One year after Operation Sindoor, former deputy national security adviser Pankaj Saran believes India has fundamentally altered the rules of engagement with Pakistan. In a wide-ranging interview, the seasoned diplomat argued that the operation was not merely a military success but a doctrinal shift that ended Pakistan’s long-held belief that its nuclear arsenal could indefinitely shield cross-border terrorism.
Saran dismissed claims that Pakistan emerged diplomatically stronger after Sindoor because of renewed American engagement with Islamabad. According to him, Pakistan’s recent visibility stems less from strategic importance and more from opportunistic utility to Washington during the Iran crisis. He described Islamabad as a state that repeatedly survives by making itself useful to bigger powers, particularly the United States.
But he argued that tactical usefulness does not translate into long-term prestige or legitimacy. “If mediation was the metric of national reputation, Qatar and Oman would be superpowers,” he remarked, suggesting that Pakistan’s attempts to market itself as a regional stabiliser remain fundamentally unconvincing.
Saran contrasted Pakistan’s trajectory with India’s post-independence evolution. India, he said, was built around strategic autonomy and resistance to external pressure, while Pakistan perfected the art of dependence. In his view, Islamabad’s security establishment continues to define itself entirely through hostility toward India, a mindset he called deeply embedded in the Pakistani state structure.
The former diplomat argued that the biggest strategic consequence of Sindoor was psychological. For decades, Pakistan cultivated the belief that India would never dare strike deep because of the nuclear threshold. Sindoor, he said, “punched that doctrine in the face.” India demonstrated that nuclear blackmail would no longer deter retaliation against terror infrastructure or its backers.
Saran also defended India’s decision to keep the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance after the attack that triggered Sindoor. He revealed that frustration over Pakistan’s repeated misuse of dispute resolution mechanisms had been building inside the Indian system for years. According to him, Islamabad weaponised the treaty to obstruct Indian projects while benefiting disproportionately from its terms. Sindoor merely provided the political opening to act on accumulated grievances.
On the question of future terror attacks, Saran left little ambiguity about India’s evolving doctrine. He said the government has made it clear that any major attack traced to Pakistan will invite retaliation decided solely by India, without waiting for international approval. “We are not going to look behind our back,” he said, underscoring what he described as a publicly declared “new normal.”
The interview also ranged beyond Pakistan. Saran defended India’s multi-aligned foreign policy, arguing that New Delhi was right to resist becoming a frontline state against China despite Western pressure. He said recent global turbulence has vindicated India’s approach of maintaining relationships across competing power centres, from Russia to the United States and from the Gulf to East Asia.
On China, he advocated steady engagement and a gradual stabilisation of ties, warning against viewing Beijing solely through Western strategic lenses. He also suggested that talk of economic “decoupling” from China has effectively collapsed under global realities.
For Saran, the core lesson of the past year is blunt. In an increasingly transactional and unstable world, India must rely primarily on its own strength while remaining flexible in its partnerships. Operation Sindoor, he argued, marked the moment India openly accepted that reality.