This article is the second part of a series on Kashmir. Read part one, about India-Israel relations, here. Read part three, about India-Pakistan water treaties, here.
Introduction
India and Pakistan, South Asia’s two nuclear-armed powers, once again recently approached the brink of a major conflict following a deadly terrorist attack – and once again at the center of strife was the Indian-administered territory of Kashmir. On April 22, unidentified gunmen ambushed a group of tourists in a meadow in Pahalgam, killing 26 – mostly Hindu men – who were singled out by their attackers based on their religious identity, inflaming tensions between the neighboring rivals.
Kashmir has been a flash point between India and Pakistan for over six decades, fueling repeated conflicts. Both countries claim the northernmost Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in its entirety. The dispute dates to the 1947 partition, when Indian troops pushed back Pakistani mercenaries who had invaded the Indian side of Kashmir to seize control of the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley. A United Nations-mediated ceasefire that froze the front lines on Jan. 1, 1949, between India and Pakistan established the so-called Line of Control, which became the de facto border dividing J&K into Pakistani and Indian parts. Pakistan controls a third of the territory (Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan), with the remainder controlled by India (the former state of Jammu and Kashmir). Pakistan has maintained an irredentist claim on Kashmir, offering moral, diplomatic and political support for its “liberation” under India’s illegal occupation.
As it pointed fingers at Pakistan for the Pahalgam attack, India launched punitive measures, suspending the Indus Waters Treaty, shutting down the only operational land border crossing between the two countries, expelling Pakistani military attaches, and canceling the visas of Pakistani nationals. Pakistan retaliated by shutting down its airspace for Indian aircraft, suspending all trade, and canceling the landmark 1972 Shimla peace agreement. On May 7, India launched missile strikes targeting alleged terrorist hideouts in Pakistani Kashmir and Punjab. This led to days of back-and-forth fighting until a U.S.-facilitated ceasefire cooled tensions on May 11.
The Pahalgam attack came a week after Gen. Asim Munir, the Pakistani army’s chief of staff, described Kashmir as the “jugular vein” of Islamabad, reiterating that his country would neither forget nor abandon it. Pakistan, he added, would continue to extend its full political, diplomatic and moral support to the Indian Kashmiri people in their right to self-determination. The Indian government, after revoking the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019 that had been enshrined in a pair of constitutional amendments, overturning the very basis of J&K’s accession to India, asserted that Kashmir was an integral part of Indian territory and no longer in the realm of a bilateral dispute with Pakistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that those provisions, Article 370 and Article 35a, were used to stoke separatism and terrorism and that their revocation would pave the way for “long-term peace” and normalcy.
Last July, Modi declared in a speech before Parliament that the fight against terrorism in J&K was in the final stage and that a multipronged strategy was in place that would destroy the remaining terrorist networks.
His statements proved premature: Days later, a terrorist ambush on a military patrol in the Kathua district of J&K killed five soldiers and injured five others. Weeks earlier, in yet another deadly attack in the neighboring Reasi district, nine Hindu pilgrims were killed and 33 were injured after terrorists opened fire on a bus enroute to the annual pilgrimage of Amarnath Yatra. Both attacks took place in the Jammu region, signaling an escalation in the conflict that had previously been concentrated in the Kashmir Valley. The attack surge belied the government’s claims that terrorism had declined since it revoked the constitutional provision that granted J&K – the only Muslim-majority state – special autonomy.
The evolving political and security landscape of J&K since the abrogation of its special status reveals a new set of armed actors, India’s increasing counterinsurgency efforts, and a precarious situation that must be addressed.
Kashmir in the Indian Union
After the princely territory of Jammu and Kashmir joined the Indian Union in 1947, Article 370 of the Indian Constitution served as the basis for its integration. The article guaranteed J&K’s special status, and until 2019, Indian courts had largely viewed it as a permanent feature of the constitution. The article was seen as part of a social contract with Kashmiris guaranteeing them a form of autonomy within the confines of the Indian state. However, critics argued that the article fueled militarism and fully failed to integrate the region.
Despite assurances of Kashmiri autonomy, the Indian government under the Congress Party often interfered to suit its own agenda. As the insurgency gained traction in the late 1980s and early 1990s, militants associated with the separatist movement targeted government offices and committed atrocities against the Kashmiri Pandit community. In light of increasing anti-India sentiment, as well as violence and hate speech that targeted the Pandits, the community eventually fled the valley. As the counterinsurgency gained steam, Indian security forces committed numerous human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, rape, forced disappearances, and torture.
These types of violations and eroding political freedoms have continued, particularly after the abrogation of Kashmir’s special status. This has included sharp restrictions on press freedom and other political speech; freedom of assembly; and use of the internet, as well as communications lockdowns that effectively cut off the territory from the rest of the world. Continuing human rights violations intensified the resentment felt among the Kashmiri Muslims, with many perceiving it as part of India’s attack on their Muslim and Kashmiri identity.
For its part, the United States has occasionally condemned or expressed concern about human rights violations in Kashmir. The numerous restrictions and violations that came in the aftermath of the abrogation faced strong condemnation by numerous figures in Congress and the federal government. However, the U.S. has viewed Kashmir’s status as an issue to be solved between India and Pakistan and largely steps in only to prevent further escalation.
The Dynamics of the Kashmiri Insurgency
Since it erupted in the late 1980s, the armed movement in Kashmir can be divided into phases. The first, dating from roughly 1989 to the mid-1990s, was dominated by the more secular Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). The second, stretching from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, saw Islamist groups like the Hizbul Mujahideen, take the reins of the insurgency from the JKLF. The third phase was marked by the rise of foreign groups such as the mostly Pakistani Punjabi Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). Their domination coincided with the global war on terrorism, and those actions, and their sponsorship by Pakistan, complicated the U.S. relationship with the Islamic country.
While militant activity did continue throughout the 2010s, it was largely muted compared with the apex of the insurgency in its second phase. However, political dissatisfaction in Kashmir remained, leading to large-scale protests throughout the decade. The most notable of these was the “stone intifada,” during which many Kashmiri youths, inspired by those in Palestine, used stone-throwing to signal their own resistance to the Indian state. In the mid-2010s social media use among militants, particularly Burhan Wani, who was valorized by many pro-Pakistan and pro-separatist Kashmiri Muslim youth, became popular. This provided a level of fame for new militants coming out of South Kashmir, providing its own valorization of the groups and inspiring other locals to support them.
Wani’s death at the hands of security forces prompted a new round of unrest that lasted most of 2016. Indian security forces began to target demonstrators with pellet guns, leading to condemnation from human rights organizations and Kashmiris, particularly over the mass blinding of protesters. This led to one of the deadliest years in the Kashmir insurgency in over a decade – 2018 – with a surge in fighters from within Kashmir rather than those from outside. Their popularity among the public attracted support and recruits, while those Kashmiris working for the security forces were targeted, and pro-India Kashmiris were deterred.
Today, young Kashmiri militants have largely withdrawn from social media and the public eye in general. While this trend started in 2017, it accelerated in the years following the revocation the former state’s autonomy. This, combined with increasingly sophisticated Indian efforts to crack down on their channels, has led to a much diminished online profile. Their retreat from the public eye has also largely hidden many of the inner workings of the groups, including their rivalries and squabbles.
Instead, the Kashmiri groups have utilized what Indian security analysts call “hybrid militants,” a tactic that has dominated their fighting trends since 2020. Unlike militants of the past, hybrid militants usually lead “normal” lives until they commit an attack, then they return to their normal routine. These part-time militants keep a low public profile, making it difficult for security agencies to track. These hybrid militants and over-ground workers (OGWs, individuals who allegedly provide militants with logistical support) have been the focus of Indian counterinsurgency efforts in the valley, but the vague nature of these terms have led to concerns that Indian security forces abuse these designations to attack civilians.
Militant Groups
The most prominent Kashmiri group operating today is the Hizbul Mujahideen, which was originally founded in 1989 and was closely connected to the Kashmiri Jamaat–e–Islami. The supreme commander of the group, Syed Salahuddin, lives in Pakistan and is head of the United Jihad Council (UJC), a coalition of armed groups fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir. Most of these groups explicitly call for the separation of J&K from India and its integration into Pakistan. The UJC includes prominent groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, Al Badr, and several others.
The prominence of ethnonationalist Muslim and Islamist groups, most of which have a pro-Pakistan outlook, has allowed India to utilize the post-2001 war on terrorism environment to discredit the separatist cause in the international political arena. The controversy over India’s crackdown, revocation, and bifurcation of the state seemed to open the space for new groups operating in Kashmir. Shortly after India’s 2019 action, new militant fronts such as The Resistance Front (TRF), Popular Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), the Kashmir Tigers, Ghaznavi Force, Lashkar-e-Mustafa, and the United Liberation Front entered the arena. Unlike the past groups, they have adopted names and rhetoric with a more secular tone. Several of these groups were active for only a short while, rarely existing longer than the arrest or killing of their leader.
The Indian government claims that despite their secular names, many of these groups are offshoots of more established groups, notably LeT and JeM. TRF included local Kashmiri militants, but many security analysts believe it to be an attempt by LeT to have a “local” face, especially considering its well-documented connections to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Similarly, the government asserts that PAFF and the Kashmir Tigers were created by JeM. Many of these groups remain active, though their success in rebranding the insurgency on the global stage has been minimal at best.
The current stage of the armed movement faces several challenges. First, the strength and number of Indian security forces operating in the valley have significantly increased the cost of attacking military targets, leading to a shift in operations. Second, fewer recruits are willing to join the fight, even if sympathy toward anti-India resistance remains strong. Third, the backing of its main foreign patron, Pakistan, is weaker.
Pakistan’s support remains crucial for the insurgency. It provides training, cover, and a safe haven for militant groups. But as this continues, Pakistan faces a drastically different environment. The country is mired in economic troubles, while India has pressured it through the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization dedicated to fighting money laundering and terrorist financing. Nations on the FATF’s blacklist are essentially isolated from financial institutions, which take on extra risk if they conduct business with the blacklisted country. A FATF also maintains a gray list, which entails a lesser degree of financial risk as the blacklist. While India’s efforts to have Pakistan blacklisted failed, it did manage to keep it on the gray list for a few years. This, along with India’s alleged covert assassinations of terrorist figures and Pakistan’s deteriorating economic conditions, has led to a general weakening of support for the militants. However, while Pakistan has occasionally cracked down on militant leaders or restricted militant activity directed at India, it continues to be the principal backer of the Kashmiri insurgency.
Dismantling of the Separatist Ecosystem
Alongside the traditional counterinsurgency tactics that India can employ using its formidable force in J&K, it has been willing to strike at militant commanders based in Pakistan. While India publicized its cross-border “surgical strike” and an attempted airstrike on a JeM base in Balakot, it has denied widespread reporting of covert strikes against commanders in Pakistan. But these, along with India’s efforts in hunting down the commanders, have weakened the insurgents.
After August 2019, the focus of Indian security operations has expanded beyond physical encounters with terrorists to actions like detentions of over-ground workers, blocking communications, and choking financial lines. India has also set up a new multidisciplinary Terror Monitoring Group that takes concerted action against terrorism financing and other terrorism-related activities and Special Investigation Units for speedier probes in Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) cases, strengthening the local security grid.
India’s security apparatus – police, army, paramilitary and intelligence – jointly launched a massive crackdown to dismantle logistical support structures. Between 2019 and 2023, more than 1,900 alleged OGWs have been arrested, and over 2,700 people have been booked under anti-terrorism laws such as the UAPA and the Public Safety Act.
The security forces have also conducted raids and seized assets and properties of individuals and groups suspected of funding or facilitating terrorist activities. The Enforcement Directorate and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) carried out tax raids on separatist Hurriyat Conference leaders, nongovernmental organizations, businesspeople, and others allegedly involved in money laundering and narcotics trafficking – raising funds for terror activities though sale of narcotic drugs, like heroin and opium in the Kashmir Valley– for the recruitment and operational support of terrorist groups. The NIA curtailed the financial sources of the Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir (JIJK) organization, which was accused of exploiting funds collected through Islamic zakat and donations for charitable, health, and educational purposes to support secessionist activity. JIJK also allegedly channeled the funds to banned terrorist groups like Hizbul Mujahideen, LeT, and others through its well-organized network of cadres.
While there was a temporary increase in local recruitment of militants, their numbers are still much lower than during the insurgents’ heyday. This does not mean that the militants have no local support, but it does suggest that the high cost of rebelling against India and perhaps the desire of locals to find alternative methods of struggle against the Indian state. Following the abrogation, the security clampdown and communication blockade were effective in reducing violence and curtailing the recruitment of local youth into militancy. Official data from India alleges that around 160 local boys joined militancy in 2020, 125 in 2021, 130 in 2022, 23 in 2023, and around 20 in 2024. This has also come at the cost of training, resulting in relatively short lifespans for those joining the militancy. Officials have claimed that 90% of these recruits between 2019 and 2020 are dead now. Between 2019 and 2024, nearly 1,050 alleged militants were killed in 700 incidents.
Of course, like any official data, those numbers need to be viewed with some skepticism. This is particularly true when numbers include “fake encounters” (i.e., extrajudicial killings). Families of young men killed in counterterrorism operations in Shopian, Lawaypora, and Hyderpora accused the army of staging the deaths of innocent people. While fake encounters are endemic to South Asia, the security-heavy perspective toward Kashmir has led politicians and others to focus on large numbers of arrests and killings as proof that they are dealing with the problem. In addition, Indian armed forces face little accountability in investigations over fake encounters or human rights violations due to the legal protections extended to them by the Armed Forces Special Protection Act, which has also encouraged fake encounters. Finally, the lack of reliable intelligence inputs, particularly from the nomadic Gujjar-Bakarwal in recent years, has also contributed to an increasing number of fake encounters.
Although Indian military officials have claimed the aggressive strategy of attacking the militant infrastructure has been effective, local politicians have criticized the creation of new agencies and mass arrests as tools of state suppression to intimidate people into submission and silence. Prominent Kashmiri human rights defender Khurram Parvez has been imprisoned since November 2021 on unsubstantiated charges of terrorism. The surveillance tools for intelligence gathering and information control have been extended to journalists, lawyers, activists, civilians, and the entire Kashmiri political leadership, leading to press censorship, daily harassment, intimidation, and rights violations. While the security clampdowns were an effective short-term tactic, they do not solve the political drivers of the conflict. Importantly, the 1½-year J&K lockdown added to the emotional distress and dissatisfaction Kashmiris have felt over daily harassment, intimidation, and rights violations.
Shift of Terrorist Attacks from the Valley to Jammu
The Jammu region is separated from the Kashmir Valley by the Pir Panjal mountain range. Populated by Hindu, Sikh, and nomadic tribes, it was largely shielded from intense violence during the peak of insurgency and terrorism in Kashmir. However, in recent years, there has been a sharp rise in terrorism, with increased attacks by Pakistani terrorists against Indian security forces, especially in the border districts of Rajouri and Poonch. Violence has spread in eight of the region’s 10 districts, with Doda, Kathua, Reasi, Kishtwar, Udhampur, Jammu, Poonch, and Rajouri experiencing multiple attacks. Most targeted security personnel and military convoys traveling the highways.
Experts have cited the redeployment of troops from Jammu to the Ladakh region following China’s incursions in the Galwan Valley in 2020 for the shift. The reduced military deployment has allowed Pakistan-based terrorists to exploit the porous borders and infiltrate the upper reaches of Rajouri and Poonch, which adjoin the Line of Control, to launch attacks.
Indian army officials said the changed patterns of incursions from the traditional routes to the axis of Rajouri, Poonch, Doda, and Kishtwar suggest that foreign terrorists are proficient in jungle warfare. Intelligence reports have inferred that terrorists have been trained in advanced technology and warfare under the supervision of the Pakistani army, SSG commandos, and ISI operatives, after which they are sent to launchpads like Kotli Bagh, Muzaffarabad, Bhimber Ullu-I post to Nikial, Kotli, Muzaffarabad, and Rawalakot in Pakistan-administered Kashmir for infiltration. Pakistan’s heavy use of drones for reconnaissance along the LoC has also been observed to facilitate infiltration.
Over the past five years, security forces have recovered Chinese-made high-tech encrypted communication devices, bodysuit cameras, and weapons from slain terrorists. U.S.-made M4 assault rifles, steel-core bullets and night-vision glasses of the kind used by NATO troops in Afghanistan have also been found in use. The sophisticated weaponry, encrypted devices, and jungle warfare training have helped enable militants to launch high-profile hit-and-run attacks and ambush security forces.
There were three instances of such attacks, reinforcing a new phenomenon of a shift in operations toward the Rajouri-Poonch area. In December 2023, four soldiers were killed during a gunfight after militants fired at two army vehicles passing through the Dera Ki Gali area in the Rajouri district. In January 2024, militants fired at an army convoy near Krishna Ghati in the Poonch sector and in May 2024, militants attacked two IAF vehicles, killing one person in Surankote Tehsil in Poonch.
The recurring ambushes causing high casualties have become a matter of concern for India’s military and paramilitary agencies. Local intelligence gathering has taken a hit following tensions between the local Gujjar-Bakerwal community and the army. The torture and custodial death of three young Gujjar men stoked anger among the local population, who felt a sense of betrayal by the army. After four soldiers were killed in an ambush at Dera ki Galli in December 2023, the army detained nine local men, five of whom later said they had been severely tortured. An investigation by the army revealed deaths of three civilians in custody.
The Muslim nomadic herding community constitutes around 12% of the local population and mainly inhabits border villages. They are considered the “eyes and ears” of the Indian army for their deep knowledge of the rough terrain and forested areas of the Pir Panjal range. Over the years, the army has worked jointly with the Muslim Gujjar-Bakerwal, who provided intelligence gathering, and identified incursion routes along the LoC to keep a check on infiltration.
Attacks on ‘Outsiders’: Kashmiri Pandits and Migrant Laborers
For the first time since the height of the 1990s insurgency, when jihadi militant groups imposed strict Islamic laws and terrorized the Hindu minority Kashmiri Pandit community, forcing their exodus, non-Muslim outsiders have again become a target of terrorists. After the abrogation, terrorists trained their guns on the Hindu Pandit and migrant non-locals to drive them out of the valley. From Aug. 5, 2019, to July 9, 2022, terrorists killed nine Kashmiri Pandits and 16 Hindus and Sikhs.
Initially, the Pandits rejoiced at the Indian government’s decision to revoke J&K’s special status. After the Modi government assured their security, many Pandits returned to the valley and took up employment. Under the resettlement scheme, about 5,700 Kashmiri Pandits were recruited to various government departments.
Besides the rehabilitation of Pandits, migrants and non-Kashmiri laborers employed in orchards, paddy fields, and construction sites have taken up residence in the valley. The revocation of Article 370, which opened the avenues for non-Kashmiri Indians to buy land and open businesses there, exacerbated fears of India’s ruling BJP party’s attempt at democratic changes in the Muslim-dominated valley. In theory, if enough non-Kashmiris settled there to significantly shift the demographics, any plebiscite would undoubtedly go in India’s favor, thus serving as one reason for concern among the local population.
The special status protected the rights of Kashmiris by barring non-Kashmiris from buying land. In October 2020, the home ministry notified the “Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Adaptation of Central Laws) Third Order, 2020” to encourage development in the region. The government claimed that infrastructure development and economic prosperity leading to employment would help curtail separatist ambitions and armed rebellion. The new law permitted all Indian citizens to buy nonagricultural land without being domiciled. So far, around 83,000 non-Kashmiris have been granted domicile certificates and several major investors are applying to buy land. As of March 2025, the J&K government has allotted, 250 acres of land to investors including Dubai’s Emaar group.
Terrorist groups used the fear that the BJP was pushing for demographic change by altering the socio-cultural fabric of the valley through the settlement of outsiders, to launch violent attacks aimed at driving away outsiders. The presence of Kashmiri Pandits and migrants from the mainland was suspiciously viewed as the cause and the effect of the abrogation and the nationalist Hindu government’s attempts to subjugate the local Kashmiri Muslim population. The campaign of killings began with the shooting death in June 2020 of Ajay Pandita, a 40-year-old Kashmiri Pandit and the elected sarpanch (village chief) of Lukbawan village in Larkipora. Pandita, a member of the Congress Party, had returned to his native village in South Kashmir’s Anantnag just two years prior.
In October 2021, a spate of killings of Pandits and poor migrant workers rocked the valley. The TRF issued a threat against the “outsider domicile holders, stooges and collaborators,” warning them of the consequences as they were an enemy of the Kashmiri struggle. On Oct. 7, 2021, Makhan Lal Bindroo, a Kashmiri Pandit and prominent Srinagar-based pharmacy owner, was shot to death. The same day, unknown assailants killed a street vendor from Bihar in Srinagar. A total of 11 civilians were killed in that month, including Hindus, Sikhs, Kashmiri Muslims, and migrant workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The TRF specifically targeted Kashmiri Pandits recruited under Modi’s development package, labelling them as “pawns of Delhi.” In 2023, a new group called the Kashmir Freedom Fighters issued a similar threat after the killing of a Pandit man in the Pulwama district, accusing the minority community of being pawns of occupation in the valley.
Since 2019, militants have killed around 14 Kashmiri Pandits, including two political workers, six other Hindus, and 26 non-native laborers, including Muslims, hailing from various Indian states. The killings fanned widespread fear among the Pandit community and the migrants, prompting them to flee the valley in large numbers. It also triggered a wave of protests by both Hindu and Muslim Kashmiris decrying the government’s claim to return to normalcy and the safety of the citizens.
The targeted attacks shifted the focus back to terrorism, highlighting the fact that despite the extensive crackdown following August 2019, these groups remained active and formidable. By going after soft targets, the terrorist groups were able to disrupt stability and reassert their dominance. Strategic experts noted that terrorists resorted to targeting individual civilians based on religious identity to generate fear and, in part, due to the difficulty of confronting trained police or military personnel.
A Path Forward?
While India has been successful in reducing militancy, it has largely failed to advance a political process to end the conflict. Post abrogation, India has attempted a more forceful process of reducing Kashmir’s status within the union (also disempowering many of the local pro-India figures), attempting to buy or coerce political figures, and largely reducing the space for political activism. It has also driven fears of settler-colonialism as India continues to grant high numbers of domicile certificates to non-state subjects. Yet India’s approach, whether reducing militancy or forcible integration, has largely failed to stop the violence in Kashmir.
Such a political process would ideally follow several tracks: an Indo-Pakistan peace process, a political solution between India and Kashmir, and reconciliation among Kashmir’s diverse communities. But after the most recent battles between India and Pakistan, furor over the Pahalgam terrorist attack, and an Indian political consensus that has largely followed the government’s lead over Kashmir, the prospects for those courses of action look unlikely.
Negotiations between India and Pakistan are governed by the 1972 Shimla Agreement, which states that all differences must be peacefully resolved bilaterally. This has largely led to discussions on Kashmir being purely bilateral negotiations rather than involving a third party. One peace process in 2007 reportedly came close to resolving the bilateral issue with backchannel talks between the Pakistani government led by then-Pakistani Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf and Manmohan Singh’s Indian government (before the former’s ouster).
The current space for political action in the valley remains limited. The National Conference, a local Kashmiri political party led by Omar Abdullah, the grandson of Sheikh Abdullah who was the most influential Kashmiri leader post ascension, won the most recent local elections, but its power remains constrained. This is partially due to the limited power Kashmir has as a Union territory, the lack of control over security forces, and the fact that the territory’s government can be dismissed and their leaders be put under house arrest, similar to what happened in 2019.
The main political body for separatists was the Hurriyat Conference, which remained controversial among pro-India Kashmiris and the rest of India given its support for separatist politics. The Hurriyat was banned and is often demonized within Indian political discourse. However, the conference served as an important point for dialogue between the central government and the pro-separatist movement popular in the valley. To fulfill political aims, whether independence or bringing Kashmiri sub-nationalism comfortably within Indian nationalism, opposing political views must be considered. This approach has precedent in India, as its strategy with insurgencies in Assam, Tripura, and Mizoram, and has largely involved counterinsurgency and dialogue with the groups they are fighting. Alongside this, confidence-building measures with the Kashmiri people and sustained political outreach must be instituted. This does not mean reviving the Hurriyat, but rather the necessity of engagement until a solution is found
Many advocates within India, even those who eschew dialog with the separatists themselves, emphasize the importance of political engagement to address the “alienation” of Kashmiri Muslims from India. That is, they believe that the missing problem has been that the ruling party and allies of the Hindu right wing have largely failed to capitalize on the security gains made in 2019 and have failed to treat Kashmiri Muslims as Indian citizens. In this, they cite the post-Pahalgam attack where Kashmiri Muslims condemned the terrorist action, yet Kashmiris across India were targeted while those in Kashmir faced the brunt of new security crackdowns. This narrative, popular among liberals and left-orientated Indians, emphasizes the winning of hearts and minds, criticizes the reliance on excessive force used to deliver collective punishment, and the general failure by the Indian government to meet the needs of the Kashmiri people and instead impose order through brute force. Instead, this has continued a cycle of alienation that has fostered conditions for an insurgency
The role of third parties like the United States is controversial. India sees its disputes with Pakistan as governed by the Shimla Agreement and remains wary of any “interference” in its domestic politics. The U.S. has called for negotiations between Pakistan and India to settle the territory’s status. It has acted primarily to help deescalate tensions between the two South Asian powers when nuclear standoffs have threatened stability in the region. While some Kashmiris might support the need for a mediator on the issue, the idea is unlikely to be accepted by India.
Although the United States and other international powers will not be able to solve the root causes of the conflict, i.e., the future for the Kashmiri people and the Indian-Pakistan rivalry, the conflict should be of great interest to any international observer. The violence, whether by armed groups or army, has been counterproductive and has led to significant escalations between the two nuclear powers. In nearly all of the conflicts between them, the first people to suffer are the Kashmiris. Even beyond human rights aspirations, the conflict prevents development in the region, decreases stability, and threatens security beyond the immediate South Asia region if it escalates to a nuclear level. The state of perpetual conflict keeps the region poorer and more unstable and encourages autocratic behavior.
Numerous ideas suggest a solution to the issue of J&K. Between independence, turning the LoC into a permanent border, and making the territory an autonomous area between India and Pakistan, there are many suggestions for resolving the conflict. But they would not solve the problem if imposed on the population and leave no space for Kashmiris’ political aspirations. The fact is that the diplomatic track has largely been disregarded to the detriment of Kashmiris, who only want a path forward out of decades of conflict and hardship. The question then becomes what the area’s political powers value more: the Kashmiri people or their land.
Conclusion
Kashmir is often cited as one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, one fought by two nuclear powers. India’s decision to unilaterally remove Articles 370, 35a, and the bifurcation of the state has drastically changed Kashmir’s politics. While the BJP claimed the unilateral change of Kashmir’s status would be enough to end the separatist cause, the reality remains far more complex. The revocation of the article and the subsequent security crackdowns have limited the space and credibility for many pro-India actors in the valley. India is maintaining control over Kashmir by force, without buy-in that would bring the various nationalisms of the former state comfortably into the Indian nation. After the traumatic years of violence, oppression, and conflict, the residents of Jammu and Kashmir deserve an outcome that protects their rights and freedoms and allows them to move toward a brighter future.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and not an official policy or position of New Lines Institute.
