India has acted before. Previous terror attacks on targets in divided Kashmir, in 2019 and in 2016, resulted in strikes by its air force against Pakistan. The two countries have also fought three wars over the bitterly disputed territory since partition in 1947.
And, following the attack last week in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, which killed 25 Indian and one Nepali tourists, escalatory retaliation by New Delhi is widely feared as relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours plummet once again.
The long-running dispute over Kashmir and cross-border terrorism have been the predominant cause of conflict between the two states, and over the weekend the two downgraded diplomatic relations and their troops on the de facto border exchanged gunfire. Indian forces have begun a sweeping clampdown in Kashmir.
Pakistan has denied responsibility and says it is willing to cooperate with an independent international investigation of the killings. And India has failure to produce evidence beyond claims of Pakistan’s historic support for terrorism. Nonetheless prime minister Narendra Modi, with loud domestic support, is rattling sabres, promising severe punishment and the razing of terror safe havens.
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Reports suggest Indian diplomats are seeking to build backing for what Modi has called “the harshest response”. The UN and EU have rightly called for restraint but major powers, including the US, are distracted by other crises. Jammu and Kashmir was India’s only Muslim-majority state but saw its limited autonomy replaced by direct rule and a harsh security crackdown on Hindu-nationalist Modi’s election in 2019. Diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan worsened as both cut economic ties and severed direct flights.
The ominous escalation in tensions over Pahalgam, the fruit of the bitter sectarian divisions that go back to partition, has the terrifying potential to drift into all-out war between the two countries. International mediation by the UN and the friends of both countries, however distracted they are, is vital to counsel de-escalation.
