On 10th of May, 17 days since the world, a new and chaotic one, watched as India and Pakistan edged closer to war, in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack. After nearly four days air war and clashes on the LOC in Kashmir, a ceasefire was announced, unexpectedly by US President Donald Trump. Subsequently, the Pakistani side also confirmed the ceasefire. However, the Indian side chose to refer to it as ‘stoppage of firing’. Now, that the latest round of unprecedented clashes between India and Pakistan is winding down, it is important to focus on and understand the issue that is at the heart of the latest conflagration- Kashmir.
Kashmir: Holding its Own
The insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir started in 1989 and by 2001 had turned deadlier with each passing year. The years of 2000-2002 recorded the highest Indian forces deaths. However, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks Pakistan cracked down on the insurgent infrastructure in AJK and Pakistan, literally sucking the life out of the Kashmiri insurgency. After the ceasefire agreement and the fencing of the Line of Control(LOC) in Kashmir in 2003, the India- Pakistan bonhomie, primarily focused on arriving at a consensus over Kashmir which manifested itself in the famous 4-point formula. While the two countries huffed and puffed over the various formulas/deals/ compromises, etc, Kashmiris were effectively looked upon as commodities. However the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai in 2008 effectively ended this phase.
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The resistance movement in Indian-administered Kashmir, dogged and unrelenting, made a comeback in the summer of 2008 and the next few years saw thousands upon thousands of Kashmiris taking to the streets against the Indian rule, demanding freedom. The street protests eventually morphed into a second armed struggle by 2016 when the famous Kashmiri insurgent commander Burhan Wani was killed. This new phase of the armed resistance in Kashmir was mostly indigenous with young boys snatching guns from Indian forces, often with knives and chilli powder. In the wake of the killing of Burhan Wani, Pakistan, sensing an opportunity to settle its score against India, decided to jump in and bolster the rebels with limited support. The subsequent years saw thousands of Kashmiris taking up arms and challenging the writ of the Indian state. It was during this phase that Pakistan re-activated Pakistan based armed groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammad, after years of dormancy.
In February 2019, a young Kashmiri insurgent affiliated with Jaish-e-Mohammad rammed an explosives driven vehicle into a bus of Indian forces killing 40. It resulted in the Balakot strikes from India and the subsequent skirmish between India and Pakistan Air forces. It is important to pause here and analyze the narratives and situation in the wake of the Pulwama attack in 2019. Pakistan provides the insurgents in Kashmir limited support but enforces an iron-grip over their operations, carefully calibrating them to suit its own national and foreign policy interests, often at the peril of Kashmiris. The interests of the Kashmiri resistance and indeed Kashmir, do not figure in these calculations. However, it has been observed that the insurgents sometimes manage to evade the strict operational framework and undertake semi-independent attacks. At other times, the attacks simply turn out to be more effective than the insurgents intended. The Pulwama attack was an example of this and it again caught both India and Pakistan by surprise.
Pakistan hurried to call it a ‘false flag’, effectively casting doubts over the Kashmiri insurgency itself, after it was caught in a storm. The Kashmiri who carried out the attack was even called as an ‘Indian agent’ by sections of the Pakistani media. Pakistan tried to portray the attack as a ploy of Indian state to try to gain an advantage in its national elections on the back of flexing muscles against Pakistan. In this war of narratives between India and Pakistan, the Kashmiri insurgency and the overall resistance movement took a backseat and just like in 2003, Pakistan abandoned whatever little support it had offered. Emboldened, by the renewed choking of the supplies to insurgents across the border after the Pulwama attack, India launched a huge crackdown against the entire resistance movement in Indian-administered Kashmir, ranging from the political to the armed, and which eventually culminated in the siege that began on August 5, 2019 when India abrogated article 370 from its constitution. As it became clear later, India’s unilateral move had had the tacit approval of Pakistan.
In the wake of the happenings of Augsust 5, thousands of Kashmiris were jailed across various jails in India and the silence of the graveyard was made to prevail. In early summer of 2020, India was caught off-guard by China on its eastern border and occupied a few thousand square Kilometers of territory in Eastern Ladakh. Hand to hand clashes took place between the armies of the two countries in Galwan, Ladakh which is part of the Indian-administered Jammu & Kashmir. With this rapidly escalating situation on its eastern border, Pakistan readily came to India’s aid and renewed the ceasefire on the border with Kashmir, effectively giving India a huge relief. Thus India was able to move nearly 50,000 troops from Kashmir to Ladakh in early 2021.
India and Pakistan: Blowing hot and cold
As has now been revealed by various media sources in Pakistan, that both countries had come close, again, to an agreement on Kashmir in 2021 after the renewed ceasefire on the LOC. Reportedly, the Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi was set to visit Pakistan and officially stamp the agreement. However, apparently this could not materialize due to Pakistan’s internal politics. But, Pakistan now began to see that it was losing ground against India after drying up the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir. It held little leverage against a belligerent India, which was rapidly consolidating its stranglehold over Kashmir. Pakistan needed some leverage but at the same time it was wary of what had happened in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack. So, it started sending in highly trained fighters from Pakistan including some Kashmiris into the region south of Pir Panjal in Kashmir.
These fighters engaged Indian forces and started mounting casualties on them, a few a time, just enough to hurt India, but not enough to provoke a response across the border. India, desperate to present normalcy in Kashmir under played these attacks and often did not even blame Pakistan. India, on its part, embarked in a series of clandestine operations inside Pakistan, targeting individuals linked to the Kashmir insurgency. Over 20 individuals were assassinated over a period of two years in various areas of Pakistan. Short of a war or a full blown skirmish like that of February 2019, India and Pakistan kept pinching each other.
The insurgents operating in the mountains in and around Pir Panjal in Kashmir are the ones that India has pinned the Pahalgam attack on. The Resistance Front, a front of Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed the responsibility of the attack within hours on its social media, citing it as a reaction against India’s demographic belligerence in Kashmir. The attack in its nature and scope seemed unusual, since the Kashmiri insurgents, in one of their few autonomous policies, have largely abstained from targeting the tourists and civilians. The question therefore, arises what changed or prompted this attack? To understand this, it is important to go back into the developments between Indian and Pakistan on the Track-II circuit as well as the growing insurgency in Pakistan, particularly in Balochistan. It was reported last year that low level talks were underway between India and Pakistan in various cities around South Asia and Europe.
A retired Indian General, Lt. Satish Dua confirmed the existence of such talks and said he was part of it. On the Pakistani side, Khurshid Kasuri, the former Foreign affairs Minsiter of Pakistan, also confirmed that these talks were taking place. An Indian newspaper reported that in one of these meetings the Pakistanis had cited a then recent attack on Indian forces in Kashmir, signaling it still had assets to leverage against India. What Pakistan wanted out of these talks and still wants is to bring a closure to the Kashmir problem that has proved to be a headache for it over the last several decades. However, the shrewd Indian state has been unrelenting and sensing Pakistan’s desperation has kept its cards close to its chest. Pakistan, on the other hand, desperate kept poking Indian forces in Kashmir, getting emboldened with each strike and consequently coming out of the tactical limbo it found itself in after the Balakot strikes.
On 11 March, insurgents in Balochistan Hijacked a train full of Pakistan Army personnel. Several Army personnel were killed. The attacked came in the backdrop of an already renewed, growing and a brutal separatist insurgency in Balochistan. In response, Pakistani security forces came down heavily upon any and all elements related to Baloch separatism. India was specifically named by Pakistan as the primary sponsor of Baloch separatism.
The Pakistan Army spokesman emphatically stated that that ‘the rules of game have changed’. A plethora of social media accounts linked to the Pakistan Military began talking about extracting revenge for Balochistan in Kashmir. A few weeks later, Azad Jammu & Kashmir(AJK) Prime Minister Chaudhary Anwar ul Haq echoed similar thoughts when he warned India that the blood spilled in Balochistan will be avenged in Kashmir and Delhi. Simultaneously, Pakistan began flexing its muscles in AJK and allowed armed groups operating in Indian-administered Kashmir to hold rallies and fundraisers.
Finally, the retribution for Jaffer Express attack came in Pahalgam, IAK. On 22 April, four insurgents, according to Indian reports descended on a meadow in Pahalgam and shot nearly 50 tourists after checking their ID cards to ascertain if they were Hindus. 26 of the tourists shot died. The brutal attack sent shockwaves throughout India and Pakistan, and even the larger resistance community in Indian-administered Kashmir and around the world. On social media, people linked to the resistance dissociated themselves from the attack and expressed shock at the way the insurgency in Kashmir had been defamed. Even within Indian-administered Kashmir, where people are generally supportive of the insurgents, condemnation was widespread.
The Resistance Front (TRF), after initially claiming the attack, retracted from it. A Pakistani political commentator, Nusrat Javed, provided background of man commanding the TRF and alluded that he might be an ‘Indian asset’. A tactic used in the Pahalgam attack- ID cards of people were checked to identify before shooting them- was eerily similar to that witnessed in Balochistan over the last few years. In August 2024, in Musa Khail, Baloch insurgents killed over 23 people after identifying them as Punjabis. Similar attacks have been carried out in Gwadar in Noshki in 2024, in Turbat in 2023 and more recently in Gwadar in March this year. While Pakistan had apparently conveyed its message(tit for tat for Balochistan) to India, the question remained if Pakistan had again miscalculated the Indian response? In a TV interview, former Pakistani dictator Musharraf was asked if he had miscalculated the Indian response in Kargil. He replied in the negative and said, ‘No, India overreacted’.
To be continued…
The author is a political analyst specializing in South Asia.