← History As It Happens
History As It Happens
India and Pakistan's Forever War
00:45:01
For four days in early May, India and Pakistan were on the brink of another war over the contested Kashmir, the mountainous territory that has witnessed waves of ferocious violence since partition in 1947. A ceasefire averted major hostilities, but...
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Martin DeCaro
History as it happens May 16, 2025 India and Pakistan's Forever War India and.
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Anatole Leven
Pakistan are once again on the brink of all out war.
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Khwaja Asif
The whole world has heard Pakistan's Defense Minister Khwaja Asif admitting and confessing Pakistan's history of supporting, training and funding terrorist organizations.
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William Dalrymple
Pakistan has accused India of igniting an inferno in the region by killing at least 26 people in a of missile strikes and gunfire.
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Martin DeCaro
Those strikes came after Islamabad accused New Delhi of sending a wave of missiles towards three Pakistani air bases. What began as a retaliatory strike by India in response to the Pehalgam terror.
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Attack has spiraled into an undeclared war.
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Anatole Leven
Marked let's rewind to 1947.
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William Dalrymple
In October 1947, events took a grave turn.
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Martin DeCaro
From bloody partition in 1947 to today, India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir where many of its people prefer to be governed by neither side. It is one of the world's longest running, most dangerous conflicts as both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and a harrowing reminder of why some conflicts seem impossible to end. Why that's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
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Anatole Leven
Strictly speaking, as a Muslim majority area, Kashmir should have come to Pakistan at independence and partition in 1947. But Kashmir was not directly British ruled. It was an autonomous Princeton. And the maharaja put in by the British was Hindu. And so for a crucial few weeks after independence, he hesitated. And he hesitated just too long. And Pakistan then sent in armed volunteers to overthrow him.
- [02:20]
Martin DeCaro
August 1947.
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William Dalrymple
The rains come to India. It's the monsoon season. Fields are flooded, rivers overflow their banks. And all the time the bloodshed goes on as the new dominions of Pakistan and India take over their own affairs. Communal hatred flares up in the Punjab.
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Martin DeCaro
After 300 years in India, the British exit.
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William Dalrymple
The gate of freedom is open in India. In Karachi, capital of the newly created Muslim state of Pakistan, Lord Louis Mountbatten, last Viceroy of India, arrives to take.
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Martin DeCaro
Part in the official what followed was a horrific bloodletting as massive populations moved between two newly independent states, forever remembered by a single word, partition A million displaced persons.
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William Dalrymple
Independence has not yet brought them peace. Rejoicing turned quickly into horror and mourning. Throughout this vast land, Hindus and Muslims seek safety in new surroundings. Peace loving people. Theirs is the real tragedy. The fortunate few flee in army transports or in buses.
- [03:25]
Martin DeCaro
Here is historian William Dalrymple, writing for the New Yorker. Across the Indian subcontinent, communities that coexisted for almost a millennium attacked each other in a terrifying outbreak of sectarian violence. With Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other. A mutual genocide. As unexpected as it was unprecedented.
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William Dalrymple
Civil war has so far brought death to more than 50,000 people. In the trail of murder and arson come the refugees. Their suffering is the new tragedy of India.
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Martin DeCaro
In Punjab and Bengal provinces abutting India's borders with west and East Pakistan, respectively, the carnage was especially intense, with massacres, arson, forced conversions, mass abductions and savage sexual violence. Some 75,000 women were raped and many of them were then disfigured or dismembered.
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William Dalrymple
So India, with over 380 million people, now has two flags flying. One of the earth's ancient civilizations, her future is beset with strife, but her people are free.
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Martin DeCaro
And then, in October 1947, India and Pakistan clashed over contested territory above the northern tip of India, known for its beautiful mountain peaks, valleys and lakes. Who started it is still bitterly disputed today. You see, after partition, the princely ruler of Kashmir, the Maharaja Hari Singh, was able to choose which new state to join. He was a Hindu. Most of the population was Muslim. He couldn't decide. So the Maharaja instead signed an interim standstill agreement to keep up links with Pakistan without alienating India. But this tenuous arrangement did not last. That same month, Pakistani tribesmen invaded Kashmir. The Maharaja called India for help and signed the instrument of accession, temporarily joining India pending a vote on its permanent status. A vote we all know, that never took place. To this day, both sides disagree over whether the instrument of accession or the entry of Indian troops came first. And we will discuss the origins of one of the world's most intractable conflicts with our guest in a moment, Anatol Levin, who's been covering Kashmir for 38 years. India and Pakistan have fought three wars over the territory, including this first one, which ended in a UN brokered ceasefire in 1949. The second war broke out in 1965.
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William Dalrymple
This was the last gunfire of the brief war between India and Pakistan. Indian reinforcements were moving up as the ceasefire was negotiated, putting an end to the conflict that has cost 5,000 lives. As this report comes from the Indian side, it shows Ambala, whose military hospital was bombed by Pakistan.
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Martin DeCaro
This war also failed to resolve anything. In 1972, India and Pakistan formalized the original UN ceasefire line, now the line of control in the Simla agreement. But this did not bring peace either. In fact, violence grew worse with a ferocious insurgency from the late 1980s.
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William Dalrymple
We want complete independence both from India and Pakistan. Insha Allah, we will achieve our goal within no time.
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Martin DeCaro
Just hours later, he and 20 others were dead after a two hour dawn gun battle with Indian forces. The army claimed the separatists tried to retake the mosque, according to a New York Times report filed in 1999. After a decade of insurgency, Jammu and Kashmir, while never happily a part of India, nevertheless lived in relative peace until the rebellion. Statewide between January 1, 1990 and July 15, 1999, the the state police recorded 7,922 attacks with explosives, 3,500 abductions and 619 rocket attacks. The years 1993-96 were the worst. Three days after Muslim militants ended their occupation of Kashmir's holiest Islamic shrine, Indian security forces maintained a tight cordon around it. Fast forward to April 2025, on the.
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Brink of an all out war. After 26 people, most of them tourists, were killed in the Indian held part of Kash, tensions are rising. India pointing fingers at Pakistan for the deadly attack where rebels storm one of.
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Martin DeCaro
The worst terror attacks on Indian civilians in decades. India said Pakistan, because of its history backing Kashmiri militants, was involved in the massacre.
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Khwaja Asif
Acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and.
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Martin DeCaro
By whomever committed, Pakistan denied it. India retaliated on May 7, launching missiles deep into Pakistani territory and sparking a frightening confrontation that lasted four days before the Trump administration pushed the two nuclear armed countries to accept a ceasefire. So 78 years after partition, India and Pakistan continue to spill blood over Kashmir. There's been almost no progress in decades toward resolving this territorial dispute, steeped in historical grievances and sectarian divisions. Why? Anatole Leven is director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft here in Washington. Our conversation next History is defined by.
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Martin DeCaro
Anatole Levin, welcome back.
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Anatole Leven
Hi.
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Martin DeCaro
My listeners will remember you as a regular expert on this podcast discussing Russia, Ukraine. But you know, a few years ago you came on here to talk about your experience covering the anti Soviet jihad in the late 1980s in Afghanistan. And you also have extensive experience as a journalist many years ago covering the India Pakistan conflict over Kashmir. Tell us a little bit about how you got involved in that and when you were there in the Kashmir.
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Anatole Leven
I was a student in India. After going to university, I spent a year there as a student. Then I returned there as a freelance journalist in the mid-80s. Then a little later, the London Times made me their correspondent in Pakistan, well, their stringer. I wasn't really a full correspondence. So I was in Pakistan for two years. And while I was there, I was also covering the Afghan war. So I made six journeys with the Afghan mujahideen. And then after the Soviets withdrew in 1989, some of us got visas to go in and visit Kabul and Herat and Mazar on the government, the communist side. So I saw a bit of the other side of the war as well. When 911 happened, I was here in Washington at the Carnegie Endowment and I was supposed to be working on the former Soviet Union then, but I was the only person in the building who had lived and worked in Pakistan and Afghanistan. So of course I volunteered and I went back to Pakistan the week after 9 11. I went back to Afghanistan after the Taliban fell. Thereafter, for the best part of 15 years, I was mostly working on that area. I made several journeys to Afghanistan, spent a lot of time in Pakistan and wrote a book on the Pakistani state and political power called A Hard Country.
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Martin DeCaro
And in the late late 1980s is when the insurgency in Kashmir begins.
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Anatole Leven
That's right. Even then, much more later, we were looking at the relationship between the Pakistani army and the intelligence service and radical Islamist groups. Now, at that stage, of course, with the full encouragement of the West, Pakistan was sending those Pakistani volunteers to fight in Afghanistan. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, they were redirected to fight against India in Kashmir. And it's really out of that that comes the present crisis in its origins, not, I should say that the, the crisis in Kashmir are the latest one because there have been a whole series since independence in 1947. It didn't actually begin with Pakistan. It began with local unrest against interference by the Indian center and dismissal of the elected government in Kashmir. Then, of course, the Pakistanis jumped in and supported these jihadi groups fighting against India.
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Martin DeCaro
Yeah, we're going to get to that. That is a theme throughout this story. Pakistani support for militants or terrorist groups or jihadists. And time and again, these militant groups cause problems for Pakistan itself, not just the people that they're fighting. So, yes, there is an India administered Kashmir and a Pakistan administered Kashmir. There's also a small part controlled by China. I want everyone to open up a tab on their computer or on their pH. Look at a map of this region as you're listening to this conversation, because it is important. India controls about two thirds of Kashmir, Pakistan about one third. But Anatole, most of the population is Muslim, Right? And that's always been the case.
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Anatole Leven
Yes, that is the case. That's at the root of the whole problem, both internal. Kashmir is the only Indian Muslim majority state, but also between India and Pakistan. Strictly speaking, as a Muslim majority area, Kashmir should have gone to Pakistan at independence and partition in 1947. But Kashmir was not directly British ruled. It was an autonomous Princeton.
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Martin DeCaro
The Maharajah.
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Anatole Leven
And the maharaja put in by the British was Hindu. And so for a crucial few weeks after independence, he hesitated, and he hesitated just too long. And Pakistan then sent in armed volunteers to overthrow him. The Indian army intervened in response and managed to keep hold of most of the Valley of Kashmir.
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Martin DeCaro
Yeah. And here we are, 78 years later. Well, yes, before we get to October 1947, which is the period you're discussing the initial clash over Kashmir, let's just back up to August 1947. Partition. You know, preparing to speak to you, I read a number of articles, and one by William Dalrymple and the New Yorker was really good. I'll share a link to that in my weekly newsletter about what partition was and what it still means today. I was trying to think if there's an equivalent in the American experience and there really isn't, maybe the American Civil War. But comparisons aside, what happened during partition, the scale, the velocity and the sheer unexpected ferocity of the violence, the wounds of partition are still open, are they not?
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Anatole Leven
Well, I mean, you compare it to the American Civil War. It's rather as if, you know, the south had won and had broken away and you then had had a long, long, you know, frozen, sometimes frozen, sometimes unfrozen conflict over who Missouri belonged to. A little like the Civil War in Misura, you know, Quantrill's Raiders and the insurgency and counterinsurgency there, which was one part of the Civil War where you had mass atrocities against civilians on both sides, both by the Confederate guerrillas and by the Union forces. But the other aspect of Partition, of course, which thank God you didn't see in, in the American Civil War, was local populations turning on each other, neighbors massacring each other, and huge numbers of people being driven out in both directions. Muslims out of Indian Punjab into Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan into India.
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Martin DeCaro
15 million in total were uprooted.
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Anatole Leven
Yes, 15 million. And somewhere. Well, the figures vary and nobody did an exact count, but estimates various vary from 300,000 to a million dead. The vast majority of them just ordinary civilians, women and children. As I say, the closest you'd find to that in American history would be the Trail of Tears.
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Martin DeCaro
Nisid Hajari has a book out called Midnight's Furies, or he had a book out that says gangs of killers set whole villages aflame, hacking to death men and children and the aged, while carrying off young women to be raped. Some British soldiers and journalists who had witnessed the Nazi death camps claim Partition's brutalities were worse. Pregnant women had their breasts cut off and babies hacked out of their bellies. Infants were found literally roasted on spits. What accounts for this, Anatol? Because prior to Partition under British rule, Hindus and Muslims lived side by side.
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Anatole Leven
Well, they lived side by side, but by no means always. Happily, there were, as there have been since Partition, fairly regular what's called in the subcontinent, communal riots in which local populations would have a go at each other. The difference was that both before Partition and since, in India this was localised and the British army or the Indian army would step in eventually and control things. Whereas in 1947, this extended across the whole of the province of Punjab and much of Bengal as well. And whole cities like Lahore were engulfed by, should be said, though, I mean, in marked contrast, of course, to the Jewish Holocaust. This was equally true of both sides. I mean, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs all committed dreadful atrocities.
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Martin DeCaro
It's like a mutual genocide.
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Anatole Leven
It's been described as yes, and not actually so surprising. Under British rule, the government of Punjab was made up of wealthy landowners and businessmen from all three communities. It's called the Unionist Party. Its second last prime minister as a Muslim, Sir Sikander Hayat Khan, and he was desperately trying to keep Punjab together and prevent partition. And his British secretary assistant said to him on one occasion, look, sir, forgive me, but it seems to me that it's just going to be impossible to get communities to work together in the long run. I mean, in the end, wouldn't it be better just to agree on partition? And Sir Sikanda replied, I never want to hear you say that again, you know, this country, if we draw a line between a Muslim majority state on one side and a Hindu majority state on the other, all the Muslims on one side of the line and all the Hindus on the other will have their balls cut off. Well, not all of them did, but a fair number did.
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Martin DeCaro
It seems that partition was a catastrophic mistake. Well, or maybe the way the British went about doing it, you see, a mistake.
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Anatole Leven
I mean, there were endless mistakes leading up to partition. Probably the biggest of all was the Indian elections under British rule in 1938, where at which there were actually elections for provincial governments across India. Before the elections, the Indian National Congress, which, you know, ruled India for decades after independence under Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira. Before those elections in 38, they made an agreement with the Muslim League representing the Muslim or most of the Muslim minority, that after the elections they would form the government together so as to reassure the Muslim population. And also because Congress thought that without that it probably wouldn't win a majority. Well, as it was to their own, as it turned out to their own surprise, Congress won a large majority and then reneged on its agreement with the Muslim League and said, oh, terribly sorry, we've won no more agreement, no ministries for you. Well, of course that gave, gave the Muslims the feeling that in an independent Hindu majority India, they would be a helpless minority. And they knew, of course, well, they knew the deep hostility of large parts of the Hindu population. There were other factors as well. Muslim power and wealth in India. For a whole set of historical reasons, I won't go into. Or at least the elites were heavily dominated by landowners and the National Congress was committed to land reform. So of course, the Muslim elite saw themselves as facing disposition, possession, which is what happened to them after independence. But then, you see, in 1946, the British did manage. I mean, you know, the British bear their share of historical responsibility for, you know, dividing Muslims and Hindus under British rule. But towards the end, the British were actually very anxious to try to hold the country together and prevent a catastrophe. And in 1946, they stitched together an agreement, the cabinet mission plan, whereby India would be not a federation but a confederation and most power would remain with the provinces. So it wouldn't be the Indian Union, it would be the Indian Confederation. And that meant, of course, that Muslims in the Muslim majority provinces would be able to protect themselves against the center. But also, of course, if you had a situation where Parliament was made up like the American Senate, you know, on the basis of equal representation of States, rather than the House of Representatives of population, the Muslims would have a firm blocking vote in Delhi. Nehru, the leader of the Congress, together with Gandhi, agreed to that. And then under pressure from his own hardliners, the next day he gave a press conference at which he said, oh, I mean, I said that, you know, to get independence, but actually after independence, the Indian National Congress is not bound to respect that. That was the moment when the Muslim League actually went for partition and gave up hope of keeping India together.
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Martin DeCaro
That's an important point. So we're talking about political, economic, religious causes here. But it's still hard to explain. And I guess this goes for any kind of civil war, genocide of this nature, the ferocity of the violence and the atrocities that took place. So we'll return now to October of 1947. As you mentioned before, the Maharaja Hari Singh, he had an option. He had a choice after partition, to join either Pakistan or India. His area, Kashmir, was majority Muslim. He was a Hindu. So he delays on the princely state.
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William Dalrymple
Of Jammu and Kashmir delaying its decision about accession to either the Dominion of India or Pakistan. Freebooters from the northwest and Punjab invaded the state with the connivance and material support of the Pakistan government, to force accession by the sword.
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Martin DeCaro
He signed something called a standstill agreement to maintain some links with the newly independent Pakistan. Pakistanis lose patience with this. They go into Kashmir to try to settle things. And that's when the Maharaja calls India for help. He signs something called an accession agreement to join India with the idea that there would be a public vote to have a permanent status for Kashmir. The people would decide India or Pakistan. But in the meantime, a war breaks out and there is never a vote. And to this day, Anatole, there is a dispute over whether the Maharaja signed the accession agreement first or if Indian troops invaded Kashmir first, because the Pakistanis say the Indians invaded first, nullifying their previous agreement with the maharaja. Where do you stand on this? Is there an answer here?
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Anatole Leven
Well, I mean, I think on the one hand it was pretty obvious that the Maharaja was going to try and go with India and was going to try and bring in Indian troops. Because it's quite clear there was no future for a Hindu maharaja in Pakistan, whereas he could hope, although in the end the Indians, of course abolished the princely states, that there would be a future for him in India. But the first shots. Well, actually, it depends on how you calculate it. The first shots in 1940 did begin with Pashtun raiders from the frontier, but undoubtedly backed by Pakistan invading Kashmir and the Indian army came in in response to that. But you know, Kashmir had not been by no means totally peaceful until then because there had been numerous protests against the Maharaja's rule through the 20s and 30s, which the Maharaja's Hindu troops had put down with considerable violence. It's one of these issues. It's a little bit like Northern Ireland and nobody is ever going to be able to say where all morality or legality or righteousness lies.
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Martin DeCaro
Yeah, the correct answer to the question who started it? Is both.
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Anatole Leven
Yeah, so, or where do you begin? Which year do you go back to?
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Martin DeCaro
So it has been an intractable conflict, an interminable dispute over this that has had some really intense moments, including earlier this month we will get to that. There have been three wars over Kashmir. The initial one in 47. A UN brokered ceasefire ended that 1965 and then again in 1999. But is it right to say that there's been really no progress at all in settling this? The so called Simla Line, the line of control that was established in 1972, that's the same line today as it was in 72.
- [25:19]
Anatole Leven
Yes, with only one exception. I mean, possibly the most fatuous war in the entire world. Well, constant low level battle over the Siachen Glacier. Because when the line of control was drawn, nobody bothered to draw it across the glacier because nobody thought, I mean, what's the point? But of course then you got, and once again both sides would differ on this. Who started it first? You got the two sides establishing positions on this great chunk of ice. You got ridiculous statements from both sides. I remember when all this began in the 80s, I remember there was a declaration by an Indian general that the Siachen Glacier is India's gateway to Central Asia. Well, you know, it is a bit like trying to get out of your door after several tons of ice have been dumped in front of it and thousands of troops over the years have died on the Siachen Glacier. The overwhelming, I mean some have been shot, but the overwhelming majority on both sides, of course of frostbite or avalanches. One addition which is of some relevance to other conflicts, including the whole question now of the partition of Ukraine. You know, the United States has never legally recognized Indian sovereignty over Kashmir nor of Pakistani sovereignty over the Pakistani bit of Kashmir. Of course nobody now has raised this issue by the US Government for many, many decades now. But strictly speaking, the United States remains neutral on this and does not recognize Indian or Pakistani sovereignty.
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Martin DeCaro
And do Pakistan and India both claim the entire territory for themselves? Or does one? Or would One be willing to just take half or two thirds of it. I guess my question is, is there a way to split this down the middle, or does both Pakistan and India want the entire thing?
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Anatole Leven
Publicly and officially, they both claimed the entire thing. In practice, though, the Indians would be happy if you could freeze the present line permanently, because above all, they got the lion's share of Kashmir. But also the last thing that. Well, well, certainly Narendra Modi wants his more discontented Muslims in, in India. Pakistan, on the other hand, really does want the lot because it, you know, it regards this as, with some reason, as ancient Muslim majority territory. Incidentally, you mentioned there's. There's another slice, although almost entirely uninhabited, of land which the Chinese basically took when nobody noticed. And there's also a. A part of Indian Kashmir called Leh, which is Tibetan Buddhist, and another part of Kashmir, which is Jammu, which actually remains majority Hindu. So it's not totally clear cut.
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Martin DeCaro
Yeah, I know I'm bouncing around the chronology here. I want to go back to the 1980s and 1990s, but why today? Why today do both of these countries still want this piece of land? Why is Kashmir so important? Is it because they've simply been fighting over it for 78 years, so neither side wants to give in? Or is there some kind of religious significance to the land?
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Anatole Leven
It's mostly just no national pride by now. And on the Pakistani side, admittedly, the feeling, you know, not without reason, that a majority of the population of Kashmir would like to go to Pakistan and has been pretty severely oppressed by India. But it's one of these things. I mean, I think India would be stronger, certainly more peaceful, less troubled by the threat of war, if it would actually allow a referendum, although, I mean, that would. You'd still have to partition Kashmir because the Hindu areas would certainly want to stay with India, obviously. And then there's the question of what to do with the Tibetan area. But, you know, I mean, look, there are so many of these ridiculous cases. You know, Britain went to war for the Falklands Islands, 1200 people and a million sheep and penguins. Russia could sell the Kuril Islands to Japan for an enormous sum, you know, at least to put it mildly, are not the historic territory of Russia, but refuses to do so because, you know, you get into this business of the. The sacred soil. China would risk nuclear annihilation to prevent the independence of Taiwan.
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Martin DeCaro
People do not go to war for rational reasons. And even when it makes no sense to continue fighting over a significant, in this case, a significant piece of land. Kashmir is not a small strip of land. It still boggles the mind. So back to the 1980s there, because you mentioned how many of the Muslims in Kashmir may want to live in Pakistan or go with Pakistan today. Total population about 22 million. 15 million of that population lives in the India administered part. Most of the rest lives in the two Pakistan administered parts of Kashmir. We also established that India controls about two thirds of the territory. Most of the people are Muslim. However, there's an independence sentiment, if not an independence movement there. Right. This goes back to the 1980s when the insurgency begins. It's a local insurgency. Right. Of people wanting to break away from both.
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Anatole Leven
Well, yes, indeed. And of course, that is one thing that both India and Pakistan will not allow to have happen. And yes, I mean, the, the initial protests against India in the 1980s were, you know, heavily colored by pro independence sentiment. And it's impossible to say for sure, but you know, it's very often suggested that if you had a completely free vote on both sides, a large majority would go for independence. You know, what then happened, as I say, in the 1990s is that we, with Pakistani encouragement, these Islamist jihadi groups jumped in and started this guerrilla and terrorist war against India. And, well, I mean, of course they were representing Pakistan in one sense and were certainly being armed and supported by Pakistan, but their agenda was never exactly that of Pakistan because their whole idea was to do this as part of an international jihad for fundamentalist Islam. And of course, after 9, 11, many of these very same groups launched a rebellion within Pakistan against Pakistan in alliance with the Afghan Taliban because they were infuriated with the US invasion of Afghanistan. And also, of course, As I say, 12 years previously, they'd been fighting, you know, with the Afghans against Soviet occupation. And so they. Well, many of them went to fight for the Taliban, but others, as I say, rebelled against Pakistan. And in the resulting civil war in Pakistan, actually far more Pakistanis died than Indians. Indian soldiers and police have died in Kashmir. So I mean, the Pakistanis did contribute to a real Frankenstein's monster there.
- [32:26]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, the Pakistani Taliban. I remember that some years ago they got so strong that the Pakistani army was having trouble, trouble putting them down. So there have been three wars, if you want to call them major wars over Kashmir. These were brief, really brief wars, but they're still rather destructive. In between the wars there's been, as you've been saying, terrible violence. More people have died in this ongoing conflict in between these three wars than in the wars themselves. I have an article here by Barry Birak in the New York Times from 1999 called the Veil of Tears. He says the rebellion itself began 10 years ago. So that would be 1989. Weapons flooded in, tourists scurried out. At first the insurgency was homegrown. Kashmiri youth shouting freedom became guerrillas trying to send India packing with a few well placed bombs and high profile kidnappings. Shopkeepers gave them cash, mothers made them sandwiches to New Delhi. This was a threat to its nationhood, to Islamabad, an opportunity to wage a war by proxy. India has since tried to stamp out the revolt with all the fury of an enraged elephant, says the article, while Pakistan has tried to provoke the uprising further and arm it and bend it to its will. A common complaint in Kashmir is that India and Pakistan seem pitted against each other in a fight to the death of the last Kashmiri. Let's fast forward 25 years. Do Kashmiris still want independence?
- [34:00]
Anatole Leven
Look, I haven't been back to Indian Kashmir for many, many years. Everything that one hears and reads suggests yes, but of course, once again the Muslim majority of Indian Kashmir, not the Hindus and I would imagine not the Buddhists either. But yes, I mean neither side has paid any attention to the, the wishes or the well being king of the Kashmiris.
- [34:23]
Martin DeCaro
You know, this story isn't entirely depressing and sad. After 2003, 2004, there were efforts at peace, but then some violent incident would happen. Dozens of people, if not more than that, killed in terrorist attacks. There was the Mumbai killing or the Mumbai incident in 2008 that broke off peace talks, but there really hasn't been anything substantive in recent years at all. Do you want to briefly tell us what you, what you made of all those attempts in the early aughts?
- [34:52]
Anatole Leven
Somewhat, I wouldn't say paradoxically, but paradoxically, for people who believe in democratic peace theory, the guy who really pushed this furthest was the military dictator of Pakistan, General Musharraf. And he, it seems, was prepared to accept a peace deal, something along the lines of Northern Ireland, whereby the line of control would be recognized as an international frontier. You would have demilitarization by both sides and you would have have freedom of movement across this line of control. Now the thing is, the Indians had some reason to be aware of this because of course they were afraid that at that point if they demilitarised the line of control and withdrew their troops, then at some point jihadis would once again flood across the border and try to conquer Kashmir. But of course it was also politics. The Indian government could not bring itself to defy its domestic critics. By even initialing this. And then of course, you would have to have all sorts of. Have to be a long process of confidence building measures. And then soon after that, Musharraf was overthrown in Pakistan, largely because of fury at his help to America in the war on terror. And since then, no Pakistani government has been strong enough to try to do this, even if it, if it wanted to. On the Indian side, there has been a conviction, a growing conviction that basically the war in Kashmir was wondering. The insurgency was ended. Pakistan is now so much weaker than India. You know, Pakistan had largely crushed its own jihadist because they had revolted against the Pakistani state and therefore India didn't need to do anything, or rather more than that. The BJP government of Narendra Modi actually moved to abolish Kashmir's enhanced autonomy under the constitution. And so for several years, indeed, nothing much did happen in Indian Kashmir. But of course, then it did.
- [36:52]
Martin DeCaro
Yes, earlier this month, relative peace in the previous decade shattered. But Even so, in 2016, 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri. India then launched surgical strikes in retaliation across the Line of Control. 2019, the Pulwama bombing left more than 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead. Prompted Indian airstrikes deep into Balakat, the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971. There was a ceasefire agreed to in 2003 because there had been a war. In 1999, Modi took power in 2014. He wanted to take a hard line on Pakistan, but was interested in holding peace talks. I mean, this is a very complicated story. You know, in the final analysis, nothing was resolved here. And as you say, Anatole, you know, it seemed like the situation was relatively calm until it wasn't. So earlier this month, or I should say last month, there was a terrorist attack in Kashmir. About two dozen Hindu tourists were massacred. India said, this is Pakistan once again backing militant groups and they're responsible for this.
- [37:56]
Khwaja Asif
And exposes Pakistan as a rogue state fueling global terrorism and destabilizing the region. The world can no longer turn a blind eye. I have nothing further to add. Thank you.
- [38:09]
Martin DeCaro
Pakistan denied it. What do you make of that?
- [38:11]
William Dalrymple
That?
- [38:12]
Anatole Leven
Well, the answer is I don't know. And that's what makes these issues so complicated. Because, look, undoubtedly in the past there was strong and critical Pakistani military support for these jihadis. Now, since Musharraf, certainly since, you know, Mumbai brought the two countries to the edge of war, and since the jihadis revolted in Pakistan itself, that support has gone down a great deal and largely in consequence, you know, there Is is far, far less violence and terrorism in, in Kashmir today than there was 20 years ago or, you know, in the 1990s. Whether the Pakistanis were involved, if you see what I mean, they don't have to be because this massacre was carried out by a few men with Kalashnikovs. Well, Pakistan is flooded with Kalashnikovs. You know, in many parts of the country, you know, politicians, Pakistanis of all parties have bodyguards, heavily armed. You don't have to assume a Pakistani role in this. On the other hand, there is another element which is relatively new and could have motivated. Once again, this is speculation on my part. But the thing is, in recent years, there's been an increasingly violent insurgency within Pakistan. Yet another insurgency, quite a different one, by Baloch nationalists fighting for independence from Pakistan. They have also been disrupting the Pakistani Chinese relationship by killing Chinese engineers working on this economic corridor from China to Gwada in the port of Gwada in Baluchistan. And a few weeks before this massacre in Kashmir, these Baluch insurgents carried off their biggest coup for a long time by seizing a train and taking hundreds of passengers hostage. Now, the Pakistanis have always alleged that India is supporting and arming the Baloch. They haven't produced much evidence for this, though once they did manage to capture somebody who appears to have been an Indian military agent there. But certainly that is what the Pakistanis believe. And so I can imagine. But as I say, this is speculation on my part that the Pakistani intelligence service or somebody within it said, look, look, we've let the Indians get away with too much. Let's show them that we can still do the same in return. That, I think, is a possibility.
- [40:37]
Martin DeCaro
So per the New York Times, it was on April 22, 26 people shot and killed during a terrorist attack in the Baiseran Valley. A group calling itself the Resistance Front emerged on social media to take responsibility. As you said, it was just a handful of men with AK47s. Indian officials, officials privately say the group is a proxy for Lashkar Al Taiba, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan. They were also involved in the insurgency that eased around 2002. I mentioned that a ceasefire had been agreed. In 2003, Pakistan banned Lashkar and Jaish A Mohammed, another major militant group, although Lashkar continued to operate under aliases. What a message. So, you know, something I haven't mentioned here, something I haven't mentioned here, I'm such a great interviewer, Anatole even, is that both of these countries have nuclear weapons. So as I watch this, four Day war, if you want to call it that, unfold on tv, you know, back and forth across the border, deep into each other's countries, not just in Kashmir. I was worried, and maybe this was hysterical at the moment, but I was worried about nuclear conflict because you just never know. What are your thoughts on that as we wrap up here and how this is a lingering, simmering, dangerous conflict that won't be resolved anytime soon. But the countries have nuclear weapons.
- [42:00]
Anatole Leven
Well, that is indeed the terrifying threat. And what makes it. Well, two things make it worse. One is that the capitals are so close to each other that you don't even have the warning time that you have between Russia and America. Strike and response would be almost instantaneous. Now, both sides know that and you know, there has always been a counter argument that, because they know that actually this is a source of restraint. I mean, I'm pretty sure that if Pakistan didn't have nuclear weapons, India would have invaded Pakistan and you would have had a much, much bigger conventional war. But of course, then Pakistan would escalate to nuclear weapons. But there is something else, and I mean, this is something which, you know, the international community really, really needs to drill into both sides, because both sides say, look, you have nuclear weapons. Why shouldn't we have nuclear weapons? We have security concerns. You have security concerns. Yes. But for that reason, the Soviet Union did not sponsor insurgency in the United States or in Western Europe, and the United States did not sponsor during the Cold War insurgency in Eastern Europe because it was just too damn dangerous. Nuclear responsibility prohibited. That. That, of course, is one of the great dangers of the Ukraine war, that you get much closer to a proxy war in Europe, elsewhere in the world, of course, both sides supported proxy wars against each other. US against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Soviet Union against us in Vietnam. But the calculation was nobod cares enough about that to risk nuclear war. Whereas if you do it in Europe, let alone in North America, but that's not going to happen, thank God, then you do just get much closer to nuclear annihilation. Well, that's what you need to remind them of.
- [43:56]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah. Is Kashmir important enough to have a nuclear war over? I mean, to you and I, of course not. But we're not, we're not Indian in Pakistan.
- [44:04]
Anatole Leven
Well, I mean, of course that's not the way it would go. Of course wouldn't begin with a nuclear strike. But something that, that actually worries me and I think worries the Pakistanis much more than Indian missile strikes is this Indian threat to dam the waters of the Indus river, which they can do, which they've never done in the past, because this would strangle Pakistan. Pakistani agriculture is critically dependent on this water from the Himalayas. Pakistan has repeatedly described that threat as a threat of war to which Pakistan would respond with with military means, including quite possibly the threat of nuclear war. It's to be hoped that India recognizes this because, of course, what the Pakistanis are afraid of is that it will be done in stages, so there will never be a moment when they can actually retaliate en masse. But that the end result will be the same. That's something. Well, I mean, that's also a terrifying danger, simply because, of course, in future, India may be shorter and shorter of water. And just think, we need the water.
- [45:11]
Martin DeCaro
On the next episode of History as It Happens, preeminent military historian Antony Beaver returns to the podcast. He's going to talk about unsettled legacies of the Second World War and Vladimir Putin's uses and abuses of Soviet memory and its victory over the Nazis 80 years ago this month. That's next, as we report History as it Happens. New episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Sign up for my newsletter at history as it happens.com it'll land in your inbox every Friday.