Pakistan's most powerful man steps out of the shadows to confront India

Islamabad: Until recently, Pakistan's most powerful man preferred to stay behind the scenes, tightly controlling his public profile and limiting his pronouncements mostly to choreographed addresses at set-piece military events.

But after the deadly terrorist attack nearly two weeks ago in Kashmir, Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, has stepped to the center of sharpening tensions between Pakistan and India.

As pressure has built in India for a forceful response to the attack, which killed more than two dozen Hindu tourists near the town of Pahalgam, Munir has increasingly shaped Pakistan's tone with his own tough talk.

On Thursday, standing atop a tank during a military exercise, Munir addressed troops in the field. "Let there be no ambiguity," he said. "Any military misadventure by India will be met with a swift, resolute and notch-up response." That was a reference to Pakistan's vow to match or exceed any Indian strike.

Munir's comments have been seen in India and Pakistan as reflecting his need to project strength and rally public support after his country has struggled for years with political divisions and economic hardship. Those troubles have dented the steadfast loyalty that Pakistanis had felt for decades toward the military establishment, which has long had a hidden hand in guiding the country's politics.

But Munir's response appears to be more than a political calculation. Analysts describe him as a hard-liner on India, with views shaped by his time leading Pakistan's two premier military intelligence agencies and by his belief that the long-running conflict with India is at heart a religious one.

Many in India have seized on remarks that Munir made six days before the terrorist attack. In front of an audience of overseas Pakistanis in the capital, Islamabad, Munir described Kashmir -- which is divided between Pakistan and India but claimed in whole by each -- as the country's "jugular vein."

That phrase, which is deeply woven into the country's nationalist vocabulary, signifies how Pakistan sees Kashmir as vital to its national identity. The Indian Foreign Ministry denounced the comment as inflammatory and called Kashmir an "integral part" of India.

Whether the current crisis escalates or gives way to restraint will depend as much on international diplomacy as domestic politics.

The United States and the United Nations have called on India and Pakistan, both of which have nuclear weapons, to work toward de-escalation. In addition, Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations, Asim Ahmad, said Friday that Pakistani diplomats and government ministers had spoken with their Chinese counterparts about the tensions with India. China is an ally of Pakistan and has economic interests there.

But diplomacy may not be enough. India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, has promised that India will pursue "every terrorist and their backers to the ends of the Earth."

After attacks on Indian security forces in Kashmir in 2016 and 2019, India responded by striking what it said were terrorist camps inside Pakistan.

For his part, Munir has spoken since the Pahalgam attack in explicitly ideological terms that indicate he is disinclined to believe that long-term peace with India is possible.

On April 26, he addressed cadets at a graduation ceremony for the country's premier military academy. He invoked the "two-nation theory" -- the framework behind Pakistan's founding in 1947, which asserts that Hindus and Muslims are separate nations needing separate homelands.

The theory has long underpinned Pakistan's national identity and foreign policy. In the past, Pakistan's generals embraced this ideological rhetoric during moments of tension with India and dialed it back when diplomacy beckoned. Munir's revival of the theory and other comments have been interpreted by many Indians as a pronounced shift in Pakistan's stance toward India.

His framing of Kashmir as Pakistan's "jugular vein" has particularly struck a nerve in India. In the same speech, Munir said, "We will not leave our Kashmiri brethren in their heroic struggle that they are waging against Indian occupation."

Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of ThePrint, an Indian online newspaper, said the timing and animus of the comments would be hard for India to ignore.

"The Pahalgam outrage followed just after Gen. Munir's speech," Gupta said. "India would have to be frightfully complacent not to draw the connection, especially as he had raked up hostility to Hindus, which no Pakistani leader -- civil or military -- had done for a long time."

Pakistani officials have rejected any connection between Munir's remarks and the attack in Kashmir. Ahmad, Pakistan's permanent representative at the United Nations, dismissed India's claim of Pakistani links to the attack and said that the "root cause" of instability in South Asia remained the unresolved dispute over Kashmir.

The region has been at the heart of the India-Pakistan rivalry since the partition in 1947 that created the two nations out of British India. Kashmir has witnessed wars, insurgencies and prolonged military deployments, making it one of the world's most volatile flash points.

The current face-off is not Munir's first brush with a regional crisis.

In 2019, when a suicide bombing in Kashmir triggered Indian airstrikes and a brief military escalation, Munir was the leader of Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI. His tenure ended just months later when Prime Minister Imran Khan removed him.

Khan would later oppose Munir's elevation to army chief, and their relationship has remained hostile. After falling out with the military leadership, Khan was ousted in April 2022. Munir assumed his command as army chief seven months later. Khan, who retains widespread support among the Pakistani public, has been in prison for two years.

As Munir works to keep control of his public image, he avoids unscripted remarks. His speeches are forceful and devoid of ambiguity, often drawing on religious themes.

Munir is "steeped in religion," and that colors his view of relations with India, said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States. "At best," Haqqani said, "he would look for managing tensions -- and score as many points as he can along the way."

In this way, Munir seems to reflect the turn toward a more Islamist Pakistani armed forces that military dictator Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq set in motion in the 1980s. Zia did so in coordination with the United States as it courted jihadis to wage war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Munir has also presided over growing military control of Pakistani politics and society, restricting dissent, critics say.

"He appears to want being in control more than wanting to be liked," Haqqani said. "That has been his approach in domestic politics and will be his likely approach in dealing with India."

The military has appeared to take a stronger hand in relations with India, moving to consolidate institutional control over any future talks by appointing the country's spy chief as national security adviser. That role had historically been held by retired generals and civilians.

For now, diplomatic relations between the two countries remain frozen. Aggressive public messaging, rather than quiet diplomacy, has become the primary channel of communication. In such a climate, the risk of miscalculation is acute.

Zahid Hussain, a political and security analyst in Islamabad, said Pakistan would feel compelled to respond if India launched military strikes.

"The question is whether Mr. Modi can choose to stop at this point," he said. "Even limited Indian strikes could spiral into a broader conflict."