Tensions over Kashmir rise but India says no plans for war

With tensions rising in the disputed Kashmir region, the Indian government said Friday that it had no intention of going to war with Pakistan and that any talk of a looming conflict was simply “fear-mongering.”

“The present narrative of the India-Pakistan situation by Pakistan, including the possibility of a war, is intended to project an alarmist situation,” said Raveesh Kumar, an Indian government spokesman. “It is far removed from the reality on the ground.”

India has come under increasing criticism for its decision in early August to revoke Kashmir’s autonomy and lock down the area, arresting thousands and cutting off phone and internet service to millions of people.

Pakistan also claims parts of Kashmir, a mountainous region between India and Pakistan that has been racked by unrest for decades. Many people are worried that India’s moves could further inflame the area, possibly even stoking a major conflict between the two archrivals, both of which have nuclear arms.

On Friday, Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, said in an op-ed in The New York Times that “if the world does nothing to stop the Indian assault on Kashmir and its people, there will be consequences for the whole world as two nuclear-armed states get ever closer to a direct military confrontation.”

India says Pakistan’s strategy is to paint a dire picture of the situation, play up fears of nuclear war and scare the world into intervening in Kashmir, which India considers an internal matter.

Several times in the past, the two nations, which were set up at the end of British colonialism in South Asia, have gone to war over Kashmir. Tensions are rising once again along the disputed border, and many nations, including the United States, have urged Pakistan and India’s leaders to negotiate.

But the bitterness is only spreading and turning more personal.

Khan has compared India’s leadership under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nazi Germany, and in his op-ed Friday said the world should not appease India because of “trade and business advantages.” India’s economy is nearly nine times bigger than Pakistan’s, and many nations seem to keep that in mind, eager to do business here. Initially, the criticism of India’s move on Kashmir was light.

But as the heavy restrictions have dragged on, now for almost a month, more objections were raised, particularly over mass arrests. Indian forces have rounded up more than 2,000 people, including nearly all of Kashmir’s elected leadership, and are holding them in a network of prisons across India without any known charges.

The United States is “very concerned by reports of detentions and the continued restrictions on the residents of the region,” said a spokeswoman at the US Embassy in New Delhi.

Indian officials insist they want to lift the restrictions as soon as possible. In some areas, authorities have reopened phone lines. But a de facto curfew remains in effect in many places and internet service is still seen as very dangerous — as a way for protesters to organise and for Pakistan to spread propaganda.

Indian officials said the restrictions they have imposed are based on lessons learned from past episodes of unrest in Kashmir, when huge anti-government protests degenerated into clashes with security forces that took dozens of lives.

“Our priority is that there should be no loss of lives,” Kumar said. “Whatever is being done is flowing from that singular objective.”

Pakistani officials have said the Indian government has, in effect, imprisoned the entire Kashmiri population. But when it comes to Kashmir, Pakistan doesn’t have the cleanest record either.

In the 1990s, Pakistan backed thousands of jihadi militants to sow chaos in the Indian-controlled parts of Kashmir. More recently, India has accused Pakistan of helping a small group of Kashmiri militants fighting against Indian rule. Pakistan is predominantly Muslim, as is Kashmir, while India is a predominantly Hindu nation.

For years, Hindu nationalists pushing for Hindu supremacy in India have had their eyes on Kashmir. The wider state of Jammu and Kashmir, which includes the restive Kashmir Valley, is India’s only Muslim-majority state. Its inclusion in India’s union was seen as an important symbol of India’s commitment to secularism, laid out in the Indian Constitution.

But many Hindu nationalists, who are now ascendant in Indian politics, saw Kashmir as an unruly, Muslim-dominated fringe area that needed to be brought to heel.

On Aug 5, Modi’s home minister, Amit Shah, announced on the floor of Parliament that the Indian government was erasing Kashmir’s autonomy, ending its statehood and dividing the territory in half.

Shah and Modi have promised this move will bring peace and prosperity. But no Kashmiri leaders were consulted, leaving countless Kashmiris furious and with little they can do.

In the weeks leading up to the announcement, thousands of Indian troops were bused into the region, adding to the hundreds of thousands of security forces already garrisoned there. And in the hours before the announcement was made, security forces swept the valley in the middle of the night and methodically arrested elected representatives, business leaders, teachers and human-rights defenders.

Critics said that even under India’s tough public-safety laws, the lockdown was illegal and that Modi was bending the Indian legal system to cut off any possible criticism in Kashmir and silence anyone with a voice.

On Friday, the streets of Kashmir’s biggest towns were deserted. Friday is often a tense day: It is the day when many Muslims pray together, and in Kashmir rowdy protests frequently erupt as crowds stream out of mosques.

Authorities routinely beef up security on Fridays, but residents said this Friday had a much heavier presence than usual. Nearly all businesses were closed, out of a pervasive sense of fear.

One shopkeeper who had opened his store for a few hours was shot dead Thursday. Police officials blamed the attack on militants who they said were trying to intimidate anyone from resuming anything close to a normal life.

Kashmiris are growing weary, feeling under siege, and now they are worried about getting caught in the middle of a potential war between India and Pakistan.

“Kashmir will become the battleground,” said Musadiq Wani, a student. “That is the biggest fear in people’s mind.”

© 2019 New York Times News Service