The Indian-administered area of Kashmir has been on lockdown since the Indian government said earlier this week that it was revoking the region of its special constitutional status. That special status – defined by Articles 370 and 35A in the Indian constitution - provided for the Indian-controlled state of Jammu and Kashmir to make its own laws.
The measure is likely to be challenged in court but has created new tensions between the two nuclear nations of India and Pakistan, which have held an uneasy status over the region dating back to 1947.
Background:
- Kashmir is a disputed 86,000-square mile area that borders India, Pakistan and China
- Both India and Pakistan have fought wars over Kashmir, clashing most recently in February
- Kashmir is home to a Muslim majority but also hosts sizable Hindu and Buddhist populations
- Fighting between India and Pakistan over Kashmir dates back to 1947, when both countries gained independence
- A long-running separatist insurgency has claimed an estimated tens of thousands of lives
- The India-controlled section of Kashmir consists of Jammu and Kashmir
- The Pakistani-controlled section of Kashmir covers Azad Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan
- Clashes in February included a bomb targeting Indian military personnel. 40 people were killed in that attack. India conducted airstrikes a short time later on what it called a terrorist training camp inside Pakistan. That was followed by the shooting down of jets on both sides.
ANALYSIS from Cipher Brief Expert Tim Willasey-Wilsey, Senior Research Fellow, King’s College, London and former senior British diplomat.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s revocation of Articles 370 and 35A on Monday was an act of considerable international importance. Indian Kashmir has had its special status revoked and will be integrated into India. This move has been widely welcomed inside India except by those who see it as an attempt to change the demographics of the majority-Muslim area. Even the Congress Party, torch-bearer of India’s secular tradition, has split over the issue with some of its leaders approving of the measure.
From a narrow Indian strategic view point the decision seems curious. Essentially Modi has annexed two regions (Jammu and Kashmir; and Ladakh) which India already administers. Yet, by claiming that Kashmir is an entirely internal matter, he has weakened India’s claim to two other parts of the former princely state of Kashmir administered by Pakistan. These are known in Pakistan as “Azad (or Free) Kashmir” and Gilgit-Baltistan (formerly the Northern Areas). Gilgit-Baltistan is of particular importance because it provides Pakistan with a border with China and is the route for a key section of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC); which gives China with an outlet to the Arabian Sea in Balochistan.
From an international perspective this is not unwelcome because the reality is that neither India not Pakistan could ever acquire the whole of the former princely state without a major war; a war which might well entail the use of nuclear weapons.
Hitherto India has always insisted that the settlement of the Kashmir dispute is a bilateral matter to be agreed between India and Pakistan alone. Indeed, only a couple of weeks ago Modi firmly rebutted a suggestion that he had asked Donald Trump to mediate the dispute and a few days later rejected a similar offer from China’s Xi Jinping.
By contrast Pakistan has always sought to internationalise the issue, in any forum available from the United Nations (UN) to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Yet Islamabad knows only too well that the Kashmir problem, like Palestine, has proved too complex for the international community. That is why, at various times, Pakistan has tolerated or supported insurgent groups mounting terrorist attacks into Indian Kashmir. This has brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war on numerous occasions, most recently in February 2019 after an attack on a paramilitary police convoy at Pulwama. India retaliated with an air-strike against an insurgent facility at Balakot in Pakistan. Only a fortuitous set of events prevented a serious escalation between the two nuclear-armed powers.
Since 1947 both India and Pakistan have aspired to the moral high ground on Kashmir. Modi’s move on Monday departed from this tradition and was, in the spirit of our times, a unilateral act of perceived national self-interest without any pretence of internal or external consultation. The US denied it had been forewarned.
Pakistan has tried to cast India in a negative light and has appealed to the UN and OIC. However, Islamabad must already be disappointed by the lack of global and Muslim solidarity. As seen with China’s treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority, countries are reluctant to alienate the big emerging powers of China and India. Pakistan itself has hardly been forceful in its support for the Uighurs, preferring to maintain its “all weather” alliance with Beijing.
After a decent interval Islamabad’s subsequent move may be to integrate Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan into Pakistan; essentially a mirror-image of what India has done. Pakistan has hinted at implementing this in the past and has made some tentative steps but was always anxious about damaging its legal position. Now the way is clear to do so whilst blaming India; a rare win-win from its perspective.
Such a manoeuvre would infuriate New Delhi which may then recognise its tactical error. Given its customary political position it could hardly internationalise its complaint and is likely therefore to look for regional sanctions. Unfortunately, there are all too few options available which avoid military action. One might be to cease cooperation of the Kartapur Corridor, intended to allow Sikhs to worship at shrines inside Pakistan, but that would hurt Indians more than Pakistan.
The biggest risk of all is that militant groups will mount further terror attacks against Indian forces in Kashmir or elsewhere in India. In the current climate it is probable that India would suspect Pakistani complicity (whether true or not) and would reach for its February 2019 playbook; another air raid into Pakistan. It would only need the loss of some aircraft, or civilian casualties, or a counter-raid by Pakistan into India to project both countries towards war.
The final irony of this week’s events is that the integration by India and Pakistan of their own parts of Kashmir has long been recognised as a component of any final settlement of the dispute. The UN’s Dixon Plan of the 1950s came broadly to this conclusion. In 2008, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan so nearly reached agreement, the Line of Control (which separates Indian and Pakistan administered Kashmir) would have become the international border. This week’s announcement may have unwittingly produced a similar outcome but instead of a broader solution it could provoke a fatal deterioration in relations.
Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a Cipher Brief Expert and Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College, London. He is also a former senior British diplomat.
Read more national and global security analysis and insight in The Cipher Brief
