Post-Operation Sindoor, why India and Pakistan need a real ‘dhurandhar’

Almost a year has passed since the terrorist massacre of tourists in Kashmir on April 22 and India’s retaliation 16 days later with a military operation against Pakistan, which Delhi blamed for the attack.

Operation Sindoor escalated into a war fought almost entirely in the skies. From the intervening night of May 7 and 8 when India bombed alleged terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and Pakistan, until the afternoon of May 11 when both sides called a ceasefire, the hostilities lasted four days.

All wars tend to leave lasting changes on the ground for the sides involved, and this one was no exception. Previous India-Pakistan encounters led to talks when the hostilities ended, and a long-term dialogue between the two countries. His four-day war has had the opposite effect. It has pushed the two nations further apart.

This article looks at the post-Sindoor dynamics in both countries, and what this means for India-Pakistan relations.

In India, post-Operation Sindoor, relations with Pakistan are defined in terms of a “new normal” of “unending war”. Strategic affairs thinkers close to the establishment hailed the operation as establishing a “new doctrine of response” to cross-border terrorism.

In an address to the nation on the evening of May 12, two days after the ceasefire of...

Read more