What Happened at Pulwama and Balakot

Geopolitical tensions in South Asia between India and Pakistan have escalated once again, only a few months before India heads to the polls for a vital general election. The  cause for the latest escalation was a terrorist attack on Indian paramilitary forces in the town of Pulwama, located in the Indian-administered part of the disputed region of Kashmir near the state capital of Srinagar. More than 40 members of the Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CPRF) were killed when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) conducted by a lone attacker struck a bus carrying the CPRF personnel.

The result was the single deadliest attack against Indian soldiers in Kashmir in 30 years. While India blamed Pakistan, Pakistan responded in its usual manner, with its foreign ministry spokesman tweeting that Indian accusations were part of “a familiar pattern of India blaming Pakistan instantly after such incidents without any investigation.”

With elections in India right around the corner, it would have been difficult for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to retaliate, especially as many in the media and security establishment wanted India to respond “like Israel,” presumably meaning to strike back hard using military force. Their wish was granted on the morning of February 26 when the Indian Air Force (IAF) bombed a militant camp near the town of Balakot in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Indian officials referred to the operation as a “pre-emptive strike” to deter further militant attacks. According to Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale, a “large number” of militants – up to 300, per secondary reports – were killed. Pakistan, perhaps seeking a way to avoid escalation, claimed that its jets had forced Indian planes to turn back and drop their payload on an empty area.

The Pakistan-based Sunni-extremist terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) claimed responsibility for the Pulwama attack, in what represents a sharp escalation of the sophistication of attacks against Indian soldiers in the region. According to The Diplomat’s Ankit Panda, the Pulwama attack was “the first time JeM – or a similar Pakistan-based militant outfit – has managed to use a VBIED against Indian forces. Previous attacks – including the 2016 Uri and Pathankot attacks – featured attackers armed with small arms and explosives like grenades.”

Tensions in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, which is majority Muslim, have escalated since 2016, when Indian security forces killed Burhan Wani, a charismatic, young local commander of the Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen. Many Kashmiris are frustrated by the continued heavy-handed Indian military presence in their region, which has led to high death tolls in clashes between militants and Indian forces. Moreover, Kashmir has not had an elected government since June 2018, when the state government collapsed after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also rules India at the central level, left a coalition with a local party, the People's Democratic Party (PDP). Perhaps, seeing an opportunity to escalate tensions, Pakistan permitted, or turned a blind eye to, JeM’s plans to strike. Nonetheless, despite Pakistan’s ostensible support of Kashmiri self-determination, most Kashmiris do not appreciate Pakistani interference in their affairs, and certainly do not want to join Pakistan (in previous polls, most Kashmiris overwhelmingly desire independence).

The role of Pakistan's security establishment in the attack is unclear, though it is obvious that even if it did not actively encourage or sponsor the attack, it certainly took no action against the JeM presence in its territory; JeM’s leadership is based in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Umair Jamal, a correspondent for The Diplomat, argues that “from Pakistan’s perspective, it doesn’t make sense why the country’s military and civilian leadership would want to undermine their own efforts of rapprochement with India… it cannot be denied that some elements that aim to undermine Pakistan and India’s ties are clearly at work.” On the other hand, a scholar of Pakistan, C. Christine Fair, has made the case that JeM is “the sword arm of the [Pakistan’s intelligence services’] proxy war” against Afghanistan and India. Writing in The Quint, she argues that “Pakistan knows that Prime Minister Modi is facing a tighter race than he did five years ago and there is little doubt that Pakistan wants to ensure another Modi victory.” She continues that “the Pakistanis have given Modi a powerful opportunity to flex his chest muscles and bolster his support which has waivered [sic] in recent months.”

Pakistan clearly has a problem with terrorism against its neighbors emanating out of its borders, and not only against India. In an uncannily similar case to Pulwama, 27 members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were slain in a suicide attack in the country’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province earlier in February. Iran accused the Jaish al-Adl militant group, which is based in Pakistan, of executing the attack. According to Al Jazeera, Iran’s “Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said… that Iran ‘explicitly conveyed’ to Pakistani Ambassador Rafat Masoud that Tehran expects Islamabad and its military ‘to make a serious and decisive action’” against the Jaish al-Adl. After the attack, the reporter noted, “Iran's deputy foreign minister held a last-minute meeting with Sushma Swaraj, the foreign minister of India.”

While India (and Iran) threatened retaliation, it was unclear for several days before the strike at Balakot whether this would include military action. In the days immediately after the attack, India increased cooperation with Iran, attempted to persuade China to pressure Pakistan to round up the JeM leadership, and withdrew Pakistan’s most favored nation status for trade, leading to a hike in custom fees on goods by 200 percent.

Unlike rural voters, India’s rising, nationalist middle class is more conscious of national security issues, and demanded a robust response to the Pulwama attack. Since rhetorically the ruling BJP has always taken a tough stance against terrorism and security, it would be hard-pressed not to respond publicly before the elections; and having done so, it must publicize its actions. Since the BJP has underperformed on many of its economic and developmental promises, it must bolster its nationalist credentials. Unfortunately, as a byproduct, some figures on the right have been accused of stirring up mobs to attack ethnic Kashmiris throughout India.

India’s military strike against Balakot is significant because it demonstrates India’s willingness to bring to bear robust force in defense of its security interests. Many Indians now see India as a great power and believe that, commensurate with that status, India should take out its enemies with substantial firepower, if necessary. The Modi government certainly did its best to show it means business: The air strikes against Balakot are the first that India has launched across the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border that divides Kashmir, since the 1971 war between India and Pakistan. Moreover, by attacking Balakot, which is located beyond Pakistani-administered Kashmir, India did not even claim to attack forces in its “own” occupied territory; rather, it knowingly impugned on Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty in the service of its defense. This represents a new assertiveness in India’s defense posture.

The BJP will likely benefit at the polls from such a robust response. Before the Balakot strike, a spokesman from India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, had tweeted derisively, “This is the 18th big terror attack in the last 5 years under this Modi Govt. When will the 56-inch chest [Modi] reply?” India’s main opposition party’s taunting of the BJP over how it would respond to the Pulwama attack was bad optics. The politicization of the tragedy drew a negative response from the media and India’s influencers; it was construed as immature and unpatriotic. While the Congress has rightly criticized the BJP for many of its mistakes, on national security and on other domestic issues it offers little in the way of novel and constructive ideas. Oddly, if the Congress’ purpose was to goad Modi into retaliatory action against Pakistan, it succeeded in a way not especially beneficial to its own interests. Politically speaking, the Congress now has no choice but to support the Indian military strike ordered by its rival, the BJP.

While the Balakot strike demonstrates that India will no longer tolerate attacks against its forces without retaliation, such retaliatory actions are at most a way for India to contain, rather than solve, the problem of cross-border militancy emanating from Pakistan. However, for regional security to ultimately improve, the answer lies with Pakistan, not domestic policies in India. Obviously, while there were clearly lapses in Indian security for the Pulwama attack to have occured, it is important for Pakistan to change its behavior. Its economy is barely afloat, and it has sought assistance from its allies Saudi Arabia and China to avoid running out of cash. It can scarcely afford to provoke India. On the other hand, by building closer ties with India, Pakistan can foster the development of mutually-beneficial trade. If the military and Pakistan’s new prime minister, Imran Khan, really seek rapprochement with India, they will not shield JeM and other terrorist groups against sanctions and dismantlement; in fact, they will facilitate both.

What is required by Pakistan’s neighbors is not only a tactical shift in Pakistani support for, or tolerance of, militant groups within its borders, but a strategic and doctrinal shift in how it views terrorist groups – not as extensions of its strategic and military goals, but as dangerous militants whose actions can destabilize the entire region and invite retaliation that could potentially threaten the Pakistani state itself.