India, Pakistan, and the Threat of War Over Kashmir
Is the Modi government turning towards the Israel model of warfare as it reacts to the brutal terror attack in Pahalgam?
At the end of April, 25 Indians and one Nepalese national were killed in an attack in a meadow popular with tourists near Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir. The victims, all men, were shot at close range by unidentified gunmen in a popular but isolated travel spot.
Almost immediately after the attack, which India blamed on an obscure group that few had heard of until then called the “Kashmir Resistance,” Narendra Modi’s government pointed the finger at Pakistan, saying it was behind the deadly ambush, though it offered no evidence or credible claims for Islambad’s supposed involvement. While former dictator and President Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan turned a “blind eye” towards the formation of militant groups, officially, Pakistan has long rejected India’s accusations about their role in Kashmiri militancy; recently, the government denied any role in the Pahalgam attacks and offered to cooperate with “any neutral, transparent, and credible investigation,” but Modi and his cronies were having none of this diplomacy nonsense. This trigger-sensitive tension is not new; India has long accused Pakistan of funding and arming militancy in Kashmir. Pakistan has always denied the claims.
In the aftermath of Pahalgam, India proceeded to cancel visas of Pakistani nationals living in India, separating mothers from children in heart-rending scenes at the border, expelled diplomats, closed the Attari land border, and unilaterally suspended the Indus Water Treaty, an essential water-sharing agreement between the two nuclear-armed nations that has no suspension clause. Modi promised to chase the culprits to “the ends of the Earth,” his commerce minister scolded India’s 1.4 billion citizens and said unless they made “nationalism and patriotism their supreme duty, these types of incidents will continue to trouble the country” (making Pahalgam their fault and Pakistan’s in some manifestation of magical/psychic coordination), and the minister of resources promised to ensure “not a single drop of water” would flow from India to Pakistan. Modi granted India’s military “operational freedom” going forward, both countries tested missiles, and there was firing and shelling across Kashmir’s Line of Control. For its part, Pakistan responded in kind while also closing its airspace and suspending trade with India.
In a largely sycophantic corporate media environment, few Indian outlets have been able to ask how the Pahalgam attack could have occurred in a zone that has one of the largest security force deployments in the world. Or why were tourists allowed into the isolated meadows near Pahalgam? Or what proof does the state have to back up its incendiary claims? India is not unique in blaming its neighbor for terror attacks. In March, across the border, the Jaffer Express, a passenger train traveling between Quetta and Peshawar, was hijacked. Gunmen purporting to be part of the Balochistan Liberation Army held hundreds of passengers hostage, and it took Pakistan’s security forces nearly two days to end the terrifying hijacking. Pakistan has long blamed India for roiling tensions in Balochistan and suggested that the Jaffer Express attack was the work of “regional adversaries.”
Yet Modi’s anti-Pakistani war drums have been played so incessantly and so tunelessly over his interminable rule that whatever threatening power they might have once had has long since faded. Now, they are simply noisy and irritating. But unfortunately, with global consequences.