India-Pakistan Conflict Comes Alive, Again!

Nigeria and Niger are allies. Australia and New Zealand are friends. United Kingdom and Ireland are aligned. Germany and France are pals. Singapore and Malaysia are close. The United States and Canada are best of friends, well at least until the Orange man broke into the scene. My point? Countries that share borders are generally expected to get along. Not so with India and Pakistan.

Growing up, whether at home, in school, and even in religious places, generations of Indians and Pakistanis were taught to look over their shoulders, not because of the neighbour across the street, but because of the one across the border. The long and tortured history between India and Pakistan has always simmered with unresolved trauma. But this week, it boiled over.

On a serene Tuesday morning in the pine-laced hills of Pahalgam, a town in Indian-administered Kashmir long known more for its apple orchards than armed incursions, gunfire rang out in a way not heard in years. An offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the same group behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, stormed a tourist resort, killing scores. During the Mumbai attacks, 175 people died, with more than 300 injured. In the Tuesday attack, families that had come seeking cool relief from the heat found only bloodshed.

It was the deadliest terror attack in India since 2008, and its implications have gone far beyond the valleys of Kashmir. With both countries now expelling diplomats, halting visa services, closing borders, suspending treaties, and threatening military retaliation, the subcontinent stands again on a knife’s edge.

To understand the present, one must revisit 1947. In case you expected it, it is at this point that I recommend a book. “The Nine Lives of Pakistan’ by Declan Walsh is one of the most brilliant books I have ever read on the history of any country. As Walsh notes, the British, hurriedly withdrawing from a continent they had ruled for nearly two centuries, split India in two, giving birth to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and leaving millions displaced. That partition, one of the bloodiest in human history, sowed the seeds of perpetual mistrust.

At the centre of that mistrust was Kashmir, a princely state with a Muslim majority and a Hindu ruler. Both India and Pakistan claimed it. A rushed accession to India ignited the first war between the neighbours in 1947–48, and Kashmir has remained a flashpoint ever since.

Three wars, numerous skirmishes, and decades of insurgency later, the people of Kashmir remain stuck between two titanic powers, often paying the highest price.

As 2025 began, there was cautious optimism. Prime Minister Modi of India had even suggested a “permanent peace.” Tourist numbers in Kashmir were rising, a rare metric of calm in a region long defined by unrest. But Pahalgam changed everything.

India’s government immediately pointed the finger at Pakistan. It wasn’t just an emotional response; it was one rooted in long-standing accusations. For years, Delhi has claimed that groups like LeT operate with tacit, if not explicit, support from elements within the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment.

“Lashkar-e-Taiba” translated as Army of the Pure is an Islamist Salafi jihadist organisation. The organisation’s primary stated objective is to merge the whole of Kashmir, which it sees as being neglected by the Hindu-led India, with Pakistan. It was founded in 1985 with funding from Osama bin Laden during the Soviet–Afghan War. It has been designated a terrorist group by numerous countries. LeT sees the issue of Kashmir as part of a wider global struggle. Once Kashmir is liberated, LeT seeks to use it “as a base of operations to conquer India and force Muslim rule to the Indian subcontinent.”

It is on this basis that India remains convinced Lashkar-e-Taiba operates with the tacit, if not explicit, backing of Pakistan’s political and military leadership. Pakistan, as expected, has flatly denied the accusation, dismissing it as “frivolous” and “devoid of rationality.”

India has not accepted these denials but has instead responded with fury. Within hours, the government suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, that decades-old agreement hailed as a model of water diplomacy. It ordered Pakistani diplomats and military advisors out of Delhi, shut down visa services for Pakistanis, and cancelled the SAARC visa exemption scheme.

Islamabad, led by a beleaguered Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, retaliated in kind. It declared the treaty suspension an “Act of War,” revoked Indian visas, expelled Indian advisors, halted bilateral agreements, and even closed its airspace to Indian-owned airlines. The Wagah border crossing, a rare thread of human connection between the two, was also sealed.

India’s response is not without precedent. After the 2019 Pulwama attack, where 40 Indian paramilitary soldiers were killed by a Pakistan-based militant, Delhi sent fighter jets into Balakot, deep inside Pakistan. Islamabad shrugged it off publicly, allowing both nations to claim victory and step back from the brink.

This time, however, Delhi’s rhetoric has grown sharper. Modi cut short his trip to Saudi Arabia and vowed “punishment beyond imagination.” His national security advisor Ajit Doval, a man known to have once gone undercover in Kashmir, and Home Minister Amit Shah, another hardliner, are reportedly shaping a muscular response.

Given the symmetry of recent expulsions and suspended ties, many fear India might carry out another cross-border strike, or something more covert, like the rumoured targeted assassinations Delhi allegedly carried out in Pakistan over the last few years. For now, India has kept its cards close while talking tough.

But 2025 is not 2019. Pakistan is far weaker now; politically unstable, economically battered, and facing a rising tide of ethnic insurgencies. Its government may find it harder to downplay an Indian strike without seeming weak. And that increases the risk of miscalculation of a tit-for-tat response that spirals out of control.

Both countries are nuclear powers, and while strategic deterrence has largely held, it remains a terrifying backdrop to any escalation. Both have tested their nuclear weapons. India first, followed by Pakistan, with help from China. Since then, their fragile balance has relied more on mutual fear than any formal deterrence architecture.

Beyond geopolitics, the human toll is immense. Thousands of families, especially those relying on tourism, trade, and cross-border kinship, now face uncertainty. Students, medical patients, businesspeople, all have been caught in the diplomatic crossfire. The border closures and airspace restrictions may cost millions in lost revenue for both nations, already grappling with inflation and slowing growth.

Meanwhile, social media in both countries has turned into a battleground of misinformation and nationalist rage. You only have to pip into India Twitter or Pakistan TikTok to see that every trending hashtag, every viral video, is a reminder that reconciliation remains a distant dream.

It’s too early to know what Delhi’s full response will be, and Islamabad has said it’s ready for anything India throws at it. But one thing is clear: this attack has changed the trajectory. What was a tentative thaw has turned to ice. Unless both governments, perhaps pushed by backchannel diplomacy or international pressure, find a way to de-escalate, the cycle of provocation and reprisal may continue.

I heard someone say that when you hear that India has suspended all visa services to Pakistani nationals “with immediate effect”, and Pakistan has suspended all trade with India, then you know that it can go as extreme as possible.

May we not be in the crossfire of neighbours in acrimony!