Chaos in Kashmir

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Violence erupted between India and Pakistan this week as India launched airstrikes on what it called “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan after 26 Hindu tourists were killed in an attack in Kashmir claimed by terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Pakistan retaliated with its own drone and missile strikes before President Trump on Saturday announced that the US had brokered a ceasefire between the two sides, though explosions were reported in Indian-controlled Srinagar on Saturday. 

As of Sunday evening, a fragile truce over the region appears to be holding. Both countries are nuclear weapon states, and with more than 150 million people living along the immediate border between the two countries, the risks and costs of potential escalation are enormous. 

How did we get here? 

While this round of violence was kicked off by April’s terror attack, the conflict has its roots in Britain’s botched decolonisation process, in which it partitioned British India into separate Hindu and Muslim states. In a feat of supreme hubris, Cyril Radcliffe attempted to divide a Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan along an ill-conceived boundary running through Punjab, decided over the course of only five weeks. The line ended up leaving both Hindus and Muslims stranded on the wrong side of the border, resulting in an explosion of intercommunal violence that led to up to 20 million people being displaced and as many as 2 million killed. 

Following partition, the persistent thorn in relations between Islamabad and Delhi was the northern region of Jammu and Kashmir. While much of British India was ruled directly, there was also a constellation of small ‘princely states’ that was governed indirectly through local leaders (or maharajas). These leaders were given the option to choose which successor state they joined. Jammu and Kashmir was one such princely state. 

The problem: Jammu and Kashmir was 75% Muslim, but the maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh, chose to join India after partition. Pakistan never recognised Indian sovereignty over Kashmir, and they fought two wars over the region in 1965 and 1999. Today, the region is disputed three ways between India, Pakistan and China. India controls around half of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, while Pakistan controls around a third through Gilgit-Baltistan province, and China controls the high-altitude Aksai Chin region. 

The last major flare up between India and Pakistan over the region took place in February 2019, after militants from Jaish-e-Mohammed killed 40 Indian police personnel in an attack on a police convoy in the region. India bombed sites in Pakistan and Islamabad retaliated with its own strikes, but both sides ultimately stepped back from the brink without greater escalation. 

The situation was complicated further in August 2019, when the Modi government revoked Jammu & Kashmir’s political autonomy, downgrading their status to that of ‘union territory’ from ‘state’ that they had before. This triggered significant unrest and led to a months-long army enforced curfew across the region to attempt to keep the situation under control. 

The attack on 22 April killed 25 Hindu Indian tourists and one Nepali national and was claimed by Lashkar-e-Taiba - a Pakistani militant group that aims to bring Pakistani sovereignty to Jammu and Kashmir. The group was responsible for a massive, multi-phase terror attack in Mumbai in 2008, and Indian authorities have long claimed that the group operates with the tacit support of Pakistani security services. 

Why does this matter?

For the region of Kashmir itself, the Lashkar-e-Taiba attack and this week’s escalation is a disaster. 

Despite its disputed status, terrorist violence in the region has subsided in recent years. Tourism now accounts for around 7% of the region’s GDP with arrivals jumping from 570,000 in 2019 to 3.5 million last year. This newly important industry is likely to collapse almost overnight. 

The violence also threatens to upend Pakistan’s tentative economic recovery from years of political dysfunction and financial mismanagement. The country’s stock exchange plunged 10% in four days after the Indian military action began, and India has pushed the IMF to review its lending to the country. Nonetheless, the IMF approved a fresh $1.4bn loan to the country on Friday, in what will be a source of great relief to policymakers and investors in the country. 

But for the region as a whole, the situation is on a knife-edge. While everything will depend on whether the ceasefire holds over the next few days, there are reasons to be more concerned this time than last time hostilities flared up in 2019.

The first is that the Pakistani army chief and likely most powerful man in the country, Asim Munir, is reportedly more conservative and hawkish than his predecessors. Having taken up the role in 2021, he has referred to Kashmir as Pakistan’s “jugular vein” and pledged support to Kashmir’s struggle to achieve independence from India. 

The second is Modi, who has leaned further into ‘Hindutva’ hindu nationalism over the past six years and likely feels more pressure to react strongly. The decision to launch strikes well-inside Pakistan on Bahawalpur, well south of Kashmir in Punjab, indicates that New Delhi has already taken a more aggressive approach on this. Despite the ceasefire, India continues to suspend a treaty that gives Pakistan access to water from the Indus Basin that provides 80% of the country’s irrigation supply. 

The final difference is the broader international context. Whilst Trump was also in power at the time of the last fighting in 2019, the administration this time is less engaged in what it views as second-tier geopolitical challenges, and has its hands full with the wars in Ukraine, the Middle East and its own trade policy. The US does not even have a full ambassador in New Delhi currently. 

As a tentative ceasefire holds over the region, we can only hope that both sides feel they have done enough to preserve their honor without feeling the need to lurch into further escalation. The stability of one of the world’s most fractious and densely populated regions hangs in the balance.