'We're Not Interested in War'

India seeks peace, senior MP Shashi Tharoor tells Newsweek-but he warns it will respond decisively to Pakistan's cross-border attacks

- by JENNIFER H. CUNNINGHAM

INDIA DOES NOT WANT WAR with Pakistan, but its neighbor is a legitimate target if it does not close “terrorist camps” and should avoid “nuclear blackmail”, said Shashi Tharoor, chairman of the Indian Parliament’s Committee on External Affairs.

The nations clashed over four days in May as India struck targets it alleged were terrorist infrastructure after the killing of the 26 civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan denied any role in the Islamist attack on tourists and retaliated for the Indian strikes before the nuclear-armed neighbors agreed a ceasefire.

“We're not interested in war. We're focused on our own growth and development, on the well-being and prosperity of our people,” Tharoor told Newsweek in Washington, D.C.

A member of parliament from the opposition Indian National Congress, Tharoor showed a unified front with the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on “Operation Sindoor.” In Washington, his delegation met with Vice President JD Vance.

Tharoor said the Indian operation had been designed to send a message to Pakistan and to avoid civilian casualties while striking infrastructure of groups designated as terrorists by the U.S. and United Nations. Some elements of Pakistan’s military are “deeply complicit” in terrorism targeting India and its denials are not believable, he said. “We want to send them a signal. Don’t just think you can walk across the border and kill our people and get away with it because we're so nice. Sorry. We'll stop being nice.”

“Probably the terror buildings and infrastructure we've demolished will be built again in six to nine months, and then what happens? That’s the real question. Will Pakistan understand that as long as these things are on their territory, their territory becomes a legitimate target for reprisals anytime a terrorist attack happens?”