India, Pakistan and Afghanistan

The first principle

India's relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan are shaped by one fact: Pakistan has used terrorism as an instrument of state policy against India, and has sought strategic depth in Afghanistan to do so. India's policy towards Pakistan is therefore built on deterrence and the refusal to reward terror with talks, while its policy towards Afghanistan is built on the people, through development, so that Afghan territory is never used against India. Both rest on the same interest: a western frontier that does not export violence into India.

The core

India and Pakistan: wars and agreements

• Partition and the first war (1947 to 1948). Pakistan sent tribal raiders and then its army into Jammu and Kashmir, and the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession to India on 26 October 1947. The ceasefire of January 1949 left part of the state under Pakistan's illegal occupation.
• 1965 and Tashkent. The 1965 war ended with the Tashkent Declaration (January 1966), in which both sides agreed to return to pre war positions.
• 1971 and Simla. The war of December 1971 ended with the creation of Bangladesh and about 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war. The Simla Agreement (July 1972) committed both countries to settle differences bilaterally and by peaceful means, and converted the ceasefire line into the Line of Control (LoC), which neither side is to alter unilaterally.
• Lahore and Kargil (1999). Prime Minister Vajpayee's bus journey led to the Lahore Declaration of February 1999, but within months Pakistani troops occupied heights in Kargil, and India evicted them in Operation Vijay (May to July 1999).
• India's position. Parliament's unanimous resolution of February 1994 declared that the whole of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and that Pakistan must vacate the areas it occupies. India's stand is that terror and talks cannot go together, and that all issues are bilateral, with no role for a third party.

Terrorism and India's changing response

• Restraint (2001 to 2008). After the attack on Parliament (13 December 2001), India mobilised its army in Operation Parakram but did not strike. After the Mumbai attacks of 26 November 2008 by Lashkar e Taiba, India relied on diplomacy and suspended the composite dialogue.
• Calibrated force (2016 and 2019). After the Uri attack (September 2016), the Army carried out surgical strikes on launch pads across the LoC. After the Pulwama attack of 14 February 2019, in which forty Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed in a Jaish e Mohammed attack, the Air Force struck a terrorist camp at Balakot in Pakistan, and India withdrew Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status from Pakistan.
• A new threshold (2025). After terrorists killed 26 people, most of them tourists, at Pahalgam on 22 April 2025, the Cabinet Committee on Security decided that the Indus Waters Treaty would be held in abeyance until Pakistan credibly ends support for cross border terrorism, closed the Attari land border post, and cut back diplomatic staff. On 7 May 2025, in Operation Sindoor, India struck nine terrorist sites in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir; after Pakistani attacks and Indian strikes on Pakistani air bases, the two sides agreed on 10 May 2025, through talks between their Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs), to stop military action. In his address of 12 May 2025 the Prime Minister said that India will answer any terror attack on its own terms, will not bow to nuclear blackmail, and will not distinguish between terrorists and the governments that sponsor them, and government sources said that future terror attacks would be treated as acts of war.

Dimensions

• Political and constitutional. In August 2019 Parliament ended the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and reorganised the state into two Union Territories, which the Supreme Court upheld in December 2023. Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties and suspended bilateral trade in response, and India's position is that these are internal matters.
• Economic. Trade between the two was always small because of Pakistani restrictions, and it has been almost entirely suspended since 2019, so the South Asian market remains far less integrated than it could be.
• People and faith. The Kartarpur Corridor, opened in November 2019, lets Indian pilgrims visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan without a visa. It was one of the few links that survived the breakdown of ties after 2019, though India suspended it in May 2025 during the conflict with Pakistan.
• Water. The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, which gave India the eastern rivers and Pakistan most of the waters of the western rivers, survived three wars; India placed it in abeyance in April 2025 (see the note on the Indus Waters Treaty).
• International pressure. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) kept Pakistan on its grey list of countries with weak controls on terror financing from June 2018 to October 2022, a pressure India pursued. In 2019 the United Nations (UN) listed Masood Azhar, the head of Jaish e Mohammed, as a terrorist after China lifted its hold.
• Strategic. Pakistan's close military ties with China create a two front challenge for India, and its nuclear weapons are used as cover for terror, which India's responses since 2016 have sought to call out as a bluff.

In practice

Afghanistan: from development partner to pragmatic engagement

• Development partnership. Since 2001 India has committed more than three billion dollars to Afghanistan, with projects in every province. The Zaranj Delaram road (2009) linked Afghanistan to the Iranian border, the Parliament building in Kabul opened in 2015, and the Salma Dam in Herat, renamed the Afghan India Friendship Dam, opened in 2016. The Strategic Partnership Agreement of 2011 was Afghanistan's first such agreement with any country.
• The Taliban takeover (August 2021). India evacuated its citizens and closed its embassy. During India's presidency of the UN Security Council that month, Resolution 2593 demanded that Afghan territory not be used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter terrorists.
• Humanitarian aid. India sent wheat, first by road through Pakistan in 2022 and then through the Chabahar port in Iran, along with medicines, vaccines and earthquake relief, insisting that aid reach the Afghan people directly.
• Engagement. India stationed a technical team in Kabul from June 2022, and in October 2025 the Taliban foreign minister visited India, when India announced that it would upgrade its technical mission in Kabul to an embassy. India has not formally recognised the Taliban government.

Connectivity around Pakistan

• Chabahar. Pakistan denies India land transit to Afghanistan, so India built a route through Iran. In May 2024 India Ports Global Limited signed a ten year contract to operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal at Chabahar, India's first long term agreement to manage a port abroad.
• INSTC. The International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), agreed with Iran and Russia in 2000, links Mumbai to Russia through Iran by sea, rail and road, and Chabahar can feed into it. India also joined the Ashgabat Agreement on transit to Central Asia in 2018.

Pakistan and the Taliban

• A changed equation. Pakistan expected a friendly government in Kabul, but the Taliban do not recognise the Durand Line as the border, and Pakistan accuses them of sheltering the Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Border clashes, Pakistani air strikes and the expulsion of Afghan refugees from Pakistan have strained the relationship, which gives India space to engage Kabul.

Issues and way forward

• Terror infrastructure. Groups such as Lashkar e Taiba and Jaish e Mohammed still operate from Pakistan, and the Islamic State Khorasan Province is active in Afghanistan. India's course is deterrence by punishment, pressure through the FATF and UN sanctions lists, and intelligence sharing with partners.
• Narcotics. Afghanistan lies in the Golden Crescent, and drugs move into Punjab and Gujarat by land and sea; stronger maritime surveillance and border technology are needed.
• Engaging Kabul without recognition. India must protect its investments and influence while the Taliban restrict the rights of women and girls; graded engagement tied to counter terrorism assurances and humanitarian access keeps that balance.
• Exposure of Chabahar. United States sanctions on Iran create uncertainty for the port, so India needs firm assurances from partners and alternative routes.
• Dialogue with Pakistan. Any resumption depends on Pakistan ending support for cross border terrorism; until then India keeps channels such as the DGMO hotline open to prevent accidental escalation.

Common confusions

• LoC and the international border. The LoC in Jammu and Kashmir is a military line under the Simla Agreement; the international border runs from Jammu to Gujarat. Neither line marks India's claim, which covers the whole of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
• Tashkent and Simla. Tashkent (1966) followed the 1965 war and was mediated by the Soviet Union; Simla (1972) followed 1971 and made bilateralism the rule.
• Surgical strikes and Balakot. The 2016 strikes were ground raids across the LoC; Balakot (2019) was an air strike inside Pakistan proper.
• Abeyance and abrogation. Placing the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance means India has stopped carrying out its obligations for now; it has not formally withdrawn from the treaty.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: Simla Agreement, bilateralism, Line of Control, Lahore Declaration, cross border terrorism, surgical strikes, Balakot, Operation Sindoor, Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, FATF grey list, Kartarpur Corridor, development partnership, Resolution 2593, Chabahar, INSTC.
• Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction with data: "India has committed more than three billion dollars to Afghanistan's development since 2001, which is why it has kept engaging Kabul even after the Taliban returned in August 2021."
  • Introduction with an agreement: "The Simla Agreement of 1972 committed India and Pakistan to settle all differences bilaterally and peacefully, but Pakistan's use of cross border terrorism has kept that promise unfulfilled."
  • Conclusion: "India's Pakistan policy has moved from restraint to calibrated force, and its message since Operation Sindoor is that the cost of terror will be paid by those who sponsor it."
  • Conclusion: "In Afghanistan, India's goodwill built through development is its main asset, and pragmatic engagement can protect it without endorsing the Taliban's rule."