May 2, 2025
One of the world’s, oldest and most dangerous conflicts went critical this past week as nuclear armed India and Pakistan traded threats of war. The Kashmir conflict is the oldest one before the UN.
In my book `War at the Top of the World’ I warned that the confrontation over Kashmir, the beautiful mountain state claimed by both Islamabad and Delhi, could unleash a nuclear war that could kill millions and pollute the planet.
After three wars and many clashes, it seemed the two bad neighbors had allowed the Kashmir dispute to fade into the background as their relations slightly improved.
Then came the murder last week of 26 Indian tourists at Pahalgam, a Kashmir beauty spot, by Muslim insurgents. Kashmir was roughly divided between India and Pakistan in 1947. The larger part of Kashmir was annexed by Indian troops as the entire region was scourged by massacres and rapine.
As a result, India’s portion of Kashmir became the only Muslim majority state in India. Kashmiri Muslims have waged a bloody struggle since the 1980’s to leave India or join Pakistan. Today, 500,000 Indian troops and an equal number of paramilitary police garrison the restive province.
I’ve been under fire three times on the Line of Control that separates the two Kashmirs and at 15,000 feet altitude on the remote Siachen Glacier. I was with Pakistani President Musharraf after he tried to seize Kargil which lies above Kashmir.
The outside world cared little about the India-Pakistan conflict until both Delhi and Islamabad acquired nuclear weapons. Their ‘hatred of brothers’, as I called it, pits fanatical Hindus against equally ardent Muslims who share centuries of hatred and are being whipped up by politicians.
Right wing Hindu militants in Delhi demand reunification of pre-1947 ‘Mother India.’ Pakistan has about 251 million citizens; India has 1.4 billion and a much larger GDP. Pakistan would be unable to resist a full-bore attack by India’s huge armed forces. So, it relies on tactical nuclear weapons to compensate for the dangerous imbalance.
But both sides nuclear arsenals are on hair-trigger alert and pointed at the subcontinent’s major cities. A decade ago, the US think tank Rand Corp estimated an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange would kill three million immediately and injure 100 million. Such damage would pollute most of the region’s major riverine water sources all the way down to Southeast Asia.
Given the region’s poor communications and often obsolete technology, nuclear arsenals must be kept on high alert lest they be surprised and decapitated by a sudden missile attack from across the border. Accidents are frequent. Anyone who has traveled across India knows about this.
India’s right-wing politicians are loudly demanding revenge strikes against Pakistan as PM Modi stirs up anti-Muslim hatred in India – following the example set in America by his new ally, President Donald Trump. Pakistan is calling on its key ally, China, for support. India and China are at scimitars drawn over their poorly demarcated Himalayan border –another legacy of British imperialism.
India claims Pakistan’s intelligence service ISI was behind the Kashmir attacks. Pakistan denies Indian charges. I’m unsure. A decade ago, as a war correspondent, I joined Kashmiri mujahidin guerillas operating against Indian forces. At the time, Pakistan was quietly supporting the insurgents. I was extensively briefed on Kashmir by ISI officials.
Today, it’s uncertain if Pakistan is involved, as India claims. India, for its part, also supports rebel groups in Pakistani Baluchistan and around Karachi. India routinely commits atrocities against Muslim Kashmiri citizens. Muslim Kashmiris have attacked local Hindus and Sikhs.
India just threatened to shut off the rivers leading from Tibet that nurture Pakistan’s wheat farmers. Pakistan threatens to breach any Indian dams on the Indue River and its tributaries with nuclear weapons.
Everyone wants beautiful, green Kashmir.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2025
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