New Delhi: When 26 civilians were massacred in Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, 2025, it sent shockwaves across the country. But what has followed since then may mark a turning point in how the world, particularly the Global South, responds to terrorism, particularly when it comes to state-sponsored acts of it.
For decades, India has sounded the alarm about Pakistan’s use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy, especially in Jammu and Kashmir. And quite often, its warnings were met with scepticism, diluted in diplomatic language, or lost in the geopolitical noise of the broader South Asian region. But the brutality of the Pahalgam attack, and the growing evidence linking the perpetrators to Pakistan-based groups, along with shifting geopolitical dynamics, seems to have brought a considerable change in that conversation.
More significantly, India’s response this time was also swift and multipronged. Under Operation Sindoor on May 6-7, it launched a precise and calibrated military retaliation targeting terror infrastructure across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) and mainland Pakistan. The military operation was accompanied by its diplomatic offensive, which has been very methodical and effective, as the changing discourse about terrorism reflects. The culmination of these efforts was on full display at the 2025 BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the Global South bloc issued an unambiguous condemnation of a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, naming both the incident and its nature, which is remarkable.
The BRICS declaration stated it “condemned in the strongest terms the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir on April 22, 2025, during which 26 people were killed and many more injured,” and reaffirmed a collective commitment to fighting terrorism “in all its forms and manifestations, including the cross-border movement of terrorists, terrorism financing and safe havens.”
This was not just a diplomatic cliche and marks a quiet but significant pivot in the emerging world order, where the Global South bloc is finally calling out double standards on terrorism and doing so with rare unanimity.
A shift in global norms
The Global South has long been a theatre of conflicting narratives when it comes to terrorism. While Western powers often dominate the discourse around extremism, violence in the Global South, whether in South Asia, West Asia, Southeast Asia, or the African continent, has received a more selective treatment. However, that seems to be now changing.
India’s diplomatic campaign, strengthened by real-time evidence and growing solidarity among peer economies, is spotlighting how selective empathy and geopolitical hedging allow state-backed terror proxies to thrive. The BRICS statement, endorsed even by countries like China, which shares a close strategic partnership with Pakistan, signals that this silence may no longer be tenable in the long run.
Indeed, the real headline from Rio wasn’t just that the Pahalgam attack was condemned. It was that China did not block the language of the declaration.
This is significant given the depth of China-Pakistan strategic cooperation, especially under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework, and Beijing’s long-standing practice of shielding Pakistani entities and terrorists like Masood Azhar from censure at global forums such as the UN Security Council (UNSC). Moreover, as per multiple independent assessments, Pakistan is heavily dependent on Chinese-origin military equipment, whose share has grown to over 80 per cent of its conventional arsenal. Therefore, for China to allow a declaration that highlights cross-border terrorism, which may be a veiled but yet has an unmistakable reference to Pakistan, is nothing short of a diplomatic milestone for India.
The growing evidence of Pakistan’s terror sponsorship
India’s case against Pakistan is no longer just about moral outrage. It is now substantiated by tangible, corroborated evidence that paints a picture of systemic complicity. According to Indian intelligence reports shared with international partners, including with the UNSC’s 1267 Sanctions Committee, in the aftermath of the Pahalgam massacre, the attackers belonged to a faction of The Resistance Front (TRF), which is a proxy outfit widely recognized as a rebranded arm of Pakistan sponsored terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Both LeT and its affiliate networks have long enjoyed safe havens in Pakistan, with little meaningful action taken against their leadership despite international pressure and FATF conditions.
For years, Pakistan has relied on plausible deniability, labelling these groups as “non-state actors” beyond its control. But that narrative is wearing thin, particularly when attacks like Pahalgam are followed by the same tell-tale signs: trained cadres, sophisticated arms, and ideological alignment with Pakistan’s strategic calculus on Kashmir.
The BRICS moment
The BRICS platform, which was originally established by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and then South Africa and has now expanded to include key economies such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE, is increasingly seen as the voice of the Global South. It provides a forum for new powers to voice their concerns free from the historical constraints of Cold War dichotomies or Western alliances.
The Rio summit’s declaration on terrorism suggests that member states are no longer willing to overlook threats that destabilise their regions in favour of transactional diplomacy. For countries like Brazil and South Africa, which have dealt with their own home-grown security challenges, there is a growing realisation that impunity for terrorism anywhere poses risks everywhere.
India’s persistent framing of Pakistan’s terror infrastructure not as a bilateral grievance but as a global security issue seems to be gaining traction. New Delhi’s argument is simple: if terrorism financed, trained, and directed from across borders is tolerated in Kashmir, it sets a precedent that could embolden similar actors in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
Reframing the Global South
The BRICS condemnation also highlights a deeper shift in the Global South’s readiness to define its own red lines rather than outsourcing them to the geopolitical West. For decades, countries like India have been expected to toe the line of major powers when it comes to defining security threats, be it in West Asia, Central Asia, or elsewhere. But now, the Global South is building a consensus that its security interests are not derivative; rather, they are primary. This is especially true when those interests are undermined by state-sponsored extremism operating under the guise of ideology, liberation, or regional grievance.
In this context, the silence or equivocation of certain powers on acts of terrorism, particularly those with clear cross-border linkages, can no longer be justified. The BRICS condemnation of the Pahalgam attack represents a break from the era of wilful ambiguity. It sets a bar of accountability for all states, regardless of their strategic alignments.
The way ahead
For Pakistan, this emerging scrutiny from fellow members of the Global South should lead to prompt introspection. Its longstanding strategy of cultivating asymmetric warfare through non-state actors has not only destabilised its neighbourhood, but it has become its Achilles’ heel, with several of its patronised terrorist groups redirecting their violence against Pakistan.
The evolving alignments and re-alignments at the global level signify that the world is no longer willing to excuse terrorism when it arrives wearing different uniforms. Nor is it buying the notion that development partnerships can offset or obscure the costs of cross-border violence.
India’s diplomatic pivot, wherein it complements force with diplomatic forums, is reshaping how terrorism should be debated and condemned in global settings. In this light, the BRICS statement in Rio is not just a victory for Indian diplomacy, but it also signals that the world’s emerging powers are ready to call terrorism by its name without considering who sponsors it.
(IANS)
