UNMASKING PROXY WARS

In releasing a comprehensive document that traces cross-border terror against India from 1947 to 2025, NatStrat has attempted to place decades of aggression within a single, unbroken continuum of strategy.

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The timing of this compilation, aligned with the seventeenth anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, underlines both institutional memory and national resolve. What emerges is a long arc of Pakistan's use of terrorism as a parallel instrument of power, pursued consistently by its military and intelligence establishment irrespective of political transitions. From tribal invasions in the first year of Independence to sophisticated hybrid warfare in the present decade, the pattern is unmistakable: destabilise India through proxy actors while retaining plausible deniability at the state level. The phases mapped by the report illustrate this evolution clearly. The early decades were marked by open incursions and attempts to force territorial outcomes, followed by an era in which radicalised groups were trained and equipped to bleed India at multiple points. By the 1990s, urban centres became theatres of calibrated violence, with attacks in Mumbai, Delhi, Coimbatore and other cities signalling a shift towards economic and psychological disruption. The early 2000s brought assaults on national symbols, from Parliament to temples to diplomatic missions, demonstrating how targets were chosen not merely for tactical impact but to shake the foundations of democratic confidence. In the years after 2010, India confronted a more adaptive adversary that used technology, shifting aliases and proxy organisations to mask its origins, even as the strategic intent remained unchanged. NatStrat’s chronology makes clear that this is neither episodic nor reactive behaviour, but an entrenched doctrine designed to fragment India internally and undermine its global standing. Additionally, the chronology prompts deeper reflection on how global geopolitical shifts have interacted with regional hostilities, often allowing extremist infrastructures to survive throu