For decades, Pakistan’s strategic outlook has been shaped by its adversarial relationship with India. While Kashmir has remained the fulcrum of this rivalry, the Pakistani state and its security establishment have constructed a wider tapestry of “threat perceptions” that extend beyond territorial disputes. These perceptions are not merely reactive; they are woven into the very fabric of Pakistan’s strategic culture, informing defense planning, diplomacy, and even its domestic governance frameworks. At the heart of this narrative lies the characterization of India as Fitna al Hindustan — an existential and multi-dimensional challenge that transcends military confrontation alone.
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Kashmir: The Central Axis, but Not the Whole Picture
The Kashmir dispute, embedded in the unfinished partition of 1947, remains the most visible manifestation of Indo-Pakistani antagonism. Pakistan frames its position on Kashmir as both a moral and political obligation, asserting the right to self-determination for the Kashmiri people. India, however, considers the region an integral part of its federation, especially after the revocation of Article 370 in August 2019. This unilateral move was condemned in Pakistan as a breach of bilateral agreements and international law, further deepening Islamabad’s conviction that New Delhi is unwilling to resolve disputes peacefully.
Yet, focusing solely on Kashmir oversimplifies Pakistan’s strategic calculus. To Islamabad, India’s challenge is multidimensional — encompassing water security, economic rivalry, regional hegemonic ambitions, and alleged sponsorship of sub-nationalist insurgencies within Pakistan.
Water Security and the Indus Waters Treaty
Another pillar of Pakistan’s perceived Indian threat stems from water insecurity. The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960, brokered by the World Bank, granted Pakistan rights over the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) while India retained control of the eastern rivers. Despite being hailed as one of the most durable water-sharing agreements, Pakistan has consistently accused India of exploiting loopholes to construct upstream projects that could manipulate water flows into Pakistan.
Projects such as the Baglihar Dam and the Kishanganga Hydroelectric Project have fueled concerns that India is using “water as a weapon” to pressure Pakistan. In a country where agriculture forms the backbone of the economy, such perceptions transform hydro-politics into a national security issue. This narrative is deeply embedded in public discourse, reinforcing the view that Indian designs extend beyond territorial disputes into existential resource competition.
Economic Rivalry and Perceptions of Coercion
Pakistan also perceives India’s economic rise as a tool for strategic coercion. While Pakistan has faced recurring balance-of-payment crises, India’s economy has expanded rapidly, enabling it to wield influence in international forums such as the G20 and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). In Islamabad’s strategic circles, India’s lobbying power and growing defense-industrial base are often framed as means of diplomatically isolating Pakistan.
Trade relations, too, have been politicized. Despite being natural economic partners, bilateral trade has remained minimal, frequently disrupted by political crises. For Pakistan, this asymmetry creates a perception that India deliberately blocks avenues of economic engagement to stifle Pakistan’s growth and keep it strategically vulnerable.
Alleged Support for Sub-Nationalist Insurgencies
Perhaps the most contentious dimension of Pakistan’s narrative is the allegation that India sponsors insurgencies within its borders. The Kulbhushan Jadhav case — in which a former Indian naval officer was convicted by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage and terrorism in Balochistan — has become emblematic of these claims. Pakistan maintains that India, through its intelligence agency RAW, provides material and financial support to separatist outfits such as the Fitna al Hindustan (FAH) and its proxy (BLA), which Islamabad terms Fitna al Hind as well.
These allegations are consistently rejected by New Delhi. However, within Pakistan, they resonate strongly and are reinforced whenever attacks in Balochistan or Karachi are linked to Indian involvement. Such cases feed into the narrative that India seeks to destabilize Pakistan from within, complementing conventional military threats with covert subversion.
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Regional Hegemony and the Quest for Strategic Autonomy
Pakistan also interprets India’s regional and global ambitions as inherently threatening. New Delhi’s close defense partnerships with the United States, its maritime presence in the Indian Ocean, and its growing ties with Gulf states are all perceived in Islamabad as part of a broader containment strategy.
For Pakistan’s strategic community, India’s pursuit of “strategic autonomy” and status as a net security provider in the Indo-Pacific signals not just competition but encirclement. This perception is amplified by India’s willingness to intervene in neighboring states’ politics, such as in Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan, which Pakistan interprets as evidence of hegemonic designs.
The Cumulative Effect: Shaping Pakistan’s Strategic Culture
Taken individually, each of these dimensions could be seen as discrete policy challenges. However, within Pakistan’s strategic culture, they are aggregated into a comprehensive and existential threat perception. From the military’s doctrines to parliamentary debates, the narrative of India as a multi-dimensional adversary permeates policymaking.
This narrative serves several functions:
- Domestic Consolidation: By framing India as a perpetual threat, the Pakistani state reinforces national unity and legitimizes security-centric governance.
- Diplomatic Justification: It provides Islamabad with a rationale to seek international support, whether in forums like the UN or through partnerships with China and other states.
- Operational Imperative: It underpins Pakistan’s military doctrines, such as “Full Spectrum Deterrence”, which justifies maintaining a credible nuclear and conventional deterrent against India’s perceived superiority.
Challenges of Over-Perception
Yet, an over-reliance on the Indian threat narrative carries risks. It can entrench securitization at the expense of socio-economic reforms, limit space for dialogue, and reduce flexibility in foreign policy. Critics argue that while genuine threats exist, Pakistan’s securitized reading of India often leaves little room for alternative approaches, including conflict resolution or confidence-building measures.
Kashmir remains the heart of Indo-Pakistani antagonism, but Pakistan’s threat perceptions extend far beyond that disputed territory. Water disputes, economic rivalry, insurgency allegations, and India’s regional ambitions all converge to form a comprehensive narrative of India as Fitna al Hindustan. This narrative does not merely describe external realities; it actively shapes Pakistan’s strategic culture, influencing defense planning, diplomacy, and even domestic governance.
While these perceptions may serve short-term purposes of national cohesion and strategic justification, they also risk perpetuating a cycle of hostility that forecloses alternative pathways. Understanding these multi-dimensional threat perceptions is thus essential not only for deconstructing Pakistan’s strategic culture but also for any serious attempt at peace-building in South Asia.
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