Tensions Continue to Rise Between India and Pakistan

What Happened?

Pakistan’s Minister of Information, Attaullah Tarar, posted on X late Tuesday night, there is credible evidence that India plans to take military action against Pakistan in the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. The warning came shortly after officials from India accused Pakistan of supporting the recent attack on tourists in Kashmir. 

The attack near the tourist town of Pahalgam was the deadliest attack on civilians in two decades in Kashmir. There have been several limited exchanges of gunfire between the armed forces of Pakistan and India since the attack.

Why it Matters

In 2016 and 2019, India responded to similar attacks in Kashmir with military action against Pakistan. The statement from Pakistan’s information minister is unusual, because typically the government of Pakistan does not share that type of warning with the public. But the fact that the warning statement about a future attack from India came from the Ministry of Information and not Pakistan’s Army is significant.

Pakistan’s Army is the most powerful and important institution in Pakistan, while the Ministry of Information has rarely played a robust role in decision making by the Pakistani government. That doesn’t mean the information about a future attack from India posted by Mr. Tarar isn’t credible. But had the warning come from Pakistan’s Army, it would have been caused to take the claims much more seriously. 

In the Indian controlled portion of Kashmir, local authorities have detained over one thousand people since the attack on Pahalgam. Almost all of those who were detained were Muslim, and the attack in Pahalgam could intensify anti-Muslim sentiment, not just in Kashmir but across the rest of India as well. In previous incidents where the attackers were Muslim and the victims Hindu, as was the case in Pahalgam, rioting and anti-Muslim violence broke out in dozens of cities in India. In some cases, Indian security officials not only looked the other way, but they also participated.

The Trump Administration has been trying to calm India and Pakistan, with Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, planning to speak to senior officials from both countries in the next few days. Those efforts will likely be directed towards preventing an armed conflict between India and Pakistan, but internal sectarian violence is unlikely to be discussed or prevented. Previous administrations, including the first Trump Administration, said little and did less to try to reduce sectarian violence in either country. 

How it Affects You

Pakistan and India are both nuclear powers who share a physical border. During the Cold War, American and Soviet officials would have had ten to fifteen minutes to detect and respond to a potential nuclear attack because they were thousands of miles apart. But because India and Pakistan are neighbors, they would only have two or three minutes to respond to a missile attack. The closer distance and shorter decision-making time increases the risks of a major conflict.

India and Pakistan have been enemies for a long time, and though a limited conventional conflict is certainly possible, a larger war involving nuclear weapons remains a possibility but a remote one.