India must shed 'hyphenation' with Pakistan, assert strategic autonomy: Global Trade Research Initiative

New Delhi: India must stop engaging with the world through a “hyphenated” lens with Pakistan and instead adopt a transactional foreign policy based solely on national interest, the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said on Sunday, after a ceasefire ended a brief military escalation between India and Pakistan.

In a policy note issued on Sunday, GTRI said the sequence of events—from India’s missile strike under Operation Sindoor on 7 May to the IMF’s prompt financial bailout for Pakistan on 9 May and the US-brokered ceasefire on 10 May — reflected an entrenched diplomatic tendency in Washington and global institutions to treat India and Pakistan as equals, even after repeated terror provocations by Islamabad.

'Outdated equivalence'

The report, titled ‘No more hyphenation with Pakistan: India must deal with the world on its terms’, argued that this equivalence was not only outdated but also dangerous. “Despite repeated terror attacks emanating from Pakistan, the US response was to reward it with both diplomacy and dollars,” said Ajay Srivastava, co-founder of GTRI, pointing to Donald Trump’s Truth Social post on 10 May.

The think tank’s note comes amid growing unease in strategic circles over how swiftly the international system moved to stabilise Pakistan, with little discussion about cross-border terrorism or accountability. The IMF bailout, GTRI noted, was not coincidental. “It signals that global institutions, under the influence of major powers, are willing to shield Pakistan, regardless of its conduct,” the report said, adding that this pattern was part of a long-standing indulgence extended to Pakistan as a tactical asset—be it in Afghanistan, arms markets, or regional power games.

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GTRI suggested India operate with fewer illusions about global fairness. “There is duplicity in the response of global powers. India must stop expecting fairness,” Srivastava said, stressing that Western condemnation of terrorism is often conditional on where it occurs. When it affects their own soil, it is met with outrage; when India is targeted, it is quickly subsumed under calls for restraint, he said.

Strategic recalibration

The report also serves as a call for strategic recalibration. GTRI has urged the Indian government to engage the US on trade, technology and investment, but without conceding its strategic autonomy. “No permanent allies, only permanent interests,” it said, arguing for a more assertive use of India's economic weight—particularly in global energy markets, defence procurement, and digital policy—as negotiating leverage.

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While India has in recent years signalled greater self-confidence on the global stage, including in forums like the G20 and the Quad, GTRI warns that unless it demands clear outcomes and rejects token diplomacy, it risks getting drawn into frameworks that serve others’ strategic needs more than its own. “Emotional diplomacy is over,” Srivastava said. “Like China, India must play chess, not cricket.”

The brief taps a deeper policy current in New Delhi, where there is rising consensus that India must break out of old narratives shaped by post-Cold War geopolitics and respond to the world on its own terms—not as a counterbalance to Pakistan, but as a leading power with independent stakes in the global order.