Beyond deterrence: A roadmap for India-Pakistan dialogue

One year after Operation Sindoor, an important shift is quietly underway in the strategic discourse of South Asia. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Dattatreya Hosabale, in an interview with the Press Trust of India (PTI), said that “India should persist with attempts at a dialogue with Pakistan.” His statement has not only surprised both India and Pakistan but also evoked a series of responses. However, one thing is becoming fairly clear: the rhetoric of military triumph and punitive deterrence is gradually giving way to a more sober recognition— neither India nor Pakistan has succeeded in fundamentally altering the other’s strategic behavior, political resilience, or geopolitical relevance.

Recent commentaries by former Indian High Commissioners to Islamabad, TCA Raghavan and Sharat Sabharwal— alongside responses from Pakistani analysts— reveal not merely disagreement, but convergence on one critical point: perpetual crisis management is not a sustainable framework for relations between two nuclear-armed neighbors. Even among hard-headed realists, there is growing acknowledgement that coercion without diplomacy risks creating an endless cycle of escalation.

The greatest obstacle today is not the absence of diplomatic mechanisms. It is the collapse of political trust and the narrowing of domestic political space on both sides. Years of nationalist mobilization, media polarization, and securitised narratives have made even limited engagement politically risky. Yet history demonstrates that India and Pakistan have often resumed dialogue precisely after periods of severe confrontation— from the post-Kargil ceasefire process to the composite dialogue framework and later backchannel negotiations.

The present moment may once again require a shift from emotional rhetoric to strategic realism.

The first lesson from recent crises is that military signaling alone cannot produce a political settlement. Operation Sindoor may have demonstrated India’s willingness to impose costs, just as Pakistan’s response demonstrated its own deterrent capability. But deterrence can only prevent collapse into full-scale war; it cannot create durable peace. Nor can it resolve underlying disputes, reduce regional instability, or unlock economic potential.

The second lesson is equally important: the international environment has changed. The global war on terror framework that once shaped South Asian diplomacy has receded. Major powers increasingly evaluate states through broader geopolitical calculations rather than single-issue narratives. Pakistan’s role during the 2026 Iran-US crisis illustrated this reality. Islamabad’s ability to maintain simultaneous channels with Iran, the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Egypt and regional actors reaffirmed its continuing geopolitical relevance.

The question, therefore, is how to construct a practical roadmap for dialogue that avoids past failures.

The starting point must be modesty of expectations. One of the greatest weaknesses of earlier India-Pakistan peace initiatives was the tendency to overload dialogue with maximalist ambitions. Sustainable diplomacy between adversarial states rarely begins with grand bargains. It begins with limited, achievable steps that gradually rebuild predictability and confidence. The question is, how to go about it?

The first and most immediate requirement is restoration of sustained communication channels. Even during periods of hostility, military-to-military communication and diplomatic contact are essential for crisis prevention. Both sides should institutionalize regular contact between Directors General of Military Operations and revive structured backchannel diplomacy insulated from media pressures. Quiet diplomacy often succeeds precisely because it allows political flexibility away from public grandstanding.

Second, the 2021 ceasefire understanding along the Line of Control should be reaffirmed and expanded. The ceasefire remains one of the few successful confidence-building measures in recent years. Reducing border tensions directly improves civilian security and lowers the risks of unintended escalation.

Islamabad’s ability to maintain simultaneous channels with Iran, the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Egypt and regional actors reaffirmed its continuing geopolitical relevance.

Asif Durrani-

Third, humanitarian and people-to-people measures should resume without immediately linking them to broader political disputes. Visa liberalization for divided families, medical patients, academics, artists, businessmen and religious pilgrims could help slowly rebuild social space for engagement. Human contact does not solve strategic disputes, but it reduces the dehumanization that prolonged hostility creates.

Fourth, trade offers another practical avenue. Before the collapse of bilateral trade relations, both countries benefited from limited commercial engagement. Resuming selected categories of trade— particularly pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, textiles, and essential goods— would create economic stakeholders in stability. South Asia remains one of the least economically integrated regions in the world, despite enormous geographic advantages.

Fifth, connectivity should form the centerpiece of any long-term regional vision. Pakistan’s geography positions it as a potential bridge linking South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. India’s economic scale and technological capacity could complement this connectivity architecture rather than remain isolated from it. Energy corridors, transit agreements, and regional infrastructure projects would create mutual economic incentives to reduce conflict.

Importantly, neither side needs to abandon core political positions to pursue these measures. The history of diplomacy shows that states often cooperate pragmatically even while disputes remain unresolved.

The issue of Jammu and Kashmir will inevitably remain central. However, expecting an immediate final settlement is unrealistic under current political conditions. A more practical approach would involve restoring earlier understandings centered on soft borders, cross-Line-of-Control interaction, economic cooperation, and incremental stabilization.

Counterterrorism cooperation must also be part of any serious dialogue. Structured intelligence-sharing on specific transnational threats could eventually become an area of limited but meaningful cooperation.

Political leadership, however, remains the decisive variable. While Prime Minister Modi would need a plausible justification to resume the dialogue, Pakistan will also have to prepare the ground for an uninterrupted dialogue.

The most dangerous illusion in South Asia today is the belief that perpetual hostility is somehow manageable indefinitely. The region now operates under conditions of advanced military technologies, cyber warfare, drones, compressed decision-making timelines, and nuclear deterrence. Future crises may escalate far more rapidly than in previous decades, leaving little room for de-escalation.

Peace between India and Pakistan may remain distant. But structured coexistence is achievable. The objective should not be romantic reconciliation; it should be stable realism.

That process can only begin when both sides recognize a fundamental truth: geography has made them permanent neighbors, but strategic maturity can still determine what kind of neighbors they choose to become.

-The writer is Pakistan’s former Special Representative for Afghanistan. He has also been an ambassador to Iran and the UAE and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI).