When international law is used as an instrument to justify aggression, the aggressor begins to play the victim, which is precisely what India has attempted to do. India made another cross-border military attack (Operation Sindoor) in May 2025 on Pakistani soil, stating that it was a measured, proportional, and legal response to terrorism. Clad in the terms of international law, the Indian account presents this act as a textbook example of legitimate self-defense. But behind the well-used legal phrases and diplomatic pomp is a very bad precedent: a normalization of aggression, a perversion of the rule of law, and a flagrant abuse of the territorial integrity of another sovereign nation.
Let us be clear: India’s strike was not a measured legal retaliation, but a wanton act of aggression that was not justified by evidence, lacked all legitimacy, and had disastrous effects on innocent civilians, including women and children. India says it has been targeting terror camps, but there is no such infrastructure in the regions bombed. Rather, the world witnessed the murder of unarmed civilians, the burning of houses, and a breach of Pakistani sovereignty in the name of self-defense.
What’s more troubling is that India has had the audacity to lecture the world about legal restraint whilst playing a blatant violator of the same norms it purports to uphold. Referring to the UN Charter, Article 51, and the Articles on State Responsibility (ARSIWA), India positions itself as an innovator of responsible state conduct. However, this story falls apart when it is examined. To begin with, international law does not allow a state to launch military attacks within another state without irrefutable evidence. India, once more, came up with no proof that could be verifiable on the involvement of Pakistan in the Pahalgam attack. No third-party inquiry. No neutral tribunal. Just accusations, followed by missiles.
This is not the first time India has performed the same old drama of accusing Pakistan without any facts or justification for illegal intrusion, expecting to be applauded for its so-called restraint. If the world were to accept India’s logic, where vague suspicions of providing assistance to non-state actors justify a cross-border attack, international law would collapse into chaos. Any powerful state would be able to attack weaker neighbors on the basis of its own suspicion. That is not international law; it is international anarchy.
India claims that it was acting responsibly, unlike other countries. But what about Pakistan’s restraint? Pakistan has demonstrated maturity and respect for international norms, despite years of Indian meddling and sponsoring of terror in the country, especially in Balochistan. The fact that Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav was caught red-handed planning terror attacks on Pakistani soil is solid evidence that it is India, not Pakistan, that has been fueling terrorism. Still, Pakistan decided to use diplomacy instead of retaliation. That is what legal constraint looks like.
Before invoking international law, India should first understand it. Sovereignty is not conditional. It is not legal to violate it in the name of fighting terrorism, without international agreement, without any proof, and without responsibility. It is criminal. The sanitized language can never alter the reality that India invaded another sovereign nation on its own, killed its citizens, and then even dared to call it an exemplar of international behavior.
India should first dismantle the terror infrastructure it hosts within its own borders if it wishes to set a moral and legal precedent. The world has not forgotten the Gujarat pogroms, minority lynchings, or the violent occupation of Kashmir. Even Indian citizens and international human rights organizations have called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a murderer. The term “terrorist” cannot be used selectively to justify cross-border attacks while disregarding genocide, oppression, and state-sponsored extremism within. Suppose Pakistan retaliated in the same way, launching an attack against India in response to its backing of Baloch insurgents. Would India praise it as a measured and legal action? Clearly not. India demands immunity for its own actions but refuses the same to others. This is not justice; this is hypocrisy.
International law was not written to protect the powerful from consequences. It was established to guard the peace, sovereignty, and rights of all nations, including the weak, against the caprice of stronger ones. The abuse of this law in India does not add to legal precedent; it is a perilous distortion of it. Operation Sindoor is neither a tale of justice nor a tale of restraint. It is a tale of government-approved violence, a conveniently packaged fiction of defending oneself. The world should not be fooled. Otherwise, legality means nothing. And when India keeps trampling on the sovereignty of others yet prides itself on being legal, then it is not the law that is progressing, but impunity.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of the South Asia Times.
