With the growing surge of armed conflicts and tensions among global powers, special attention is drawn to the increasingly explosive tensions between two nuclear powers – India and Pakistan.
The conflict between India and Pakistan arose from the partition of British India in 1947. The partition established Pakistan with a Muslim majority population and India with a Hindu majority and gave the various regions of Jammu and Kashmir the opportunity to choose which country they would join.
The Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir initially sought independence, as Kashmir had for centuries been neglected and subjected to imperial conquests. However, he eventually agreed to join India in exchange for assistance against an invasion by Pakistani tribesmen, which triggered the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948. The Karachi Agreement signed in 1949 temporarily ended the violence in the Jammu and Kashmir region by establishing a ceasefire line.
Tensions smoldered until the conflict escalated into full war in 1965, and six years later India and Pakistan fought another short war over East Pakistan, during which Indian forces helped the territory gain independence, resulting in the creation of present-day Bangladesh. India and Pakistan attempted to usher in a new era of bilateral relations with the Simla Agreement, which established the Line of Control (LoC). This temporary military control line divided Kashmir into two administrative regions. However, in 1974, the conflict took on a new dimension with the introduction of nuclear weapons, raising the stakes of every subsequent confrontation.
In 1989, Pakistan exploited a growing resistance movement in Indian-administered Kashmir to undermine Indian control, reigniting tensions and launching decades of mutual violence. Despite arenewed commitment to the LoC in 1999, Pakistani soldiers crossed the LoC, triggering the Kargil War. Although both countries have maintained a fragile ceasefire since 2003, they regularly exchange fire across the disputed border. Each side accuses the other of violating the ceasefire and claims to be responding to attacks.
Fears that India and Pakistan would again go to war rose in 2008 after militants began the siege of Mumbai, in which 166 people were killed over three days.
After a brief period of optimism in 2014, progress toward meaningful talks was halted in September 2016, when armed militants attacked an Indian army base, killing eighteen Indian soldiers in the deadliest attack on Indian armed forces in decades.
This period was marked by an increase in border clashes that began in late 2016 and continued into 2018, killing dozens and displacing thousands of civilians on both sides of the LoC. More than three thousand cross-border strikes were reported in 2017, while nearly a thousand were reported in the first half of 2018. In May of that year, India and Pakistan formally agreed to a ceasefire along the disputed border with Kashmir, in order to renew the terms of their 2003 agreement.
In August 2019, after deploying tens of thousands of additional troops to the region and revoking Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, the Indian government forced Kashmiris to comply with Indian property and customary laws, effectively diminishing their autonomy. Clashes between Indian and Pakistani forces continued in 2023 and 2024, in response to New Delhi’s increasing efforts to establish territorial control.
The latest escalation in relations occurred on April 22nd near the tourist resort of Pahalgam, one of the most popular destinations in the Indian part of Kashmir. Attackers, believed to be members of a previously unknown militant group called “Kashmir Resistance,” opened fire with automatic weapons on a group of domestic tourists on an excursion.
Indian authorities almost immediately implied Pakistan’s involvement, stating that the attackers had crossed the border from the Pakistani side of Kashmir and that behind it all stood a militant infrastructure allegedly supported by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Islamabad, as expected, rejected the accusations, calling them “baseless” and “dangerously inflammatory.”
Communication at the highest diplomatic level was cut off, and the Indian ambassador was withdrawn from Islamabad. What caused the greatest concern was India’s decision to suspend the implementation of the Indus Water Treaty – the historic 1960 agreement regulating the distribution of water from the Indus river system between the two countries. India signaled the possibility of redirecting part of the river flows under its control, which could have catastrophic consequences for Pakistan. Islamabad responded strongly to these moves. The government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called India’s water decision a “declaration of war.”
All this led to the deployment of military forces on both sides along the border, as well as the holding of military exercises, including airstrike simulations. This led to several exchanges of small arms fire, and in the last 24 hours, India conducted missile strikes on three locations within Pakistani territory, including the old airport in Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani part of Kashmir. The attack occurred in the late evening hours, and Pakistani authorities reacted sharply, labeling the action as “unprovoked aggression” and announcing a response.
What that response will be is still unknown, but the world fears further escalation of the conflict between these two states, considering that both possess nuclear arsenals, Klix.ba writes.
