India Resorted to Proxies After 'Humiliating Defeat' in May: PM Shehbaz
By Sayed Abdullah | June 27, 2026
The cadets stood at attention, the sea breeze off the Karachi coast barely stirring the flags above the parade ground. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had come to the Pakistan Naval Academy not just to review a passing-out parade, but to deliver a message that was unmistakably aimed east. India, he said, had suffered a defeat in the May 2025 conflict and was now turning to covert tactics and proxy warfare to destabilise Pakistan. The language was blunt. The setting — a military institution on the Arabian Sea — gave it weight. And the prime minister’s decision to name India directly, without diplomatic euphemism, signaled that Islamabad no longer sees a point in pretending the threat is anything other than what it is.
He also spoke of the western border, of terrorism, of Kashmir, and of a peace deal that Pakistan helped broker between Washington and Tehran. The speech moved from confrontation to diplomacy and back again. It was a map of the pressures surrounding the country.
What Actually Happened
Shehbaz Sharif’s address at the Naval Academy on Saturday was ostensibly a ceremonial occasion, but the prime minister used it to lay out a comprehensive security assessment. “Our eastern neighbour, having suffered a humiliating defeat in the conflict in May last year, has increasingly resorted to covert tactics and the use of proxies in an attempt to undermine the hard-earned peace and stability in our country,” he said. The May 2025 conflict, a short but intense military clash between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, ended with a ceasefire that the prime minister has previously credited to the intervention of US President Donald Trump. Now, nearly a year later, Shehbaz was accusing India of refusing to accept the outcome and of turning to asymmetric means to inflict damage that its conventional forces could not.
He also addressed the western front, where Pakistan has been battling a resurgence of militant violence. “The entire country remains steadfast in its iron resolve to defeat the nefarious designs of our enemies, while continuing to pursue peace, dialogue and diplomacy to address all outstanding disputes,” he said. The reference to “foreign-sponsored terrorism” from the western border was a clear nod to the activities of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and other groups that Islamabad has repeatedly accused Afghanistan’s Taliban administration of harbouring. The prime minister was drawing a line that connected both borders: the enemy to the east uses proxies, the enemy to the west shelters them, and Pakistan’s armed forces are fighting on both fronts simultaneously.
On the diplomatic front, Shehbaz highlighted Pakistan’s role in mediating the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran. “Pakistan’s sincere mediation efforts with the support of brotherly and friendly countries led to the historic signing of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran, which I also had the honour of signing as a mediator,” he said. He paid tribute to Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir for his “untiring efforts to bring all parties together to follow the path of peace and tranquillity.” The mention of the Iranian president’s recent visit to Pakistan was framed as an acknowledgment of the country’s standing as a regional peacemaker. The prime minister was, in effect, telling the naval cadets that Pakistan’s military strength and its diplomatic achievements are two sides of the same coin. You deter on the battlefield, and you negotiate at the table. The country is doing both.
The Bigger Picture
The prime minister’s speech reflects a hardening of Pakistan’s public posture toward India, but it arrives at a moment when the broader regional dynamics are unusually fluid. The US-Iran peace deal, mediated by Pakistan, has fundamentally reshaped the Middle Eastern security environment. The Strait of Hormuz is open. Oil is flowing. Iranian funds have been partially unfrozen. The same Pakistan that is now accusing India of proxy warfare is also the Pakistan that Iran’s president visited days ago to personally thank for its mediation. The contrast is striking. On one border, diplomacy has produced a fragile but real peace. On the other, the prime minister is warning of covert destabilisation. The country is being pulled in two directions, and the speech at the Naval Academy was an attempt to acknowledge both realities without letting either define the national mood.
The proxy accusation is not new. Pakistani officials have long claimed that India uses its consulates in Afghanistan and its intelligence network to support militant groups operating on Pakistani soil. India denies these allegations and routinely accuses Pakistan of sponsoring cross-border terrorism. The difference now is the context. The May 2025 conflict, which Shehbaz called a “humiliating defeat” for India, changed the calculus. A conventional military setback, however small, creates a political imperative for the losing side to restore its credibility. If India’s military leadership believes it cannot win a direct confrontation, the argument goes, it will turn to methods that are harder to trace and easier to deny. That is the prime minister’s logic. Whether it is supported by actionable intelligence that can be shared with the international community is another matter. Public accusations without public evidence run the risk of being dismissed as rhetoric. But the accusation itself serves a purpose: it tells the world that Pakistan expects trouble, and that if trouble comes, it will not be a surprise.
What This Means for Pakistanis
For the ordinary Pakistani, yaar, the prime minister’s words from a naval parade ground can feel distant. The cadets in their whites, the flags, the talk of grand strategy — it is a world away from the pressure of paying an electricity bill or filling a petrol tank. But the connection is real, and it is economic. A Pakistan that is perceived as unstable — that is fighting a proxy war on its eastern border and a militant insurgency on its western one — is a Pakistan that investors avoid. The IMF programme that the government is trying to stabilise depends on confidence. The trade corridors that the country wants to open, including with Iran and Central Asia, depend on security. When the prime minister says that India is using proxies to destabilise Pakistan, he is also saying that the economic recovery cannot be secured unless the security threats are contained. The two are not separate. They are the same project.
For a family in Karachi, the instability translates into prices. Petrol, at roughly Rs. 285 per litre, has come down slightly from its wartime peak, but it is still punishing. If the proxy war that Shehbaz warned about leads to another security crisis — a major terrorist attack, a border skirmish that escalates — those prices will spike again. The brief period of economic breathing room created by the US-Iran deal could disappear in a single day. That is the reality behind the prime minister’s words. He was not just talking to the cadets. He was talking to a nation that needs to understand why the military remains mobilised, and why diplomacy on the other border matters so much. The navy is the guarantor of the sea lanes through which Pakistan’s oil arrives. The stability Shehbaz promised depends on the force he was addressing. And the people watching from home depend on both.
My Take
I’ll be honest — the prime minister’s speech was a political document as much as a security assessment. Calling India’s defeat “humiliating” serves a domestic audience that remembers the conflict and wants to believe it ended in Pakistan’s favour. Accusing India of proxy warfare, without providing detailed evidence, is a serious charge that demands substantiation. The international community will not simply take Islamabad’s word for it, and India will certainly not let the accusation stand unchallenged. But the speech was not primarily aimed at the international community. It was aimed at the cadets standing in the heat, at the families watching on television, at a country that needs to hear that its hardships are not random, that its enemies are known, and that its government is awake to the threats.
The risk, of course, is that such rhetoric narrows the space for diplomacy. If India is openly described as using proxies, the door to any bilateral dialogue — already barely ajar — closes further. The government seems to have calculated that the door is closed anyway, and that the priority now is to prepare for a prolonged period of covert confrontation. That is a realistic assessment, but it is also a self-fulfilling one. If both sides assume the other is only interested in destabilisation, neither will invest in peace. The ceasefire that Trump helped broker in May 2025 is holding, but the political environment around it is deteriorating. The prime minister’s speech did not cause that deterioration. But it confirmed it. And that confirmation, however accurate, makes the work of diplomacy harder. The navy will do its job. The question is whether the diplomats are still being allowed to do theirs.
Do you believe India is actively using proxies to destabilise Pakistan, or is this political posturing? Share your perspective.
Sayed Abdullah is the founder and editor of Prime Pakistan. Based in Karachi, he writes about politics, security, and the stories that shape Pakistani lives. Read more.
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Sources
- Prime Minister's Office — Speech at the Pakistan Naval Academy passing out parade.
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