'No Terror Bases Here...': Shashi Tharoor On Asymmetry Of India-Pak Conflict

Shashi Tharoor has pointed out Pakistan's indiscriminate shelling on civilian areas in India during the recent conflict as a big example of the "asymmetry of this particular conflict" since India's objective was to strike only at terror infrastructure in the neighbouring country.

The Pakistani military, however, targeted civilian areas in India because "there are no terror bases in India to hit", Mr Tharoor told an audience which included former US Ambassador to India Kenneth I Juster.

Mr Tharoor, who is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, made the comments during an interaction in the US where he led a multi-party delegation of MPs as part of India's global diplomatic outreach after Operation Sindoor.

"... All I can say is that the world of warfare has been changing dramatically since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, and increasingly the use of drones, for example. It's striking that neither country [India and Pakistan] actually crossed over into the other's airspace at any stage of these four days [of the conflict]. Everything is being done from a distance now. Drones, missiles, technologies have moved quite significantly," Mr Tharoor said at a discussion hosted by the think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

"What was old fashioned and awful and tragic was the indiscriminate Pakistani artillery shelling, which should never have been done in the manner it was. I mean, but you can understand why. We hit terror bases. There are no terror bases in India to hit. There are no terrorist organizations in India listed in the UN or the State Department or anywhere else. So what do you hit? You hit civilians," he said.

"You hit innocent people. That is the asymmetry of this particular conflict. We have tried not just to be precise and calibrated in our response, but we have tried systematically to signal we are not interested in war with Pakistan. We're not interested in attacking Pakistani civilians or ordinary people. This is about India versus terrorism," Mr Tharoor said.

He questioned why doesn't Pakistan shut down safe havens it has created for terrorists if it did not want to be hit.

"And as far as we're concerned, situating the problem where it belongs is, if you don't want places in your territory to be hit because they're housing terrorists, why don't you shut down the safe havens? Why don't you arrest these leaders? Why don't you close their bank accounts? Why don't you disband these organizations or call them illegal? If you're not prepared to do any of that, then I'm afraid this is the only way we can deal with it, because we are not going to sit back at our homes and be hit at your convenience. That's not going to happen," Mr Tharoor added.

Operation Sindoor that smashed terror infrastructure in Pakistan was not just an operation but a doctrinal change and a policy against terror, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in a televised address after India launched precision cruise missiles at terror facilities in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK). India later struck a large number of Pakistani military targets including radar sites and air bases.

India's missile strikes came in response to the killing of 26 tourists by Pakistan-linked terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam.