With terrorists killing at least 26 civilians, including tourists and locals, in an idyllic and popular meadow near Pahalgam in Indian Kashmir on 22 April, the conflict in the region has entered a new and extremely volatile phase. The fatalities span many Indian states. The deliberate targeting of tourists – some of whom were killed in a manner resembling executions – also raises the spectre of large-scale violence against civilians and minorities in Muslim-majority Kashmir.
Islamabad has been quick to deny involvement in the attack, even as an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba claimed responsibility. Many in India point out that the Pahalgam shooting comes a week after Pakistan’s army chief described Kashmir as his country’s “jugular vein”. The attack – widely condemned by global leaders – also happens in the backdrop of a fraying 2021 ceasefire recommitment between India and Pakistan.
The timing, choice of target, and the manner in which the attack was carried out suggest three strategic objectives that its planners had in mind.
First, the attack was designed to embarrass the Indian government at a time when Delhi’s global profile shines brightly.
Second, the perpetrators seek to reverse tangible economic and social gains that followed from Delhi’s decision to fully integrate Kashmir with the Indian state in August 2019 by revoking the region’s autonomous status.
Once in a while, history is coaxed to rhyme in macabre ways.
Third – and as a corollary to the above two – the attack was fashioned to provoke a strong, possibly military, reaction from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Such a reaction would mire India in yet another conflict with Pakistan and reinstate, in a manner of speaking, Kashmir in global conversations about India.
The attack also comes at a time when the US Vice President JD Vance and his family are vacationing in India. Modi is among a handful of world leaders – along with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu – who enjoys a warm relationship with Donald Trump and key members of his team. The bonhomie was on full display when Vance and his family met with Modi at his residence the day before the attack. The normally combative Vance – whose spouse is of Indian origin – also effusively praised India and Modi in a public lecture. The 22 April attack is bound to eclipse the symbolic import of the Vance trip.
Also read: Pahalgam is helping Pakistan army become nation’s saviour again, regain lost image
Echoes of the Past
Once in a while, history is coaxed to rhyme in macabre ways. As Indian analysts have been quick to note, 25 years ago, the day before then US President Bill Clinton and his daughter arrived in India on a trip that resembles the Vances’, terrorists executed 36 Sikh villagers not far from Pahalgam. Clinton’s visit was designed to consolidate the first major uptick in India-US relations in decades. It also marked the beginning of the “dehyphenation” of India and Pakistan in Western capitals, Washington first and foremost.
At the time of the Pahalgam attack, Modi was in Saudi Arabia on a two-day visit. (He has since cut his trip short and returned to Delhi.) India’s deepening relationships with the wealthy West Asian sheikhdoms – which have historically sided with Pakistan – remain the single-greatest achievement of the country’s contemporary diplomacy. The gains from these relationships have been tangible. India is now a significant actor in the Middle East, the emphasis that the Modi government places on the US- and Israel-backed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor being a case in point.
During the 2019 India-Pakistan military conflagration following a major terrorist attack in Kashmir – comparable in gravity to the 22 April attack – the Arab states played a significant role in securing the release of an Indian air force pilot captured by Pakistan. At the same time, Pakistan’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has significantly weakened. Religious considerations aside, the Kashmir conflict simply does not resonate with Mohammad bin Salman’s Riyadh which considers it a purely bilateral dispute. The extent to which the Gulf states have pushed aside Kashmir as a variable in their strategic calculus vis-a-vis India became clear with their muted reaction to the August 2019 decision of the Modi government to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomous status.
Global Optics, Local Pressure
At the time, many feared that the move could vastly inflame the festering insurgency in Kashmir, a situation that did not come to pass. The reasons for this were three-fold and intertwined. The Indian government’s severe security crackdown from August 2019 merged into pandemic curbs the following year. By the time the pandemic had ended, the Modi government’s position on Kashmir had considerably softened.
Jammu and Kashmir saw local elections last year after a decade. Meanwhile the indigenous insurgency there has lost steam while the local economy continues to record gains. In fact, per capita income in Jammu and Kashmir since 2019 has grown faster than many other north Indian states, Delhi and Punjab included. Tourists have flocked to Kashmir over the past couple of years. As Kashmir slowly but surely became quiescent, many Indians – after several generations – once again came to see it as a major tourist destination. The political impact of this psychological shift cannot be overstated.
The Pahalgam attack stands to severely test Kashmir’s nascent normalcy. Equally, it presents a veritable dilemma for the Modi government.
Modi knows that not responding to the attack will embolden a newly-resurgent parliamentary opposition, which has already sought to portray the development as a failure of his Kashmir policy. But more importantly, he knows – especially given the pan-India casualties of the attack – that anything short of a visibly strong reaction will fail to assuage the Indian public. At the same time, if Delhi does opt for a muscular response, it risks inadvertently raising the international profile of the Kashmir dispute, something the Modi government has desperately sought to avoid over the past decade.
In this, Modi’s choice may be akin to Hobson’s, much like Netanyahu’s following the October 2023 Hamas attack. Just where that leads Kashmir – and the region at large – will unfold in the coming weeks.
Abhijnan Rej is an Indian researcher and writer. Views are personal.
This article first appeared in The Interpreter, published by the Lowy Institute.
Very aptly put but having had several such incidences in the past it is obvious that we have exhausted all known play books for handling Pakistan. The only option left is making them pay a price so high that in future they would need to think 10 times before e3mbarking on such adventures. As innocent civilians have been mascaraed, India could consider taking out high value targets of their establishment and impose a very heavy price by initiating projects on the indus river which will take several years to bear fruits. The message should be crystal clear that the price for these actions is so high that they are don’t even think about such things.