5 min readMay 22, 2026 06:21 AM IST
First published on: May 22, 2026 at 06:21 AM IST
RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale’s remark that India should not “shut the doors” on dialogue with Pakistan has triggered predictable reactions. Every cycle of Pakistan-backed terrorism in India is eventually followed by debate over whether “talks” must resume, or whether negotiations merely give Islamabad diplomatic oxygen without securing meaningful change in behaviour or intent.
The problem, however, is not with talks per se. States talk even during wars. The real issue is whether dialogue is embedded within a coherent strategic framework, or whether it degenerates into the ritual of “talks for talks’ sake”. India’s history with Pakistan demonstrates overwhelmingly that the latter has been the dominant pattern. India and Pakistan have sustained one of the longest-running and least productive diplomatic engagements in modern history, from Tashkent and Simla to Lahore, Agra, Sharm el-Sheikh and the composite dialogue process. Pakistan has used negotiations tactically while sustaining strategic hostility through terrorism, proxy warfare and military coercion, with some of the most dramatic peace initiatives coinciding with active, often escalating, terrorism.
The proposition that “we must keep talking” is strategically meaningless unless accompanied by answers to harder questions. What are the objectives? What are the conditions? What leverage does India possess, and what is its understanding of Pakistan’s strategic calculus? Above all, how do talks fit within India’s larger security doctrine?
Following the Pahalgam massacre and Operation Sindoor, the Indian government publicly declared that “every act of terrorism is an act of war”, while simultaneously describing Operation Sindoor as the “new normal”. Such declarations are not rhetorical flourishes to be invoked in moments of outrage and quietly abandoned thereafter. If terrorism constitutes an act of war, then the sponsoring state is an active belligerent employing proxy instruments. If retaliatory military action constitutes the “new normal”, India has ostensibly moved beyond the earlier framework of strategic restraint.
These formulations potentially represent a profound doctrinal shift. But doctrines cannot coexist indefinitely with contradictory impulses. If India now seeks renewed talks with Islamabad, the obvious question arises: How are such talks reconciled with the “act of war” doctrine? Has Pakistan ceased sponsorship of terrorism? Has there been any demonstrable dismantling of jihadi infrastructure? Has Rawalpindi abandoned proxy warfare? There is little evidence of such a transformation.
Indeed, the trajectory of Pakistan-backed terrorism suggests adaptation rather than abandonment. Pakistan has repeatedly recalibrated its methods in response to Indian and international pressure. Large-scale attacks alternate with calibrated infiltration, targeted killings, narco-terrorism, radicalisation networks, drone-based weapons deliveries and ostensibly deniable local proxies. Tactical fluctuations are repeatedly misread in India as evidence of “peace opportunities” when they are often mere operational adjustments. Crucially, the absence of talks can itself constitute strategic communication. Refusal to negotiate signals that the adversary does not satisfy the minimum conditions necessary for meaningful engagement. No serious strategic community can treat negotiation as a virtue in itself. Negotiations are tools subordinate to policy. Where policy is absent, talks become theatre.
Critics also raise an uncomfortable question regarding Hosabale’s remarks: Is any prospective outreach to Pakistan a sovereign strategic choice, or does it emerge under external pressure, particularly from the US? The distinction is critical. If talks emerge from a considered Indian assessment of national objectives, embedded within a larger strategy addressing terrorism, escalation management and the Pakistan-China axis, they may possess coherence. But if engagement is externally induced, security concerns are subordinated to external imperatives.
The Pakistan-China axis fundamentally alters the strategic environment within which any India-Pakistan dialogue must now be evaluated. Pakistan is no longer just a troublesome neighbour pursuing revisionist objectives through asymmetric warfare. It has become an increasingly integrated component of a broader Chinese regional strategy directed against India. Military cooperation, technological integration, intelligence sharing and coordinated geopolitical positioning have deepened steadily. Any engagement with Pakistan divorced from this larger strategic reality would amount to self-deception.
The central weakness of India’s Pakistan policy has been the tendency to oscillate between rhetorical maximalism and theatrical diplomacy, without constructing a durable strategic framework. Periods of outrage produce declarations of resolve; external pressure generates calls for talks. What remains absent is clarity regarding desired end states and pathways to achieve these.
There is no virtue in perpetual hostility. But the burden of demonstrating credibility for dialogue rests overwhelmingly on Pakistan’s abandonment of terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Until India defines clearly what conditions justify engagement, what costs follow continued sponsorship of terrorism, and how negotiations fit into a broader doctrine confronting the combined Pakistan-China challenge, any return to talks would be just another iteration of a failed and exhausting cycle.
The writer is founding member and executive director, Institute for Conflict Management
