In the current geopolitical churn, where influence is jostled for not just with tanks and trade but with quiet handshakes and shady backdoors, India’s diplomatic game has taken on a sharper edge. Everyone’s watching China these days, sure—but India? It’s playing a subtler hand. Underneath the speeches about cooperation and peace lies something far more calculated.

Let’s start with what’s obvious but often ignored: India wants to be seen as a big player. Not just in South Asia, but globally. And for that, it’s pulling all the usual levers—military upgrades, regional posturing, and a foreign policy that swings between charm and coercion. But its strategy isn’t just about building alliances. It’s about shaping narratives. And sometimes, about doing things quietly that it can later deny.

Take a look at the numbers. For the 2025–26 fiscal year, India’s defense budget has shot up to $77.4 billion, which is a big leap. Pakistan, on the other end, will find it difficult to match this staggering amount and it does not has nefarious designs like India. But there’s something infused into that budget that deserves a lot more attention—something called Special Diplomatic Expenditure. It’s not a headline-maker, but it should be. India’s allocated ₹4,900 crore (around $590 million) to it this year alone. On paper, it’s about diplomacy, outreach, cultural programs. In practice? That’s not the whole story, there is something more to it.

Because when you look closely, you start to notice a pattern—and it’s not about cultural exchange or mutual understanding. It’s about covert operations. It’s about moving quietly behind enemy lines while wearing a diplomatic badge.

2023 pulled back the curtain a bit. In Canada, a high-profile case exploded when Indian diplomat Pavan Kumar Rai was kicked out. Why? He was accused of facilitating the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh leader. And it didn’t stop there. Across the border, U.S. authorities stopped a similar plot targeting Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, another Sikh activist and an American citizen. The kicker? Both cases pointed back to Indian intelligence. That’s not soft power—it’s extraterritorial repression, dressed up in diplomatic suits.

The recent Sikh killings in Canada represent a classical example of India’s coercive diplomatic outreach overtime. It divulges a systematic chain—beginning with Indian diplomats collecting intelligence on Sikh separatists, which is then handed over to RAW for target identification. Execution of attacks is outsourced to criminal syndicates like the one led by Lawrence Bishnoi, with high-level authorization from senior officials such as Ajit Doval and Amit Shah. The operation further includes coercing Indian-origin individuals in Canada through visa threats and pressure on families in India to force them into spying on Sikh activists. This pattern shows how India’s diplomatic presence abroad is increasingly being weaponized for extraterritorial repression, merging espionage with transnational violence.

And this isn’t new. Not by a long shot.

In 2016, Pakistan expelled eight officials from the Indian High Commission—on charges ranging from spying to destabilization. And they didn’t just wave goodbye—they issued a dossier tying those individuals to RAW, India’s external intelligence agency. In 2020, Australia did something similar—quietly removing four Indian officials for trying to access classified defense tech. Fast forward to 2023, and the Qatari courts sentenced eight Indian naval officers to death for espionage. That’s not the kind of thing that happens without serious evidence behind closed doors.

There’s a long tail here. India’s intelligence game under diplomatic cover goes way back—decades, actually. When RAW was born in 1968, its focus wasn’t just about external threats. It became a tool for regional engineering. That same year, there were whispers about the Larkana Conspiracy—Indian agents slipping into Sindh via diplomatic channels to stoke separatism. Not rumors—reports. And those embassies in Kabul and elsewhere? They were more than just consular offices. They were command centers.

By 1971, during the breakup of East Pakistan, Indian diplomats were deep in the mix. Not on the sidelines. From Kathmandu to Colombo, they were supplying intelligence and arms to the Mukti Bahini. It wasn’t just policy—it was participation.

And then came Sri Lanka. The 1980s saw Indian support, through RAW, flowing to Tamil separatist groups like the LTTE. Arms, funding, strategy—the whole lot. And guess where it was funneled through? Diplomatic channels. The irony? These missions were supposed to represent peace, and instead, they were fuelling insurgency.

Even in the Gulf, Indian intelligence was busy. Diplomatic staff in the UAE and Oman were expelled over allegations of spying on Pakistani expats and military personnel. Some of these operatives were reportedly tracking Pakistani officers on foreign soil. Again—this isn’t paranoia. It’s documented pattern.

And let’s not forget the 1988 Maldives coup attempt. India’s intervention looked heroic. But dig deeper, and you’ll find analysts asking: did RAW already know? Did they let it play out just enough to justify military action? It wouldn’t be the first time intelligence gave a green light to chaos for the sake of later control.

The thread that ties all this together? The line between diplomacy and intelligence—India’s been walking it, often blurring it. Today, with that massive spike in Special Diplomatic Expenditure, it’s fair to ask: how much of it is actually about diplomacy, and how much is about something else entirely?

Pakistan isn’t imagining things. The recent Jaffar Express attack, for instance, had all the signs of cross-border planning. And fingers, again, pointed at Indian operatives operating through Afghan networks. This isn’t about crying wolf. It’s about recognizing that there is a wolf—and that it’s wearing a diplomat’s badge.

Meanwhile, India’s own house isn’t exactly in order. The unrest in Manipur, the Sikh discontent in Punjab, and the ongoing brutality in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir—these aren’t isolated issues. They point to internal fractures. And yet, even while dealing with all this, India finds time and resources to interfere in Pakistan’s affairs. You’d think a rising power would invest more in global outreach, in actual diplomacy. But here’s the thing—India is lagging in that department too.

According to the Global Diplomacy Index, India only has 194 diplomatic posts. Compare that with China’s 274 or Turkey’s 252. It’s not exactly the footprint of a global leader. Instead of expanding its foreign service, India seems to be channeling its diplomatic resources into covert action. Less about dialogue, more about disruption.

And that’s the strategic miscalculation. The more India leans into this hybrid model—spying dressed as statecraft—the more it damages its own credibility. You can’t court global leadership and run clandestine ops on Western soil without blowback. Eventually, partners notice. And they respond. Maybe not with speeches, but with expulsions, indictments, and quiet diplomatic cold shoulders.

So here’s where we land: India’s growing diplomatic budgets, especially under vague titles like “special expenditure,” aren’t just line items—they’re red flags. For Pakistan, this isn’t just about pointing fingers. It’s about preparing—diplomatically, strategically, and defensively. Because when diplomacy becomes a cover for sabotage, the region doesn’t move toward peace. It teeters toward something far more unstable.

The world should be watching. Not just the speeches—but the shadows behind them.

Author

Abdul Basit, Associate Research Officer at Center for International Strategic Studies AJK