India and Pakistan summoned each other’s top diplomats on Wednesday after an Indian and a Pakistani naval vessel collided in international waters, a sharp reminder that the machinery of state power keeps grinding even when the impact doesn’t cause major damage. The two nuclear-armed neighbours quickly turned the incident into another round of official protest, with foreign ministries on both sides issuing statements, lodging objections and blaming the other for what happened at sea.
Who Has the Power
India’s foreign ministry said it had called in Pakistan’s senior envoy to formally register a strong objection over what it called "unacceptable and unprofessional conduct" of Pakistani naval units that led to a collision with an Indian warship. Pakistan’s foreign ministry answered with its own language of official outrage, saying it had called upon the charge d'affaires of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad to convey disapproval over what it called "highly provocative and unacceptable action" by an Indian navy vessel.
The collision was the first overt military tension between the two countries since they engaged in a fierce, four-day military conflict last year that raised fears of a wider war before a ceasefire was reached. That’s the world ordinary people inherit: armed institutions, nuclear threats and diplomatic rituals that treat near-misses like paperwork.
Indian sources said the collision occurred when a Pakistani naval ship moved closer to a frontline Indian warship on a routine surveillance mission in the north Arabian Sea at high speed. The impact did not cause any major damage, but India said Pakistan’s conduct was "in direct contravention" of a 1991 agreement between the two countries governing military exercises, manoeuvres and troop movements.
Rules for the Armed, Risks for Everyone Else
That 1991 agreement says naval ships and submarines of the two countries should keep a distance of at least three nautical miles from each other to avoid any accident in international waters. The language is tidy. The reality is not. Two militaries operating in contested waters, each claiming the other crossed the line, leave the public with the familiar gift of escalation managed from above.
India’s foreign ministry said the charge d'affaires of Pakistan was advised to convey to the concerned Pakistani authorities the need for all military units to observe due care and respect the provisions of the relevant agreements between the two sides in order to prevent any repeat of such incidents. The top Indian diplomat in Islamabad was also instructed to lodge a similar protest with Pakistan’s foreign ministry.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry told a different version of the same standoff. It said the Indian vessel had carried out "aggressive manoeuvres in dangerously close proximity" to a Pakistani naval ship that was taking part in biennial exercises, and that the charge d'affaires had been asked to convey to the Indian government that the country rejected the Indian action. The Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, it said, would lodge the same demarche with India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
Diplomacy After the Fact
India and Pakistan do not have ambassadors in each other’s capitals. They downgraded their diplomatic relations over their Kashmir dispute in 2019, and their missions have been headed by a charge d'affaires since. That downgrade sits in the background like a permanent warning light, one more sign that the official channels between the two states are built for managed hostility, not peace.
The arch-rivals have fought three major wars, two of them over Kashmir, which is divided between them but claimed in full by both. They have also fought numerous armed skirmishes since independence from British colonial India in 1947. Wednesday’s collision didn’t break that pattern. It fit it.
Both sides blamed the other for the incident on Tuesday, and both sides moved immediately to the language of protest, disapproval and formal notice. The people who live under these rival military machines don’t get to vote on the patrol routes, the surveillance missions or the nuclear brinkmanship. They get the consequences.
The collision may have caused no major damage, but the political damage is already built into the system: armed states, disputed borders, and a diplomatic order that keeps ordinary people trapped beneath institutions that treat confrontation as routine and restraint as a press statement.