Since the horrific terrorist attack in Kashmir last week, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has spoken on the phone with more than a dozen world leaders. Diplomats from 100 missions in India’s capital have filed into the foreign ministry for briefings, officials said.
But the effort is largely not about rallying help to de-escalate India’s dangerous face-off with Pakistan, which it accuses of having “linkages” to the attack. Instead, according to four diplomatic officials aware of the discussions, New Delhi appears to be building a case for military action against its neighbor and archenemy. Without naming Pakistan, Mr. Modi in a speech on Thursday promised severe punishment and the razing of terror safe havens.
Five days after the terrorist assault, in which gunmen killed 26 civilians, India has not officially identified any group as having carried out the massacre, and it has publicly presented little evidence to support its claim that Pakistan was behind it. The Pakistani government has denied involvement.
In the briefings to diplomats at the foreign ministry, Indian officials have described Pakistan’s past patterns of support for terrorist groups targeting India, diplomatic officials said. The Indian officials have said their investigation is ongoing, and made brief references to technical intelligence tying the perpetrators of last week’s attack to Pakistan, including facial recognition data on perpetrators that they say have ties to Pakistan.
The less-than-slam-dunk presentations so far, analysts and diplomats said, pointed to one of two possibilities: that India needs more time to gather information about the terrorist attack before striking Pakistan, or that — in a time of particular chaos on the world stage — it feels little need to justify to anyone the actions it plans to take.
A military confrontation between India and Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons, runs the risk of rapid escalation that could be difficult to contain. But India is largely unrestrained by any global pressure to limit its response, and it has become quicker to flex its muscles in recent years as its diplomatic and economic power has grown.
