Beyond deterrence: A roadmap for India-Pakistan dialogue

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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........

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