This month’s confrontation between India and Pakistan caused a diplomatic, military and political earthquake in Asia and beyond. The tectonic plates will take a while to resettle.
The root cause was all too familiar, dating back to the 1947 partitioning of India and Pakistan and the unresolved issue of Kashmir, control over which remains divided between the two nations.
Pakistan’s official position is that this conflict can only be resolved through a plebiscite, as ordered by the UN Security Council in 1948, while India maintains that its control over its part of Kashmir is non-negotiable.
Since 1989, the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir has been in a state of insurgency, with tens of thousands of people arrested, brutalised or killed. India blames Pakistan for the unrest, but decades of Indian state repression have clearly played a role.
Tensions spilled over in April, after gunmen killed 26 people in the Pahalgam tourist area of Indian-controlled Kashmir. Few details about the perpetrators have emerged, but India was quick to blame Pakistan, which in turn denied any involvement.
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The dispute swiftly erupted into a military confrontation, with cross-border air strikes and artillery shelling. For days, the world held its breath as the two nations teetered on the brink of full-scale war – but an uneasy peace has since been restored.
The flare-up brought back memories of February 2019, when Indian warplanes carried out strikes near the Pakistani town of Balakot after a suicide bombing killed 40 paramilitary troops in Kashmir. Pakistan then shot down an Indian jet and captured its pilot, who was soon released as the crisis was defused.
That incident marked the first time since the 1971 war that India had carried out air strikes inside Pakistan. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, New Delhi has adopted a more aggressive stance.
High stakes
After 2019, India went on an aggressive military purchasing spree that has included billions of dollars’ worth of US weapons, along with French Rafale fighter jets and Israeli drones.
Pakistan has also upgraded its capabilities, including the purchase of 25 Chinese J-10 fighter planes in 2021, each coming at a fraction of the cost of a Rafale.
Amid this backdrop, tensions in Kashmir have been rising steadily since the Modi administration’s decision in August 2019 to revoke Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which granted Kashmir a degree of autonomy. The revocation came with a crippling curfew, and a media and telecoms blackout.
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Recent events suggest that both India and Pakistan are prepared for the next round of conflict. But as both are nuclear-armed countries, the stakes are extremely high, and it is widely assumed that neither side wants – nor can afford – all-out war.
Still, Pakistan labelled as an “act of war” India’s recent decision to suspend the crucial 1960 Indus Waters Treaty as a punitive measure in the wake of the Pahalgam attack – a move that would have devastating effects on Pakistan, which relies on the Indus waters for most of its agriculture.
The crisis came to a head on 7 May, when India carried out a series of strikes in Pakistan on what it called “terrorist” infrastructure – a characterisation Pakistan rejected. What followed has been described as one of the largest dogfights in recent history, with more than 100 Indian and Pakistani fighter jets battling in the skies.
In a development that shocked many observers, one of Pakistan’s Chinese-made fighter planes was able to shoot down at least two Indian military aircraft, including a Rafale, according to sources quoted by the Reuters news agency. India declined the agency’s request for comment.
Pakistan said it shot down a total of five Indian fighter jets, but India has only acknowledged unspecified “losses”.
A Chinese plane outgunning a western plane marks a significant upset in modern warfare, and must have sent shivers down the spines of military observers from Paris to Washington to Taiwan. The markets responded, as the Chinese company behind the J-10 saw its share price rise, while Dassault Aviation, which makes the Rafale, saw a drop.
Fundamental question
The military confrontation continued until 10 May, with Pakistan responding to the Indian strikes by hitting military installations in Indian territory. The Pakistani military said it hit a variety of targets, including artillery positions and a missile battery site.
The ease with which Pakistani missiles were able to evade India’s air defences and strike its territory appears to have unnerved India, still digesting the loss of its planes.
Then, within hours of the Pakistani retaliation, came the surprise announcement of a ceasefire, for which the US took credit – although how the truce was ultimately reached has been a matter of dispute.
Every death in a military situation is a tragedy, and thankfully, casualties on both sides were relatively low.
It appears clear to neutral observers that the so-called Operation Sindoor of 7-10 May did not go at all according to plan
For India, the main casualty was the credibility of its government and military leadership, as it appears clear to neutral observers that the so-called Operation Sindoor of 7-10 May did not go at all according to plan. Pakistan was prepared for the fight.
Still, Indian media channels continued to spin the confrontation as a victory for India – appearing to take a collective break from reality, as they fabricated news about everything from strikes on Karachi to the arrest of Pakistan’s army chief. It is hard to see how these channels will be taken seriously in the future.
Diplomatically, India appears increasingly isolated. As Israel, itself facing charges of carrying out a genocide in Gaza, stood up in support of New Delhi, Turkey explicitly backed Pakistan, while many other states remained neutral. The most brutal snub for India was the US, an ally with whom Modi has been cultivating relations for more than a decade, declining to pick sides.
Pakistan, on the other hand, is viewing these developments as a victory, as the army managed to hold its own against a much larger rival while regaining some internal popularity, at a time when the military leadership is under severe political pressure.
The fundamental question remains: were this month’s events yet another milestone in an increasingly dangerous standoff between India and Pakistan, or could this finally be the moment when both sides realise there is no military solution to the tragedy of Kashmir, and give diplomacy a real chance?
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
