On the ongoing military conflict with Pakistan
- Ananth Krishna
- May 10
- 4 min read
Some thoughts as tensions between India and Pakistan face-off in a military conflict. What prompted me to write this is some of the conversations around “deescalating the conflict” or those conversations around war benefitting politicians/elites and so on. I believe these folks are ignorant of the circumstances in which the conflict has arisen, or outright bad-faith. This is of course those in the former category.
As I write this, there is some conversation on whether India is fighting a ‘war’ with Pakistan at the moment (Evening of 09 May, 2025). The current spate of conflict obviously fits the broader definition (“armed conflict between armed forces of nations”) and it is certainly not even a limited conflict like Kargil (1999) which was centred around the eponymous district in Ladakh. This is the first time in the memory of a majority of us [Indians] that air sirens and blackouts were initiated. The sight of Pakistani drones being shot down by our Air defence systems across the International Boundary and Line of Control (LoC) was reminiscent of visuals from Israel.
These visuals are a reminder that the western neighbour is not a normal nation-state that is interested in peaceful co-existence. It is a clear, overt sign of the fact that Pakistan is a rogue terror state. They have directly and indirectly fuelled an insurgency that has led to thousands of deaths - of civilians and military and paramilitary personnel.
They have shielded and protected multiple terrorist masterminds, and to date actively shield those who are proscribed as terrorists by the United States or even by the United Nations Security Council sanctions committee. Just two days ago, Pakistani Army Officers attended funeral prayers that were led by Hafiz Abdur Rauf - someone that has been proscribed as a terrorist for being part of Lakshar-E-Tayyiba (LET) by the US.
Not only that, those who died in these attacks, presumably LET cadre were draped in the Pakistani flag. That UN banned terror organisations Jaish-E-Mohammad (JEM) and LET have been acting with impunity or active state aid. I won’t go into all of history but the fact is that Pakistan pursues terror and terror groups as a matter of state policy against India.
The incidents of outright terror attacks have doubtlessly reduced in the past decade, but our troops and fellow citizens are victims of Pakistan’s machinations. This is a low intensity conflict that we have overtly not felt since Kargil. But that does not make of it any less of a conflict. This conflict goes in and out of our mainstream consciousness. In 2016, 2019 and now since 22nd April 2025 (date of the Pahalgam Terror Attacks) the presence of this terror-state on our western boundary has come into focus again. Each time India has taken action to respond to the terror attacks launched, masterminded and supported by our neighbour. Would the current conflict end the sponsorship of terror by Pakistan? I don’t know. But the least we can do is stop pretending that we are the ones in some fashion creating the situation for the aggression. We aren’t.
This is where those who are calling for “deescalation” are fundamentally misguided. You have an audience on this side of the border for it, but the other side won’t be listening to you at all. From the get-go, we have gone about this in the most precise manner we could. When we launched Operation Sindoor, we specifically targeted non-military, non-civilian infrastructure, i.e., infrastructure used by non-state actors that are engaged in terrorism. As illustrated above, some of them were UN-proscribed terror organisations. And we have taken great pains to again and again mention that we are committed to “non-escalation” provided the other side does the same. The provided part is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there, mind you.
There are those who put up Instagram posts and stories saying that posts like mine or those that are war-mongering. Sure, you could say that. But the truth is that this is not a war we have chosen to start. It is something that Pakistan has imposed on us. To believe otherwise is just an outright denial of reality. You can be a pacifist, a conscientious objector or whatever it is, but to believe that we chose this conflict is just delulu (delusion). Those who post those edgy memes about “those who don’t know the cost of war” or go on about war not benefiting the “common people” or whatever it is that your misguided Marxist understanding of the world is, it would be good to stop being smug about your own world view and beliefs and just look at the reality of what your fellow citizens have been grappling with for years if not decades. Some humility would be good.
Jai Hind! Jai Hind ki Sena!
PS: Yes, some of that was righteous indignation at some folks on Social Media. Some of it is a rant that has been brewing me since the events began. Maybe I could use a bit of humility myself to be so presumptuous to write this, but here we are. I don’t know what will become of this current escalation of the conflict, but may the gods bless us, our nation and our forces.