Pahalgam attack was not just an India-Pakistan issue, there is also a third player on the board.

This is probably one of those moments when a decision of a person will determine the direction of the future of India and perhaps the world. How to respond to the terrorist attack on tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi alone has to take this decision. The Prime Minister has insisted that the terrorists and the conspirators behind it will be punished “more than their imagination”. He has also pledged for a decisive battle against terrorism. The Indus Water Treaty has been postponed as an immediate response and diplomatic relations with Pakistan have been reduced. This response is measured and if borrowing phrases from defense experts, then the strategy of non-non-kinetic warfare is seen. Suspending the Indus Water Treaty of 1960 is a tough step, it was not postponed even between several conflicts between the two countries, including the 1971 war. The seriousness of this diplomatic answer can be gauged from the fact that Pakistan immediately called it a war action and threatened to suspend the 1972 Shimla agreement.

Will be a bigger answer than Balakot?

It is expected that the Prime Minister will order a major military action that would be bigger than the surgical strike in 2016 “and the attack on Balakot terror camps in 2019. The previous two reactions were very different from the military actions in the past. Both of them were very effective but they were completed quietly. Now the ability to repeat the strategy will be reduced in the condition of reiterating the opponents and the impressions will be shocked. Apart from this, India did not choose the path of full scale as it will weaken it financially. India has become the fifth largest economy in the world with GDP of about 4.5 trillion, which is 12 times bigger than Pakistan.

Before that, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh quietly uprooted many terrorist networks that have been rooted in the country and cut off their air supply from abroad. Moving beyond that, the Modi government developed close diplomat and intelligence relations with West Asian countries, who were once friends of Pakistan. Due to this, the avenues of financial and physical help of Pakistan’s terrorist network were closed. Today it is very dependent on China.

Changing rules

In an interview with Karan Thapar on April 28, Najam Sethi, former editor of the Friday Times and a politician for some time, said that this issue is no longer about Pakistan and India. There is a third player, China, which has a lot of investment in Pakistan and can go to any extent to protect its interests. Sethi was talking about the $ 62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is an important part of China’s Global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Sethi indicated that China would give military support to Pakistan in the event of India’s attack.

About 43 projects of about $ 25 billion have been completed in CPEC. Nevertheless, it is surrounded by unrest in Balochistan, where the attacks of separatists have paralyzed economic activities. It was expected that CPEC’s Shopis Gwadar Port would become the trade entrance of China and Pakistan for West and Central Asia. China wanted to reduce its dependence on Malacca Strait through Gwadar Port, but currently a ‘white elephant’ is made, that is, the expenses have also been enough and there is no separate benefit.

CPEC has been stopped due to local protests and separatist attacks. The attacks on it were constantly, fatal and adventurous. The most adventurous attack took place on 11 March 2025, when the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) hijacked the passenger train carrying more than 400 passengers. Although security forces took the train under control after several raids, but in the meantime many people died.

Soon after Chaudhary’s comment, in an interview with Sama TV, former editor Sethi said that India changed the rules of the game after the Mumbai attacks. The new rule also included cross -border attacks and Pakistan will do the same. Sethi said, “This means taking the war to Afghanistan.” He said that Pakistan will target Bla and Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) camps in Afghanistan. It will also use strategic options, as India did after the 2008 attacks. He said, the most obvious option was “opening taps in Kashmir” in Kashmir, and said that Pakistan should learn from India’s strategy and “aggressive rescue”, which is a word taken from the dictionary of India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Two weeks ago, Pakistani Army chief Aseem Munir read the blind speech. Keeping this in view, the Pahalgam attack appears to be the first point of the tap.

After all, why is China supporting Pakistan?

There is no surprise that China has strongly supported Pakistan. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said, “China has always supported Pakistan in anti -terrorism action. As a staunch friend and evergreen strategic partner, China fully understands Pakistan’s proper security concerns, supporting Pakistan in protecting sovereignty and security interests.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry also said that China supports the “fair investigation” of the incident.

Pakistan has demanded an international inquiry into the Pahalgam attack, which effectively means that it wants to internationalize the Kashmir issue and withdraw the diplomatic profit of India after 1971. It was said in the Shimla Treaty that Pakistan cannot internationalize any issue with India, that is, both countries will sit among themselves and settle any dispute, no one will go to any international platform. Pakistan is trying to open the door to internationalization of Kashmir by threatening to suspend this agreement. The ban on this agreement will also change the status of the international border, known as the Line of Control (LOC).

Suspend the Indus Water Treaty

The suspension of the Indus Water Treaty is likely to promote the ongoing protests in Sindh. An ambitious project of $ 3.3 billion was formed to carry water from the Indus to the drought -affected areas. It was supported by the army but still there has been widespread opposition to the project, as the people of Sindh believe that this will increase the lack of water in their province. The project revived provincial tension between Sindh and Punjab and protests have stalled the country. The government has said that it will temporarily stop the project.

Nevertheless, none of these will be considered enough. There are indications that the government is considering running any military or intelligence operation. Pakistan is expecting this and is also preparing. India probably wants to depend on its diplomatic strength to manage the results of its action. Under no circumstances does it look far away.

(Dinesh Narayanan is a Delhi -based journalist and the author of ‘The RSS and the Making of the Deep Nation’. He originally written this article for NDTV.com in English. It has been translated here in Hindi. It is the personal views of the author. NDTV India does not have to agree with them.)

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