic calculus: Pakistan's use of non-state armed groups against India — the "Bleeding India with a Thousand Cuts" doctrine attributed to Zia-ul-Haq — is a documented strategic choice reflecting Pakistan's calculation that India's conventional military superiority means proxy war is more sustainable than direct conflict. India's Operation Sindoor was explicitly designed to challenge this calculation: by striking at terrorist infrastructure inside Pakistan with minimal Indian casualties, India sought to impose costs on Pakistan's proxy war strategy that would change the risk calculus.

4. The China-Pakistan axis and its India implications: China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) — $60+ billion Chinese investment in Pakistan's infrastructure connecting China's Xinjiang to Pakistan's Gwadar port — is India's most significant concern in India-Pakistan bilateral context: CPEC passes through Gilgit-Baltistan (which India considers part of its sovereign territory under J&K's original accession), giving China a strategic footprint in India's claimed territory; it also gives Pakistan-China relationship a structural economic depth that adds a second-front dimension to India's Pakistan challenge.

5. The Kartarpur Corridor as the exception: The Kartarpur Corridor — agreed in 2018, opened November 2019 — allows Indian Sikh pilgrims to visit Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan without a visa; it is the sole positive bilateral development of the 2019–2025 period; it was maintained even during heightened tensions (though closed during COVID 2020–21); it represents the one domain where both governments found a narrow common interest that did not require resolving the fundamental conflict.

What People Often Misunderstand

• India-Pakistan normalisation is not primarily a diplomacy problem: The structural obstacles to normalisation — Pakistan's Army-controlled India policy, economic benefits of the hostile relationship for security establishments on both sides, Kashmir's contested status — are not addressable through diplomatic creativity alone; they require political will from Pakistan's military establishment that has historically not existed.
• Operation Sindoor changed the risk calculus but not the structural problem: India's military action imposed costs on Pakistan and demonstrated India's willingness to act; it did not change Pakistan's Army's fundamental interest in maintaining the terrorist proxy strategy; nor did it resolve Kashmir; it established deterrence at a new level but left the underlying conflict unchanged.
• Trump's ceasefire claim was politically useful for Pakistan, not accurate: India's rejection of Trump's "I stopped a war" narrative was not petty sovereignty assertion but a genuine correction: India maintains the ceasefire was bilateral; Trump's claim validated Pakistan's narrative that it needed US protection from India; India could not accept this without undermining its "no third-party mediation" position.
• India-Pakistan trade suspension has economic costs for both: India's revocation of Pakistan's MFN status (February 2019, after Pulwama) cut trade from approximately $2 billion to near-zero; both economies lost: Indian cotton, chemicals, and machinery exports; Pakistani textiles and stone; the costs are manageable for both but are real; business communities on both sides have repeatedly advocated for trade restoration.
• Nuclear deterrence has actually worked between India and Pakistan: Despite three wars, multiple near-wars, and sustained proxy conflict, the nuclear balance has prevented direct large-scale war since 1998; this is the strategic background against which Operation Sindoor's escalation was managed; the nuclear dimension creates a stability-instability paradox — nuclear deterrence prevents all-out war while enabling sub-conventional proxy conflict.

What Changes Over Time

India's post-Sindoor diplomatic strategy — engaging the US, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and other Pakistan partners to change their Pakistan calculus — will determine whether Pakistan's post-Sindoor strategic windfall (US embrace, Saudi defence agreement) becomes permanent or is counterbalanced. India's Indus Waters Treaty infrastructure development — building reservoirs and diversion works on the eastern rivers — is a long-term water pressure tool.

Sources and Further Reading

• ORF — Operation Sindoor Special Report: https://www.orfonline.org/research/in-the-aftermath-of-operation-sindoor-escalation-deterrence-and-india-pakistan-strategic-stability
• Tribune India — Operation Sindoor strategic autonomy: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/bricsleadership/operation-sindoor-beyond-how-india-asserted-strategic-autonomy-amid-tariffs-security-challenges
• BASIC — India's new response doctrine: https://basicint.org/operation-sindoor-establishes-indias-new-response-doctrine-towards-pakistan/
• Insightsonindia — India's evolving foreign policy: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2025/06/10/indias-evolving-foreign-policy/
• Foreign Policy — India strategic autonomy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/11/26/india-end-strategic-autonomy/

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