by TARIQ ALI
India and Pakistan are preparing for war. The casus belli is, once again, occupied Kashmir. Control over this disputed region has since 1947 been the main obstacle to normalising relations between the two states. On 22 April, a group of Kashmiri militants targeted and killed 26 tourists enjoying the beauty of Pahalgam’s flower-filled meadows, crystal streams and snow-capped mountains; responsibility for the attack was claimed and then quickly disavowed by a little-known organization called the ‘Resistance Front’. This was a particular affront to Narendra Modi (whose record includes presiding, as Chief Minister, over the slaughter of an estimated 2,000 civilians in the 2002 Gujarat massacre, and long a defender of anti-Muslim pogroms). A far-right Hindu nationalist now in his third term as India’s Prime Minister, Modi had previously declared that there was no longer any serious Kashmir problem. His final solution – revoking Kashmir’s autonomous status in 2019 – had succeeded.
Nothing justifies the slaughter of the Pahalgam holidaymakers, and vanishingly few Kashmiri or Indian Muslims would support actions of this sort. But historical context is necessary to understand the overall situation in the province. Even Israel has a Ha’aretz. Not India. Kashmir remains an untouchable subject. This Muslim-majority province has never been allowed to determine its own fate, as promised by Congress leaders at the time of Independence. Instead, it was partitioned between the new republics of India and Pakistan after a short war in which the British commander of the Pakistan Army refused to agree to its use, leaving a ragtag force to face off against India’s regular troops. That well-known pacifist, Mahatma Gandhi, blessed the Indian invasion. Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution were supposed to guarantee Kashmir’s special status, not least by forbidding non-Kashmiris the right to buy property and settle there. This was combined with brutal repression of any stirrings of discontent, turning Kashmir into a police state with military units never too far away. Killings and rapes were common. Mass graves had been discovered.
Courageous Indian citizens (Arundhati Roy, Pankaj Mishra and others) relentlessly exposed these crimes. Angana Chatterji cited numerous examples uncovered in the course of her 2006-11 fieldwork:
Many have been forced to witness the rape of women and girl family members. A mother who was reportedly commanded to watch her daughter’s rape by army personnel pleaded for her child’s release. They refused. She then pleaded that she could not watch and asked to be sent out of the room or else killed. The soldier put a gun to her forehead, stating that he would grant her wish, and shot her dead before they proceeded to rape her daughter.
This would not have been illegal. The 1958 Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act grants impunity for uniformed defenders of the Central State in ‘disturbed areas’, upheld by the Indian Supreme Court.
Modi’s strategy in 2019 was to flood Kashmir with Indian troops, imposing lockdowns, arresting local leaders and journalists and instilling enough terror in the population to ensure that there would be no protests such as might prompt objections from the Western powers. The goal was turning the Valley into the dairy centre for the whole country. Repression seemed to have worked – until now.
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The Indian Government is convinced that the killings were orchestrated by the Pakistan Army. No proof has so far been provided, but the charge is more plausible than the Pakistani response that this was a false-flag operation. To add to the confusion, on 24 April Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khwaja Asif confirmed on UK television that Pakistan had a long history of training and funding such terrorist organizations, saying ‘We have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about three decades’. A few days later Asif also forecast an Indian ‘excursion’ into Pakistan, only to later retract the remark.
Indian politicians of most stripes are calling for war. Shashi Tharoor, a Congresswallah and a former senior UN official has stated: ‘Yes, blood will be spilled but more of theirs than ours.’ The popular mood is for a short, sharp war of revenge. Israel’s genocide in Gaza has been approvingly referenced, but another model is more likely. After Israel bombed the Iranian Embassy in Damascus in April 2024, the CIA rushed to organise a carefully controlled response by Iran, with US, French, British and Jordanian air defences in the region primed to shoot down the incoming Iranian drones and missiles.
The Indian Army and Air Force are currently engaged in planning an assault, but it may be of the Iranian variety. Retired generals are boasting of India’s drone reserves. The most extreme measure being discussed is to occupy Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and unite it with its Indian-occupied sibling. Threats to cut off the water supply to Pakistan are pure bluster and Bilawal Bhutto’s riposte – ‘If the water does not flow your blood will’ – was immature and stupid, even for a former Pakistani Foreign Minister.
The Indian press has alleged that an inflammatory public address to representatives of the Pakistani diaspora on 17 April by the country’s Army Chief, General Asim Munir, was the signal for Pahalgam. Others, including a former Pakistani army major, Adil Raja, are claiming that the attack was a personal initiative by Munir to boost his own standing and pave the way for a new military dictatorship. This was putatively opposed by the ISI. Damage control or truth? Difficult to say, though Munir’s appalling speech offers some clues.
The address was clearly designed to make clear to wealthy overseas Pakistanis that the Army runs the country. Some in the audience must have been hired to give standing ovations to the Army Chief’s unprecedentedly crude, uncouth and ignorant remarks. I cannot recall a single military dictator of the country ever speaking in such a fashion. Sandhurst-trained General Ayub Khan was bland and secular. General Yahya Khan was highly entertaining when drunk and avoided public appearances. General Zia-ul-Haq was a religious sadist, but desperate for a deal with India; denouncing Hindus was not his style. General Musharraf was essentially secular, relatively cultured and very keen on a rapprochement with India.
General Munir’s attempt to pose as a uniformed Pakistani version of Modi was a dismal failure. He made three assertions, all of them disgusting nationalist lies. First, that Hindus were and always had been the enemy, and that Muslims could never live with them. This is the inversion of Modi’s claim that all Indian Muslims are converts from Hinduism and ought to return to the old faith. Someone should have educated the General: Muslims co-existed with Hindus and later Sikhs for nearly twelve centuries prior to 1947. The Mughal period (hated by Modi and Islamic fundamentalists alike) led to integrated armies with Hindu and Muslim generals and soldiers defending the Muslim-created Empire.
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