Brigadier Dr Vijay Sagar Dheman
In the aftermath of the Pahalgam massacre, India stands at a strategic crossroads that could reshape South Asian geopolitics. The conventional playbook, providing victim support, enhancing tourist safety, and intensifying counterterrorism operations, remains necessary but insufficient against the sophisticated network orchestrating terror from across the border.
India’s immediate priorities are clear: heal the wounded, compensate the bereaved, and restore confidence in Kashmir’s security infrastructure. Deploying AI-enhanced surveillance and strengthening community policing through Village Defence Guards represent important tactical adjustments. Yet these measures address symptoms rather than the disease.
The brutal reality demands recognition. Pakistan’s terror machinery operates as a strategic asset, not a rogue element. Until Pakistan’s power center, predominantly Punjab-based elites controlling the military and intelligence apparatus, faces existential consequences, the cycle of violence will not stop.
Military options, while available, carry nuclear escalation risks. Surgical strikes targeting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir could provide tactical victories, but history shows their strategic limitations. Joint military exercises with allies offer symbolic deterrence but limited practical impact against deeply embedded terror networks.
India’s most powerful non-kinetic weapon remains water diplomacy. The Indus Water Treaty, a Cold War relic allocating 80% of the water system to Pakistan, can be legally suspended under Articles 60 and 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, following precedents set by the United States in its unilateral withdrawals from the ABM and INF treaties with Russia.
This approach targets Pakistan’s center of gravity directly. Punjab province, Pakistan’s breadbasket, depends on these waters to feed the nation. Any reduction would create immediate pressure on the very elites orchestrating cross-border terrorism. As agricultural output declines, internal tensions between Punjab and water-starved provinces like Sindh, already simmering beneath state-censored media, would intensify, potentially forcing a fundamental strategic recalculation in Islamabad.
Diplomatic initiatives must complement this approach. Launching comprehensive information warfare to expose Pakistan’s terror networks at international forums, pursuing Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklisting, and engaging friendly nations to isolate Pakistan diplomatically represent critical parallel efforts. Declaring defense advisors at Pakistan’s High Commission as persona non grata would signal India’s resolve.
Economically, suspending trade ties indefinitely, revoking Pakistani visas, and eliminating cross-border electricity agreements would heighten pressure on Pakistan’s already fragile economy.
The strategic calculus is clear. Pakistan’s terror infrastructure persists because its architects, predominantly Punjab-based military and intelligence officials, have never paid a prohibitive price. By targeting their fundamental interests, particularly water security for Punjab province, India can create unbearable costs for continuing the proxy war.
This multidimensional strategy recognizes that defeating terrorism requires more than eliminating individual operatives. It requires threatening the very existence of those who have made terrorism state policy. Only when Pakistan’s deep state faces existential consequences for their “thousand cuts” doctrine will Kashmir finally know lasting peace.
(The writer is Convenor IIJSA Jammu)
