Discuss the shift of India’s foreign policy towards Pakistan in the light of Pathankot incident. (2016, 15 Marks)
On 2 January 2016, Jaish-e-Mohammed militants attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station, killing seven security personnel, a week after Narendra Modi’s unannounced stop in Lahore. The attack became the hinge between two Pakistan policies: dialogue with terrorism managed alongside it, and isolation with costs imposed.
Before Pathankot: engagement and restraint
- For nearly three decades India’s approach was defensive: stop infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC) and seek a negotiated settlement.
- After Mumbai (2008), Shivshankar Menon (Choices, 2016) records that he wanted visible retaliation but concluded that strategic restraint served India better at the time.
- Modi invited Nawaz Sharif to his swearing-in (2014); the NSAs met in Bangkok and a Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue was announced in Islamabad in December 2015.
The immediate response: a last test of engagement
- Foreign secretaries’ talks were postponed, not cancelled.
- In an unprecedented step, a Pakistani Joint Investigation Team visited the airbase in March 2016; India’s investigators got no reciprocal access and nothing followed.
- India’s bid to list Masood Azhar at the UN Security Council’s sanctions committee met a Chinese technical hold.
The shift
The failed investigation was read as naivety, and Uri (September 2016) completed the turn. The policy now has two prongs:
- No structured dialogue while Pakistan uses terrorism as state policy: “terror and talks cannot go together”.
- A declared right to retaliate against the places and actors behind cross-border terrorism, starting with the surgical strikes of 29 September 2016.
The premise is that the Pakistan Army, not elected governments, owns the Kashmir file. C. Christine Fair (Fighting to the End, 2014) argues the army is a revisionist institution for which not losing is winning, so talks with civilians cannot change behaviour; India must create leverage by imposing costs where the army feels them. Supporting instruments followed:
- Isolation: the 2016 Islamabad SAARC summit boycotted, BIMSTEC promoted, the FATF campaign, MFN withdrawn (2019).
- Rhetoric: Modi named Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan on Independence Day 2016.
- Escalating rungs: Balakot (2019); after Pahalgam, the trade ban, the Indus treaty “abeyance” and Operation Sindoor (May 2025). Modi’s address of 12 May 2025 set the doctrine: a response on India’s terms, no tolerance of nuclear blackmail, and no distinction between terrorists and their state sponsors.
Assessment
- India moved from deterrence by denial to deterrence by punishment and Thomas C. Schelling’s compellence (Arms and Influence, 1966), aiming to raise costs beneath the nuclear threshold, where the stability–instability paradox had let proxy war go unpunished.
- Gains: credibility restored, a lower threshold for Indian action, wider acceptance of India’s case; Azhar was listed in May 2019.
- Limits: attacks continued (Uri, Pulwama, Pahalgam), the army’s domestic standing grew, and the policy has no defined endpoint.
Conclusion
Pathankot ended India’s last serious attempt at engagement, replacing “dialogue despite terror” with “no dialogue until terror ends“. The shift has restored credibility but not yet changed Pakistan’s calculus. Quiet channels such as the DGMO line and crisis back-channels should be kept alive so that punishment has an exit.