PYQ Vault · Paper 2 · India & South Asia — Part 2
How does cross border terrorism impede the achievements of peace and security in South Asia?
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
R1 terrorism as state policy, not law-and-order problem — 1971 turn to asymmetric balancing → Bhutto's strategic depth + Zia’s thousand cuts — peace blocked at source R2 Pahalgam — one attack puts a treaty that outlived three wars in abeyance — the instrument is policy, not crime — peace blocked at source
Body flow
Tellis: plausible deniability + a war Pakistan cannot win + nuclear deterrent as licence — India’s dual denial: no decisive victory, no regional pre-eminence — cost turns regional — no SAARC summit since 2014 — Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan abandon Islamabad with India after Uri — counter-terror work moves to BIMSTEC, Pakistan out — Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance since Pahalgam > Pant: engagement now conditioned by Pakistan’s behaviour
Counter-view
coercion has not changed the incentive — Cohen: a stalemate neither side can win nor absorb — each retaliation carries escalation risk
Conclusion routes
R1 Pakistan’s own war with the Afghan Taliban since February 2026 — strategy turning on its author — South Asia insecure while terrorism remains policy R2 SAARC dead, BIMSTEC a workaround, Indus Treaty in abeyance — whole regional order now shaped by one strategy — peace waits on that strategy being given up
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
