Beneath the rhetoric, India and Pakistan find room for cooperation

Global Southasia (formerly Sapan News) is republishing this piece, with permission, as a public service initiative in the interest of making such views more accessible and to promote cross-border understanding. See the Press Statement: Access is not a threat: A call to lift reciprocal news bans in India and Pakistan. The article below first appeared in the Hindu, titled ‘It is not all bad between India and Pakistan’. Please credit the original publication and Global Southasia when sharing or republishing.

Article below republished from the Hindu

It is not all bad between India and Pakistan

Conflict has made headlines, but quiet cooperation has also shaped India-Pakistan relations

By Tara Kartha 

Ever since a letter written by 117 eminent Pakistanis and Indians emerged in the public domain, an acrimonious debate has begun on whether India should reopen dialogue with its neighbour, with most pointing to the inability of Pakistan to ever live peacefully with India. While this is understandable in the aftermath of the Pahalgam horror (2025), the fact remains that India and Pakistan have, on many occasions, shown far greater circumspection than their western counterparts and have also quietly cooperated to a surprising degree. Clearly, there is potential for cooperation. Equally, however, this potential has been hit progressively harder by terrorism.

Wars, yet with restraint

Every foreign correspondent writing on the India-Pakistan relationship, will frame it with reference to their three wars (1947, 1965, 1971). But few realise that during all three wars, both sides made efforts not to bomb each other’s cities and civilian spaces. But there were some targets, such as the church at Ambala that was hit in 1965 as Pakistan tried to target the air base. Military historian Rana Chhina notes that the only serious attack on civilian areas was at Chhearta, hours after a ceasefire was called, but originally meant to target a key radar station in Amritsar. Even in 1971, both sides restricted attacks to military targets, including oil storage sites. Official sources in India note that military casualties for all three wars at 8,211, while Pakistan’s broad figures point to some 15,000. Sadly, no credible sources are available for civilian casualties, though accounts of the war show life going on ‘courageously’ in Pakistani towns, with the same fortitude reported from Amritsar, a flash point in all major wars. Consider that Allied air bombing during the Second World War killed an estimated 3,00,000-6,00,000 civilians in German cities under the new concept of “area bombing”. Attacks against just Dresden, with hardly any military value, killed 25,000. Then there was the bombing of Tokyo that killed 1,00,000. Allied planes even mined the seas to deny fishing in “Operation Starvation’. 

Germany was hardly any better, killing thousands but its crimes have been recorded. Those by the West are hard to find, but new ‘doctrines’ of both held human life cheap. In contrast, India and Pakistan militaries kept to a battlefield concept. Once terrorism came into play, all these niceties were set aside. But even as Pakistan suffered terror attacks, including two attempts on General Musharraf’s life, in 2003, a third was foiled quietly with Indian intelligence support; that tacitly it acknowledged strong Pakistani action against terrorist groups. True, this was in the aftermath of 9/11, where Islamabad was told to cooperate or ‘be bombed back into the Stone Age’ according to the General.

Fragile bridges

In yet another instance, after 26/11, President Asif Ali Zardari, instructed his ISI Chief General Shuja Pasha to visit Delhi and cooperate in the investigation. This was flatly refused by the then Chief, General Kayani. A year later U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden was telling the British that Mr. Zardari was afraid of ‘being taken out’. Later, the ‘Memogate’ scandal had Mr. Zardari’s fervent appeal for help against the generals.

Later, Nawaz Sharif reached out as well, being the first to congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and attending his inaugural in 2014. Mr. Modi then made a surprise visit to Raiwind for a Sharif family wedding in December 2015. In January 2016, the Pathankot attack happened. This time, Islamabad registered a case for investigation. Less than a year later, Mr. Sharif himself was forced out of office on corruption charges that were never proven. Mr. Modi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh all invested significant political capital in reaching out to Pakistan. All three faced failure, with Manmohan Singh particularly reviled for his efforts.

Then came the 2005 nuclear confidence-building agreement, which still holds, with the last meeting held in January 2026. In contrast, arms control agreements between Russia and the U.S. have collapsed. The agreement was tested on March 9, 2022, when India acknowledged that a technical malfunction during routine maintenance led to the accidental firing of a missile into Pakistan. No damage was reported, and Delhi ordered a high-level inquiry. While Prime Minister Imran Khan and politicians reacted strongly, Gen. Qamar Bajwa’s response showed notable restraint. Gen. Bajwa also advocated using Pakistan’s geo- economic potential by opening trade corridors with India, possibly due to the country’s economic crisis. However, most remarkably, even as India faced Chinese incursions in Galwan, both countries reaffirmed their ceasefire commitment during Gen. Bajwa’s tenure, despite the earlier abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.

There are many more instances of cooperation, though not all are publicly recorded. The constant point is that relations deteriorated sharply once terrorism began, initially targeting the military and more recently civilians, as seen in the horrific Pahalgam attack. Pakistan has suffered further as groups it once supported, such as the Taliban, turned against it.

The path to cooperation

In 2025, terrorism rose by 34% amid growing unrest in Occupied Kashmir, the tribal areas and Balochistan. Years of military rule have weakened state institutions. Yet, cooperation remains possible in areas such as glacial melt, stubble-burning alternatives and particularly narcotics trafficking, an area where both countries have previously worked together. The key step is for Rawalpindi to demonstrate clearly an end to its support for terrorism. That could even open the way for a renegotiation of the Indus Waters Treaty to mutual benefit.

Tara Kartha is former Director, National Security Council Secretariat

This article was first published in the Hindu and is reproduced here with permission. 

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