New Delhi: India’s launch of Operation Sindoor after the killing of 26 civilians in Jammu & Kashmir’s Pahalgam has revived not just national security concerns, but also memories of the economic toll of past wars with Pakistan.

From 1947 to 1999, India fought four full-scale wars and several limited conflicts with its belligerent western neighbour. Each conflict/ war has followed a now-familiar arc — loss of lives, bloated defence budgets, and GDP growth hit.

Conflict has consistently forced India to dig deeper into its military coffers. SIPRI data shows how defence expenditure spikes during wartime. During the 1965 War, the defence spending rose from Rs 3,935 crore to Rs 4,665 crore. During the Indo-Pak war of 1971, the defence spending rose from Rs 5,805 crore to Rs 6,684 crore. In the 1984 Siachen conflict, expenditure jumped again, and during the 1999 Kargil War, the spending........

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