Frenzied

The immediate prompt for the latest tensions was an attack in Pahalgam in Indian-occupied Kashmir that killed twenty-six tourists, the deadliest terror incident in India since the Mumbai attack in 2008. The Indian government, beholden to its Hindu nationalist base and a hysterical media frenzy, immediately blamed Pakistan and suspended the Indus Water Treaty, a bilateral water-sharing agreement between the two countries signed in 1960. India also rejected Pakistan’s offer for an international investigation into the incident, declaring that the time for investigation and negotiations was over.

What is left out of this belligerent narrative is the decades-long, indeed ongoing, erasure of the Kashmiri people. For over eight decades under the occupation, the neighboring countries have refused to implement United Nations Resolution 47, which calls for a plebiscite to determine the future of the region. In 1989, the mass discontent of Kashmiri people with electoral rigging and state authoritarianism turned into an outright insurgency against the Indian occupation. The Indian military responded to this rebellion with mass arrests, censorship, torture, and the extrajudicial killings of thousands of Kashmiri people, turning Kashmir into one of the most militarized regions in the world. In 2019, Narendra Modi’s government abolished Article 370, which provided special status to Kashmir, a move widely viewed as the forced integration of Kashmir with the mainland. Kashmir was put on lockdown as India’s Hindu far right celebrated “peace” and “normalcy” while exercising brutal repression in the state.

One of the reasons that Pahalgam has ignited such a hysterical response in India is because it shattered the myth of normalcy crafted so carefully by the central government and its pliant media. The war hysteria stems from the ideological and geopolitical transformations taking place in the region. India has long given up any pretense to the Jawaharlal Nehru–era framework that included secularism in politics, a dirigiste state in economics, and a nonaligned policy in foreign affairs. Since the 1980s, the rise of Hindutva, a colonial-era ideology invoking Hindu nationalism, has dismantled the fragile secularism that undergirded the Indian polity. In what Marxist Aijaz Ahmad termed a “counter-revolution of the elites,” the Hindu extremist forces were able to build an anti-Muslim electoral base through spectacular forms of violence. The destruction of the Babri mosque in 1992 was a pivotal moment in combining anti-Muslim hysteria with political power, setting a template for future far-right electoral strategies.

Trumpian Ally

The liberalization of the Indian economy in the 1990s deepened links between Western capital and the burgeoning Indian bourgeoisie, links that were most visibly displayed in the long, opulent wedding celebrations of the Ambani family. These economic transformations also impacted the country’s foreign policy. India was one of the architects of the Bandung Conference in 1955, a close ally of the Soviet Union, and a major supporter of the Palestinian cause. Since the 1990s, however, India has cultivated close relations with the United States, including mimicking America’s “war on terror” discourse in clamping down on resistance in Kashmir. The rise of China has also propelled the United States to seek a counterweight in the region, with India emerging as the primary contender to do the West’s bidding.

This alliance is now taking shape, as demonstrated in Narendra Modi’s meeting with Donald Trump earlier this year, where the two leaders agreed on a new ten-year framework for a “US-India Major Defense Partnership in the 21st Century.” According to the White House, this growing military cooperation is a result of the “deepening convergence of US-Indian strategic interests,” a euphemism for America’s containment strategy for China, which includes turning India into a regional counterweight. One of the most consequential effects of this shift is the growing relationship between Israel and India, including military cooperation and plans for building the “India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor” to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Unsurprisingly, many Hindutva supporters termed the Pahalgam attack “our October 7” and are calling for Pakistan to be “reduced to rubble.” From defending the Palestinian resistance against Israeli aggression to using Israeli weapons against its western neighbor, India’s insertion into the imperialist camp appears complete.

Pakistan, on the other hand, has remained firmly in the US-led camp since it signed the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization and Central Treaty Organization military pacts with the United States in 1954 and 1955. Pakistan’s elites benefitted from the largesse of American aid in response to renting out the country’s geostrategic location as a frontline state in America’s anti-communist containment strategy. The singular focus by the ruling classes on India as an existential threat heightened the militarization and securitization of the country’s polity, with all major opposition, socialist, and democratic forces castigated as Indian agents. The only serious challenge to US hegemony during the Cold War was presented by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s left-wing government, which lasted from 1971 to 1977. As a result, his government was overthrown in a US-backed coup that hanged him and suppressed trade unions and other left-wing organizations. Since then, Pakistan’s economy has rested more firmly on rents obtained from imperialist wars in the region, intensifying the military’s stranglehold on politics and leading to recurrent use of violence against dissent, particularly in the restive provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The current moment is further complicated by Pakistan’s close relations with China. After the Sino-Soviet split and the Sino-Indian War in 1962, Pakistan began cultivating close ties with China, as it viewed its security through the prism of countering its eastern neighbor. Pakistan’s frontline status in the US-led camp did not hinder these relations, especially after Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing to meet Mao Zedong and the reform and opening undertaken by Deng Xiaoping. In 2015, Pakistan joined the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) while still acting as the frontline state for NATO supplies in the region. This strategy is no longer viable as tensions between the two powers escalate globally, with the United States in particular putting pressure on Pakistan to abandon CPEC and realign with the West. Such pressures are dividing institutional thinking and public opinion between pro-Western and pro-Chinese camps in Pakistan, a division that threatens to undermine any long-term strategic planning for the state.

The current conflict between Pakistan and India has also become the staging ground for the technological battle, pitting Western companies against the Chinese. One example is the use of French-manufactured Rafale jets by the Indian Air Force in its attack on Pakistan on Wednesday. Pakistan retaliated by using Chinese-manufactured J-10 fighter jets with PL-15 missiles. In the greatest aerial battle ever between the two countries, the Pakistan Air Force was able to down four Indian fighter jets, including at least two Rafales. This news has sent shock waves through the global defense industry, with China emerging as a formidable player on the international stage.

Resisting Nationalism

We can hope, at least, that the ruling classes on both sides realize the dangerous stakes of further escalation between nuclear-armed countries. In the long run, however, prospects for peace look dim within the current constellation of forces. India’s decision to ramp up its military capacity not only presents a security challenge to China, which already feels besieged by US military bases, but also places an imperative on the Pakistani state to catch up to India militarily. Moreover, the electoral dividends guaranteed by the Hindutva-Zionist fantasies fueled by the current ruling regime in Delhi limit the constituency for peace in India. On the other hand, Pakistan’s inability to develop a viable developmental path and its overreliance on renting out its geostrategic location to facilitate foreign powers will continue to constrain its policy choices.

In such a situation, it is imperative for the Left on both sides of the border to resist jingoism and hold its own governments accountable. In a region where almost 40 percent of the people live in poverty, it is essential that we shift our resources to fighting illiteracy, disease, and underdevelopment. This requires both regional and international solidarity against America’s attempts to ignite and weaponize historical grievances in order to prolong its failing empire.

Most importantly, it is pertinent to remember that the root cause of this crisis is the denial of self-determination to the Kashmiri people. Even during the current conflict, Kashmiris on both sides of the border are on the front lines of war, bearing the brunt of this violence. The colonial occupation of Kashmir must give way to the will of the Kashmiris, long denied by all actors. A just resolution to the Kashmir issue will not only provide an enduring peace but also undermine any imperialist designs to ignite perpetual conflicts in the region.