[Pakistan also claims parts of Kashmir, a mountainous region between India and Pakistan that has been racked by unrest for decades. Many people are worried that India’s moves could further inflame the area, possibly even stoking a major conflict between the two archrivals, both of which have nuclear arms.]
By
Jeffrey Gettleman
NEW
DELHI — With tensions rising
in the disputed Kashmir region, the Indian government said Friday that it had
no intention of going to war with Pakistan and that any talk of a looming
conflict was simply “fearmongering.”
“The present narrative of the India-Pakistan
situation by Pakistan, including the possibility of a war, is intended to
project an alarmist situation,” said Raveesh Kumar, an Indian government
spokesman. “It is far removed from the reality on the ground.”
India has come under increasing criticism for
its decision in early August to revoke Kashmir’s autonomy and lock down the
area, arresting thousands and cutting off phone and internet service to
millions of people.
Pakistan also claims parts of Kashmir, a
mountainous region between India and Pakistan that has been racked by unrest
for decades. Many people are worried that India’s moves could further inflame
the area, possibly even stoking a major conflict between the two archrivals,
both of which have nuclear arms.
On Friday, Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime
minister, said in an op-ed in The New York Times that “if the world does
nothing to stop the Indian assault on Kashmir and its people, there will be
consequences for the whole world as two nuclear-armed states get ever closer to
a direct military confrontation.”
India says Pakistan’s strategy is to paint a
dire picture of the situation, play up fears of nuclear war and scare the world
into intervening in Kashmir, which India considers an internal matter.
Several times in the past, the two nations,
which were set up at the end of British colonialism in South Asia, have gone to
war over Kashmir. Tensions are rising once again along the disputed border, and
many nations, including the United States, have urged Pakistan and India’s
leaders to negotiate.
But the bitterness is only spreading and
turning more personal.
Mr. Khan has compared India’s leadership
under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nazi Germany, and in his op-ed on Friday
said the world should not appease India because of “trade and business
advantages.” India’s economy is nearly nine times bigger than Pakistan’s, and
many nations seem to keep that in mind, eager to do business here. Initially,
the criticism of India’s move on Kashmir was light.
But as the heavy restrictions have dragged
on, now for almost a month, more objections were raised, particularly over mass
arrests. Indian forces have rounded up more than 2,000 people, including nearly
all of Kashmir’s elected leadership, and are holding them in a network of
prisons across India without any known charges.
The United States is “very concerned by
reports of detentions and the continued restrictions on the residents of the
region,” said a spokeswoman at the American Embassy in New Delhi.
Indian officials insist they want to lift the
restrictions as soon as possible. In some areas, authorities have reopened
phone lines. But a de facto curfew remains in many places and internet service
is still seen as very dangerous — as a way for protesters to organize and for
Pakistan to spread propaganda.
Indian officials said the restrictions they
have imposed are based on lessons learned from past episodes of unrest in
Kashmir, when huge anti-government protests degenerated into clashes with
security forces that took dozens of lives.
“Our priority is that there should be no loss
of lives,” Mr. Kumar said. “Whatever is being done is flowing from that
singular objective.”
Pakistani officials have said that the Indian
government has, in effect, imprisoned the entire Kashmiri population. But when
it comes to Kashmir, Pakistan doesn’t have the cleanest record either.
In the 1990s, Pakistan backed thousands of
jihadist militants to sow chaos in the Indian-controlled parts of Kashmir. More
recently, India has accused Pakistan of helping a small group of Kashmiri
militants fighting against Indian rule. Pakistan is predominantly Muslim, as is
Kashmir, while India is a predominantly Hindu nation.
For years, Hindu nationalists pushing for
Hindu supremacy in India have had their eyes on Kashmir. The wider state of
Jammu and Kashmir, which includes the restive Kashmir Valley, is India’s only
Muslim-majority state. Its inclusion in India’s union was seen as an important symbol
of India’s commitment to secularism, laid out in the Indian Constitution.
But many Hindu nationalists, who are now
ascendant in Indian politics, saw Kashmir as an unruly, Muslim-dominated fringe
area that needed to be brought to heel.
On Aug. 5, Mr. Modi’s home minister, Amit
Shah, announced on the floor of Parliament that the Indian government was
erasing Kashmir’s autonomy, ending its statehood and dividing the territory in
half.
Mr. Shah and Mr. Modi have promised this move
will bring peace and prosperity. But no Kashmiri leaders were consulted,
leaving countless Kashmiris furious and with little they can do.
In the weeks leading up to the announcement,
thousands of Indian troops were bused into the region, adding to the hundreds
of thousands of security forces already garrisoned there.
And in the hours before the announcement was
made, security forces swept the valley in the middle of the night and
methodically arrested elected representatives, business leaders, teachers and
human rights defenders.
Critics said that even under India’s tough
public safety laws, the lockdown was illegal and that Mr. Modi was bending the
Indian legal system to cut off any possible criticism in Kashmir and silence
anyone with a voice.
On Friday, the streets of Kashmir’s biggest
towns were deserted. Friday is often a tense day: It is the day when many
Muslims pray together, and in Kashmir rowdy protests frequently erupt as crowds
stream out of mosques.
The authorities routinely beef up security on
Fridays, but residents said this Friday had a much heavier presence than usual.
Nearly all businesses were closed, out of a pervasive sense of fear.
One shopkeeper who had opened his store for a
few hours was shot dead on Thursday. Police officials blamed the attack on militants
who they said were trying to intimidate anyone from resuming anything close to
a normal life.
Kashmiris are growing weary, feeling under
siege, and now they are worried about getting caught in the middle of a
potential war between India and Pakistan.
“Kashmir will become the battleground,” said
Musadiq Wani, a student. “That is the biggest fear in people’s mind.”
Hari Kumar contributed reporting from New
Delhi and Sameer Yasir from Srinagar, Kashmir.
