A partially damaged wall of the Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project is pictured following Indian strikes in Nausari, about 40kms from Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, on May 8.SAJJAD QAYYUM/AFP/Getty Images
This is far from the first time India and Pakistan have come into military conflict over terrorist attacks in Kashmir – in fact, the two nuclear-armed countries bombed each other in 2019 over a terrorist incident in the contested region that killed 40 Indian police officers, similar in many ways to the April 22 attack that killed at least 26 civilians and provoked this week’s exchange of drone, missile and fighter-jet attacks by both countries.
It’s also not the first time India has had military confrontations with Pakistan over New Delhi’s claims that the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, which it holds responsible for the Kashmir atrocity, is controlled by Pakistan – that’s happened several times, most dramatically in 2008.
But this week’s battle is considered an order of magnitude more worrisome, more susceptible to escalation. That’s because both Pakistan and India have changed.
Explainer: What to know about Kashmir, the Himalayan region at the heart of India-Pakistan tensions
Both countries have transformed themselves in the last few years, in ways that have emphasized the worst characteristics of their governments and militaries – especially in the way they approach Kashmir.
Pakistan has become more militaristic. It’s an old cliché that Pakistan is not a country that has a military, but a military that has a country. This has become even more the case lately – because it’s become more of a military, and, in important regards, less of a country.
The Pakistan Armed Forces spent much of the past decade on a spending spree, acquiring an arsenal of high-tech weaponry mainly from China: Recent acquisitions include a fleet of 40 J-35A fifth-generation stealth fighter jets, on top of 75 American F-16s and hundreds of other Chinese fighter aircraft; eight advanced Chinese submarines and four frigates, 679 Haider tanks, and an array of the latest drones, missile systems and anti-aircraft batteries – on top of its claimed 130 nuclear warheads.
This has cost this desperately poor country dearly: During most recent years, Pakistan has spent more of its GDP on its military than the United States has. This has occurred while its economy has collapsed. Soaring poverty and out-of-control population growth have met economic mismanagement that has led to horrendous inflation and a collapsing currency; currently, Pakistan spends two-thirds of its revenues on debt service. There were recent reports that its military was unable to afford the fuel to keep that fleet of tanks running.
That military, however, is now in effect the entirety of the Pakistani state. Although it switched from outright military rule to a nominally elected president last year, that president is thought to have lost the election and been selected by the generals, who keep him on a short leash. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s provinces and territories have fallen into dysfunction and often violent chaos, leaving them effectively controlled by the military – including Azad Kashmir, the contested province half-claimed by India. It’s unclear to what extent Lashkar-E-Taiba were involved, and how much the group is tolerated or controlled today by Pakistani military and intelligence authorities.
India has imposed religious nationalism more harshly. After the 2019 terrorist incident in Kashmir and the ensuing military showdown, Prime Minister Narendra Modi abruptly stripped his country’s Kashmir state, known as Jammu and Kashmir, of the autonomous self-governing status it had enjoyed since the early 1950s and that had been guaranteed in the Indian constitution. Thousands of troops occupied the province, its leaders were jailed, and there was a crackdown on rights.
Mr. Modi then went to work attempting to transform Kashmir. It has always been an anomaly: Never assigned a legal border in the United Nations partition of India in 1947, its people were supposed to be granted a referendum to decide their nationality and status. Probably because Kashmiris are mainly Muslim, India rejected that approach, and after decades of outright war, in the 1970s the ceasefire line became a somewhat permanent border.
That meant that Jammu and Kashmir was India’s only Muslim-majority state – a fact that aggravated figures in Mr. Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. His 2019 decision to strip Kashmir of its rights and occupy it was celebrated by BJP supporters, who called for a Hindu repopulation of the state.
Mr. Modi appeared to pursue exactly that goal, changing the laws to allow outsiders to purchase land in Kashmir – which has been taken up by not only Hindu investors but by governments, including the central Indian state of Maharashtra, which is governed by the BJP.
None of this is necessary: Kashmir’s status could easily have been settled by both countries through normal diplomatic and political means. In fact, they came close in the 2000s, when both countries enjoyed a moment of more democratic leadership. But the ugly politics on both sides of the border have jeopardized the security of Kashmir – and potentially, of the whole subcontinent.