The Shashi Tharoor Update Greetings! Before we dive into the routine recap of my writings, I would like to share with much delight the news of the release of my latest book, Our Living Constitution: A Concise Introduction and Commentary (published by Aleph Book Company). Although there have been numerous studies and interpretations of the Constitution, there is a dearth of accessible short books for intelligent lay readers who want to familiarize themselves with its essential elements, history, and immeasurable grandeur: Our Living Constitution seeks to fill that gap. For a glimpse, see excerpts from the book in The Times of India and Scroll, and to purchase your copy, head to this Amazon link or the nearest bookstore near you! Now, on to my five latest columns: In my Project Syndicate column earlier this month, I focused on the tensions simmering between Pakistan and the Taliban. Pakistan spent decades nurturing, sheltering, arming, training, and financing the Taliban, which it viewed as a convenient instrument for exerting control over Afghanistan and achieving “strategic depth” against India. But as Dr. Frankenstein discovered, you cannot always control the monsters you create. In my latest, I enumerate the lessons from Operation Sindoor. India’s air strikes within Pakistani territory proved its capacity to execute swift, targeted, and calculated military operations when appropriate, and to dismantle Pakistan’s terror infrastructure with precision. It also sent a clear message: any future provocations will be met with a full-scale conventional response. In The Week, I italicise the need to help Kashmir bounce back in the face of adversity. The tragic event in Pahalgam has cast a long shadow over the valley’s future, with reports indicating that 60-90 per cent of tourist bookings across Kashmir have been cancelled. The government must seize this moment, enhancing security arrangements without indulging in measures that inconvenience ordinary citizens. By striking the right balance, confidence can be restored, tourists will return, and Kashmir’s story of revival can continue unabated. In The Hindu, I highlight the need for political bipartisanship in the wake of crises like the recent Pahalgam terror attack. True political leadership demands statesmanship over populism, clarity over chaos. If our lawmakers recognise this imperative, they will understand that safeguarding India’s security is not a party matter but a collective responsibility. In moments of grief and crisis, let bipartisanship be the force that unites us — not just in words, but in action. The promise of a secure, stable, and resilient India depends on it. Finally, my NDTV column argues that foreign policy is not just high-table talk, but an activity with very real implications for each and every citizen. Far from an abstract intellectual exercise, foreign policy is a potent and pervasive force; one that directly and profoundly impacts our collective security, shapes our individual economic realities, and sculpts India's very identity and influence on the world stage. To ignore its reach is to navigate the complexities of the 21st century with our eyes closed. Each article can be read through the hyperlinks connected above. Additionally, the complete text of each article is below. With Warm Regards, Shashi Tharoor *************** The Pakistan-Taliban Divorce Gets Messy 5th May 2025, Project Syndicate. The statement issued by Afghanistan’s Taliban government denouncing the recent terrorist attack in the Indian resort of Pahalgam, in Jammu and Kashmir, was eye-opening. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs conveyed condolences to the families of the overwhelmingly Indian victims – 26 civilians – emphasizing that such attacks jeopardize regional security. The implicit rebuke of the terrorists’ handlers in Pakistan has not gone unnoticed. This is hardly the first sign of the Taliban’s growing estrangement from its erstwhile backers in Pakistan. In fact, by the end of last year, relations had deteriorated enough that Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Muhammad Sadiq Khan, headed to Kabul for talks with senior Taliban leaders, ostensibly to ease tensions. But while he was there, on December 24, the Pakistan Air Force carried out strikes against alleged Pakistani Taliban – officially known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – targets in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, killing 46 people. The strike was viewed as retribution for a December 21 TTP attack that resulted in the deaths of 16 Pakistani soldiers. Three days later, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, who leads Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) directorate, delivered a grim report: 383 officers and soldiers in Pakistan’s security forces had lost their lives in counter-terrorism operations over the preceding year. He also claimed that approximately 925 terrorists, including members of the TTP, had been eliminated in around 60,000 intelligence-based operations. The TTP, he pointed out, had been targeting Pakistan and its citizens, while enjoying a safe haven in Afghanistan. The statement hung heavy with irony, given Pakistan’s long history of providing logistical, military, and moral support to both the Afghan Taliban and the associated Haqqani Network during their campaigns against the previous Afghan government and American forces, culminating in the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021. What a difference a few years makes. (It is worth noting that India does not officially recognize the Taliban as representing the Afghan people.) On December 28, the conflict escalated further, with Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense announcing, and claiming responsibility for, attacks on multiple locations inside Pakistan, in retaliation for the air strikes. Interestingly, the Afghan government refrained from explicitly acknowledging that it was targeting Pakistani territory, instead saying that attacks were being carried out beyond the “hypothetical line,” a reference to the colonial-era border, known as the Durand Line, which no Afghan government has recognized. While things seem to have cooled off since then, the limits of Pakistan’s influence over its former proxies are now starkly apparent. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency spent decades nurturing, sheltering, arming, training, and financing the Taliban, which it used as a proxy of Pakistan’s security establishment. Though the Pakistani military was aware of a certain intransigence among the Taliban, it consistently treated the group as a means of exerting control over Afghanistan and achieving “strategic depth” against India. When the Afghan Taliban captured Kabul in August 2021, Pakistan celebrated with unconcealed glee. But as Dr. Frankenstein discovered, you cannot always control the monsters you create. For Pakistan, neither coercion nor diplomacy has proved effective. The problem is that Pakistan’s military has been deemed insufficiently Islamist by the militants it has spawned. The TTP is now determined to do to Pakistan what its parent did to Afghanistan: take over the government and turn the country into an Islamist theocracy. And given their ideological affinities, the Afghan Taliban may well be helping the TTP pursue that goal. Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan has become strategic quicksand. So deep is the quagmire that, under growing public pressure, segments of Pakistan’s government have suggested turning to the United States for assistance and even offering drone bases to the US to target militants in Afghanistan. The idea that sophisticated US drones and other weapons might help Pakistan confront an insurgency born from its own anti-American policies in Afghanistan is absurd. And yet, it is no longer unthinkable. Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir, embodies his country’s strategic confusion. An Islamist ideologue himself, he has urged the Afghan regime not to prioritize the TTP over their “long-standing and benevolent brother Islamic country.” But he also once stated, “When it comes to the safety and security of every single Pakistani, the whole of Afghanistan can be damned.” The tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan extend beyond cross-border terrorism; they are rooted in competing territorial claims and clashing national identities. The Afghan Taliban’s support for the TTP, coupled with persistent disputes over the Durand Line, stoke Pakistani fears of irredentism. The Pakistani government is withholding recognition of the Taliban-led regime in Kabul, while seeking tangible measures against the TTP, which continues to pose an existential threat to Pakistan’s stability and to the dominance of its military establishment. Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions – rooted in historical grievances, fueled by misguided policies, and compounded by ideological conflict – are rising fast, with Afghanistan now serving not as a strategic asset for Pakistan, but as a grave liability. India must wait and watch how this drama on its western flank plays out. *************** Lessons From Operation Sindoor, 30th May 2025, Project Syndicate. Just three weeks after “Operation Sindoor,” during which India’s military struck nine known terrorist basecamps and other facilities in Pakistani territory, an analysis of the military and operational dimensions of the strikes provides some preliminary but clear conclusions. For starters, India hit hard, but its strikes were carefully targeted and calibrated, even taking place at night to avoid collateral damage to civilians. In fact, Operation Sindoor was a remarkable logistical and military achievement. Although Pakistan was on the highest alert, India succeeded in breaching the country’s defensive lines, striking its intended targets, and eliminating some known terrorists (whose funerals were attended by high-level Pakistani military and police officials). While Operation Sindoor targeted a wider set of targets than any previous Indian counter-terrorist action, India deliberately avoided striking military and governmental targets at first. This sent a clear signal: India’s actions were a reprisal against terrorism, not the opening salvo in a war against Pakistan. It was the Pakistani military’s decision to respond with escalation that invited additional retribution. The second conclusion is that the terms of India’s engagement with Pakistan have irrevocably shifted, as India has shed its hesitations regarding military action. For too long, fears of “internationalizing” the Kashmir issue led India to pursue the same futile diplomatic processes, presenting dossiers and evidence to the world but getting little in return. Even the terrorism sanctions committee of the UN Security Council has long allowed Pakistan to find shelter behind one of its permanent members. India is not abandoning international diplomacy, but it will no longer depend solely on it. Instead, India will now respond to terrorism with military force, and meet any retaliation with clear and unwavering resolve. India is prepared to inflict even more severe consequences, if required. What India will not do – and this is the third conclusion – is allow Pakistan to use its nuclear arsenal to hold its neighbor, and the rest of the world, hostage. From swift cross-border surgical strikes in 2016 to an air strike in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 2019, India has progressively expanded the scope of its operations in recent years, crossing both the Line of Control and the international border, with the latest strikes occuring in the Pakistani heartland. India has thus exposed the emptiness of Pakistan’s threats of catastrophic escalation and shown that terrorism can be met with a calibrated military response without inviting a nuclear holocaust. Pakistan can now expect any future terrorist provocations to be met with a full-scale conventional response by India. Every time Pakistan’s military leadership considers sending its proxies across the border to sow mayhem in Kashmir or elsewhere, they will have to ask themselves whether the maneuver is worth bearing the retaliatory weight of India’s conventional military power. In fact, Pakistan might find that its sponsorship of cross-border terrorism jeopardizes the very lifeblood of its people: water. This was the message sent by India’s decision, which immediately preceded Operation Sindoor, to place the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance. While India has shown no inclination to divert these waters – it has not even begun to build the necessary reservoirs – the mere suggestion fundamentally changes the subcontinent’s geopolitics. India is no longer trading dialogue for peace; it is demanding a cessation of terrorism, in exchange for the continued provision of water. Operation Sindoor also served to remind the world of Pakistan’s deep links to terrorism and its perilous nuclear brinkmanship. New details about the behind-the-scenes negotiations and maneuvers that delivered the ceasefire will no doubt emerge. But what is indisputable is that it would not have been achievable without Indian military pressure and India’s readiness to end its operation as soon as Pakistan ceased escalation. The bilateral relationship is unlikely to change substantively in the near future, as any dialogue between India and Pakistan – especially on the Kashmir issue – is, for now, a remote possibility. In any case, Kashmir is neither the root cause of, nor the ultimate solution to, the tensions between India and Pakistan. This is a myth perpetuated by Pakistan to justify its claims on Indian territory. The narrative is based on nothing more than the bigoted argument – repeated most recently by Pakistan’s newly promoted army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir – that Muslims cannot live in a country with a non-Muslim majority. Until that changes, India must prepare for the worst. While India has preferred to focus on economic development and high-tech growth, rather than war-readiness, Indians clearly cannot assume that good sense will prevail in Pakistan. India has demonstrated its ability to withstand and respond to Pakistan’s provocations, but it must continue to adapt, prepare, and update its strategies. This includes bolstering its military capabilities, addressing diplomatic vulnerabilities, enhancing internal security measures, and readying its citizens for the cycles of violence, loss, and disorder that might prove unavoidable if terrorism perists. To be sure, India enjoys considerable advantages, including a GDP that is 11 times the size of Pakistan’s and overwhelming military superiority. But the Pakistani military’s overweening domestic authority, control over its national budget, historical relationships with major powers, and strategic alliances with China and Turkey endow it with powerful tools to sustain an armed conflict. Indeed, Turkish drones and Chinese-manufactured weapons (such as J-10C fighter jets and PL-15 guided missiles) have already bolstered Pakistan’s military capabilities and challenged India’s air defenses. So, while India would undoubtedly prevail in any conventional war, Pakistan could inflict significant harm. India can take pride in the resolute political will it has shown in confronting cross-border terrorism. It has proven its capacity to execute swift, targeted, and calculated military operations when appropriate, and to dismantle Pakistan’s terror infrastructure with precision, even though this can be rebuilt. And it has shown that, even at times of heightened emotions, it can sustain a calm and measured approach. India will have to bring these strengths to bear as it navigates an increasingly volatile security environment – no doubt made more fragile by recent events. *************** The Need for Bipartisanship in The Wake of Crisis, 20th May 2025, The Hindu. The terrorist attack in Pahalgam, on April 22, 2025 has once again shaken our collective conscience, reminding us of the fragility of peace in a region long burdened by the weight of history. As India grieves the loss of innocent lives and strengthens its resolve against terror, we must also recognise the critical importance of bipartisanship — both in shaping our response and in ensuring that national security does not become another theatre for political posturing. There is a distressing pattern that emerges whenever India faces a crisis of this nature: political parties, instead of closing ranks in defence of the nation, often resort to scoring points — weaponising grief for electoral advantage rather than forging a unified front. We saw this after the Pulwama attack in 2019, where swift retaliatory action became intertwined with campaign narratives. That was perhaps inevitable, since the general election was only weeks away from being called, and the national discourse swiftly veered from security imperatives to domestic politicking. But there is no doubt that this cycle weakens our ability to formulate a cohesive and long-term strategy, one that can fortify our defences without compromising our democratic integrity. The challenge before us is clear: terrorism is a scourge that demands a decisive, well-coordinated response, not knee-jerk reactions shaped by party ideologies. Whether dealing with counter-terror operations, diplomatic negotiations, or intelligence reforms, decisions must be made collectively, informed by strategic foresight rather than short-term gains. National security is too vital an issue to be circumscribed by party affiliations; it must transcend ideological divides. Take, for instance, the Kargil conflict of 1999 — a moment when India, despite political differences between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Opposition Congress, stood together in defence of the nation. The war effort saw bipartisan cooperation, ensuring that security strategies were aligned with national interests rather than partisan agendas. The Opposition, led by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, largely supported the government’s military response. She praised the armed forces, stating: “The bravery of our soldiers in Kargil has made every Indian proud. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten.” Similarly, when India conducted surgical strikes in 2016 in response to the Uri terror attack, it was done with clear messaging — demonstrating strength without overstepping into prolonged conflict — and the nation was united in applauding the action across political lines. Recent global history is replete with examples of bipartisanship across political divides in response to terrorism in various democracies. Following the September 11 attacks, both parties in the United States recognised the need for a more unified approach to national security, and a bipartisan effort ensured a swift and coordinated response to terrorism. After the terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch in 2019, then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern led a bipartisan effort to reform gun laws. Within weeks, the government passed legislation banning military-style semi-automatic weapons, with support from both major parties. More recently, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, bipartisan support emerged across Western Europe for military aid to Kyiv and sanctions against Russia. Traditionally neutral countries such as Sweden and Finland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with broad political consensus across party lines. These examples highlight how, despite political differences, nations can unite in times of crisis to prioritise security, unity and effective action. Should Pahalgam and its aftermath be any different? When I first became Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, I declared that “there is no such thing as a Congress foreign policy and a BJP foreign policy; there is only Indian foreign policy, and Indian national interests.” I was reminded of a famous episode of Indian diplomatic hist