Why the Indo-Pakistan Conflict Is at a Turning Point

There have been so many warlike episodes between India and Pakistan since their birth in 1947 that the recent conflict is often seen as a sign of continuity – quite wrongly.

First, this crisis occurred at a time when, for the first time in the country's history, Jammu and Kashmir, as of 2019, no longer enjoyed the autonomy hitherto guaranteed by the 1950 constitution. This reform reflected the Hindu nationalist logic of the Modi government, for whom Kashmiri separatism was partly explained by said autonomy, while regional parties, on the contrary, attributed it to the fact that New Delhi had never allowed this autonomy to be implemented.

Since 2019, Narendra Modi has held the belief that he had paved the way for normalisation, enabling, in particular, a boom in tourism. In fact, the maintenance of a strong military presence (around 500,000 men, i.e. one soldier for every 10 Kashmiris) and the subjugation of civil society, including the media – not to mention the increasing number of disappearances of young Kashmiris – continue to fuel high tensions. The fact that 26 civilians fell victim to a more deadly attack than any recorded since 2019 on April 22 in Kashmir shows that the expected normalisation has not taken place.

Secondly, the Indian response, which attributed the attack to Pakistan, was on an unprecedented scale. The Indian army targeted nine camps and other jihadist training centres, some of them located not in the part of Kashmir claimed by India, but in Punjab, behind an internationally recognised border. Then, in retaliation to the Pakistani response, the Indian army attacked military bases. 

The scale of the aftershock has increased the risk of escalation, partly because of the situation in Pakistan – also virtually unprecedented. Not since its 1971 defeat by India had the Pakistani army been so unpopular. The population's rejection was due not only to the privileges that the military had arrogated to itself at a time when the country was going through a deep social crisis, but also to the fact that Imran Khan, the former prime minister who had opposed the army chief, had been locked up. More than ever, the army general needed to save face, especially if its nuclear arsenal was at risk.

This retaliation was also motivated by another new development: India's challenge to the Indus Waters Treaty, which since 1960 has regulated the sharing of water from this river and its tributaries. If New Delhi deprives Pakistan of the water to which this treaty entitled it, agriculture in the Punjab (and other downstream provinces), which is already suffering from water stress due to climate change, will eventually no longer be able to ensure the country's food security, nor produce the cotton that weighs so heavily in the country's trade balance.

In these conditions, alerted by the risk of nuclearisation of the conflict, US president Donald Trump abruptly intervened – whereas until then he had shown an incredible casualness considering that this "thousand-year-old" (sic) conflict was not within his jurisdiction. This intervention was disturbingly effective: a few hours after initiating the talks, Trump announced that he had obtained a ceasefire in a message on Truth Social, taking the Indians by surprise, who were then furious to hear the American president mention talks on Kashmir and US secretary of state Marco Rubio invite them to negotiate with Islamabad in a neutral location. In the space of a few hours, Washington brought India back to square one, having managed since the 1970s to avoid any internationalisation of this issue, which it wishes to settle bilaterally.

Immediately, the Modi government was also the target of scathing criticism, both from its supporters who, whipped up by the government and the quasi-hysterical media, hoped to finally wipe out the Pakistani threat, and from the opposition, who criticised it for capitulating to the United States. A military operation that had just vividly demonstrated India's "zero tolerance" for terrorism turned into a political rout, all the more so as Pakistan celebrated its "victory", symbolised by the destruction of an Indian Rafale and other "trophies". 

Internationally, India appeared relatively isolated from Pakistan. On the latter's side, Turkey and above all China – whose (many) weapons sold to or co-produced with Pakistan have proved quite effective – have expressed unwavering support for Islamabad. This Sino-Pakistani solidarity, which had not been so evident in previous conflicts, but which can now be explained by the creation of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, the flagship of the new Silk Roads, bodes ill for India, whose economy is heavily dependent on Chinese imports. Moreover, China could do to India what it wants to do to Pakistan in terms of access to water, as the Brahmaputra river crosses the Tibetan plateau before entering India.

On the Indian side, not only did New Delhi fail to include the Pakistan-based terrorist group to which the Indians attribute the April attack in the Security Council communiqué condemning it, but it also failed to prevent the International Monetary Fund from granting Pakistan a further $1 billion tranche.

Worse still, Trump willingly treats India and Pakistan as equals, sending them back to back, while New Delhi strives to emancipate itself from this face-to-face confrontation with its neighbour, which is a major deterrent to foreign investors, and to play the role of great power. By multiplying its partners without ever wanting to forge an alliance, India has perhaps reached the limits of plurilateralism. Beyond this, New Delhi faces a new challenge: Pakistan, where the army has regained its lustre, risks playing the terrorist card again, safe in the knowledge that it has nuclear weapons. That's nothing new, but more dangerous in the current context.

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