Lawfare Daily: The Crisis in Kashmir

[Intro]

Tanvi Madan: The 26 people were killed, 25 of whom were Indian, they have, there were reports that the attackers targeted men in particular—and most of those killed have been men—but that they, also, there are some reports that they asked the victims, whether or not they were Hindu or Muslim.

Daniel Byman: It is the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Daniel Byman, the foreign policy editor of Lawfare with Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Tanvi Madan: A lot of this will come down to what India decides to do, how Pakistan retaliates. And then sometimes it's not a question of what people can do to get people to exercise the countries to exercise, you know, shape their behavior before any escalation, but after some escalation has taken place then to make sure that it doesn't escalate beyond a certain point up that ladder.

Daniel Byman: Today we're talking about the crisis in Kashmir, the Indian response, and how the international community might be able to prevent this from escalating further.

[Main podcast]

Given that this is a fast breaking event, I want to note to our audience that we are recording 2:00 Washington time on April 28, and I want to ask you to begin really by setting the stage. After the April 22 attack that killed 26 people, we have the back and forth along the border, among other responses.

Can you kind of really start us, not exactly from the beginning, but from the recent beginning, and tell us, you know, what you think led to this attack and the nature of India's response so far?

Tanvi Madan: Thanks for having me on the podcast. And just a caveat that as you said, this is very much an evolving situation. Some of what we have is speculation rather than, you know, concrete evidence or you know, we are still kind of assessing what the cause of this particular attack has been.

Just to, to set the stage though, what we saw on April 22 was one of the worst recent terrorist attack on civilians in Kashmir for quite a while. It happened in the Kashmir Valley in a area that has been frequented by tourists recently. Tourism in Jammu and Kashmir has increased; we saw 3.5 million Indian tourists go to, or tourists in general go to Kashmir last year, and that was picking up this year.

The 26 people were killed, 25 of whom were Indian, they have, there were reports that the attackers targeted men in particular—and most of those killed have been men—but that they, also, there are some reports that they asked the victims, whether or not they were Hindu or Muslim, adding kind of a communal—as they call Hindu-Muslim tensions in India—adding that element to this attack which was also somewhat different than in the past.

Now, we have seen attacks in recent years in Kashmir. They have tended to the—the, the larger ones in 2016 and 2019, were against military targets, but did lead to Indian military responses, and then Pakistan in 2019 responding as well. But in this case what you've seen so far as you mentioned is India, you know, announcing some diplomatic moves. Pakistan responding; perhaps the most different one from previous incidents has been, has been the fact that India has said, and the term they've used is we are putting the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance. This is a treaty the two sides signed in 1960 and involves a water sharing agreement. Pakistan has said if that actually happened in practice, it would be considered an act of war.

And that is where we stand right now. India has said it, the prime minister has said that they will track down and respond to the terrorists and those who are supporting them. India has referred to cross border linkages of the terror attack. There was a group called the Resistance Front—which is a new name that we haven't heard before, or at least more than a few years, till more than a few years ago—claimed responsibility initially. This is a group that India at least, has linked to the, the terrorist group based in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba. But only just in the last couple of days, that group has said no, we did claim responsibility, but it was a rogue actor and it wasn't us.

So the tensions are high. The mood in India is, is pretty angry. Of the 25 Indians killed, they were from over a dozen Indian states, including Kashmir, and so the situation is quite tense right now.

Daniel Byman: Can you talk me through what you feel is the likelihood that this is indeed a rogue action? As you know, those do occur, but they're also relatively rare, it's often an excuse. So how should we think about that possibility?

Tanvi Madan: Frankly, Dan, we don't have very much information right now about specifics. The Indian government has put out sketches of three of the attackers saying two are Pakistani nationals, one is a local working with them, but this is still an evolving situation.

If this group was indeed involved, and they do have links with Lashkar-e-Taiba, in that case, it would be unlikely that this would be a rogue actor given Lashkar-e-Taiba’s links and its long history of undertaking attacks like this. The question then would be, and, and you know, India has broadly said, from what we are hearing from how they've briefed foreign diplomats that foreign diplomats have said, they have not had a, a lot of specifics that India has pointed to a pattern of terrorism from groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and linked to Pakistan.

So we don't have specifics right now. There have been some of the things that have been assessed is that this was linked to the start of tourist season in Kashmir, a sense of these groups or elements of the Pakistani military wanting to show that there isn't normalcy in Kashmir. Others have said this has to do with this, you know, is could have been an attack that was long planned, given that there's been some speculation that the individuals that have been identified have been in, in Kashmir for a while. And so, you know, unfortunately, and I don't wanna speculate too widely, the approximate cause is a little bit unclear.

The one other angle that people have talked about is that Prime Minister, Indian Prime Minister Modi, was expected to be in Kashmir and did not go, perhaps because U.S. Vice President JD Vance took a trip to India and there was a meeting between Modi and Vance, and so it didn't go to Kashmir. So was it linked with that? That's another cause of speculation.

So India at the moment is linking this at least broadly with Pakistan, and Pakistan has said that this wasn't their responsibility. So that's where we stand and at the moment we need more information.

Daniel Byman: You mentioned the water sharing agreement and the possibility that that might be suspended. What are the various options from the Indian side that you think are realistic? And if you could give your sense of, you know, why certain ones might be more attractive or less attractive?

Tanvi Madan: So we've seen kind of, you know, the minimum diplomatic action that we've seen in the past—India announcing the downgrading of its High Commission and asking Pakistan to do the same; PNGing the military attachés, the, the Pakistani military attaché based at the Pakistani High Commission in India; the closure of travel from a largely the closure of a border post or integrated checkpoint as they call them at the India-Pakistan border; and asking all Pakistanis who are on visas in India to leave.

And Pakistan's done the same. As I said, the, the departure has been this potential suspension of the water sharing which would would have a coercive impact on Pakistan if it is done. The, the kind of—even that option though, it's not clear at the moment if that's been operationalized in part because India is the upper riparian; if, if it was diverting or stopping waters going into Pakistan, the question is there, India doesn't have, have the ability right now to store that water.

It would actually cause problems even in India. Pakistan, on the other hand, has said if, if India did that, that they would, it would consider it an act of war, and said that they were holding in abeyance the other bilateral agreements, including the Simla Treaty. India said that Pakistan's already not been respecting that, so it doesn't really matter.

So that's the kind of diplomatic set that we've seen. There are a couple of other broader options. One is for India to seek support from other countries in terms of tightening the screws on Pakistan in terms of whether, you know, curbing the activities of these groups based there, potentially turning over some actors if they, if they, if they can identify and, and, you know, provide evidence of who exactly conducted this attack. That would, could involve things like the Financial Action Task force where Pakistan was put in a gray list earlier. It could involve India asking its partners abroad to maybe suspend part of the IMF package for Pakistan. Pakistan's economy has been under pressure.

So you could see kind of India now you know, seeking more international pressure, particularly from the U.S., perhaps U.K., UAE and Saudi Arabia as well.

India's also briefed China but China has largely—while saying that this is a terrorist attack, not a false flag operation, as some from Pakistan have accused India—the Chinese have also backed Pakistan in terms of saying that it was concerned about escalation; called for restraint, and supporting Pakistan's sovereignty and, and security; called also and backed Pakistan's position for an international investigation.

That option for India is not something that they are agreeing to because they feel that when Pakistan calls for neutral investigation, it's not really a neutral party, and then they point to previous experience with these investigations where they say that Pakistan has not been forthcoming, including after the Mumbai attacks, but also more recent attacks where there was some sense of working together to solve them.

Finally there are the options that I think everybody's probably paying a lot of attention to, which is the military set of options. There is some expectation that given, you know, the prime minister's warnings publicly, but also the fact that his government in the past has taken military action after Pakistani-based terrorist groups have, have targeted, at least Indian military facilities. In 2016 and 2019, there has been a military response from his government.

In 2016, this involved special operations activities across the line of control that separates Indian part of Kashmir and, and the part of Kashmir the Pakistan holds. After that, you saw in 2019 India undertake fighter jet strikes across even the international border, which led to one of those fighter aircraft being shot down in Pakistan, the Indian pilot being detained and eventually turned over.

So such action is not without risk. It would've been worse in 2019 had that pilot been killed, for instance. The options now are, you know, it could involve either more such activity or others. I think there are no perfect options for India. They will have to weigh the cost-benefit analysis, strategic costs and benefits, economic costs and benefits, as well as political costs and benefits for the prime minister's party of any kinda military options that they undertake.

It's also not clear what the timeline of that might be. Would it be in the kinda near future, or would they wait and look at the situation developed? It could be covert action, it could be overt action.

But this is something that, you know, the, I think international community will be watching because of the prospect for escalation as well between these nuclear, two nuclear powers. But the prime minister will feel the need to respond partly 'cause he himself has set the precedent, but there's also a lot of anger, not just, you know, kind of in the capital, but around the country because of the number of states there, over a dozen states that these 26 or 25, in this case, Indians came from.

Daniel Byman: Can you talk us through a bit more on the political side, is this the sort of situation where Modi might because he is someone in a fairly strong political position, be able to focus primarily on, you know, what makes the most strategic sense or is it something he might try to exploit politically to try to enhance his position further? How do you see his political leanings and status as shaping what's gonna happen in the coming weeks?

Tanvi Madan: It's an interesting question, Dan, because you know, on the one hand, as you said, you know, he might have more space in some senses. You know, he's considered, he, he came to power saying he is was gonna be strong on national security. He, you know, has pointed to his previous actions and military actions, whether or not some have questions their efficacy, but nonetheless, he said, look, we responded.

And so he, in one sense might have a little bit more space to take calibrated action, to weigh the fact that, you know, India's economy is growing faster than any other major economy; it is an attractive place, for, it is trying to portray himself as an attractive place to do business, trying to attract more investment from abroad, saying that it's an island of stability at a time the world is chaotic. And so it, you know, he has, he'll be weighing that. So he might, might have more space for strategic calibration.

Having said that, you know, there have been questions while on the one hand opposition parties have come together and it's, it's worth noting that Kashmiris have come together, including political parties who are not who are in opposition to the prime minister to condemn this act and called attack and call for action against Pakistan. You've seen that pretty much across the board, including from some Muslim parties within India. So, you know, he, you know, so far the, the, the country has been fairly united.

Having said that, there have also been questions raised about the what, you know, a number of opposition parties leaders have said has been an intelligence failure and, and question the government on that, saying if you were, so, you know, you said that you are strong on security, that you've provided the resources available that Kashmir was supposed to be in a, you know, a more normal situation—how could this happen?

This is not a, a town that is that close to the border, and so would've taken some preparation. And, and so there have been questions and so some pressure on that front, on Modi politically, and the fact that he has in the past said you know, that he could, that, that his government is going to hold the perpetrators responsible, will put some pressure on him politically to act.

Now, he also has the ability, having said that, not just because he might have the kind of political space, but he also has had the ability in the past to shape the domestic narrative. And so, you know, by taking some of these other steps, he might actually buy some time and space. Then the question is, you know, he will want something to show for it? Whether it is international pressure on Pakistan, whether it is something else. He will want to show that Indian pressure is bearing fruit. So I think the political element could play both ways. He has more space, but there is also pressure on him because there are questions about potential failures on the intelligence side.

Daniel Byman: So you mentioned just their international pressure. You also have talked about China and you mentioned Saudi Arabia, and of course the United States and Vice President Vance being there. Who matters for India right now in terms of its Kashmir policy, you know, who will listen to and what sort of influence do different foreign countries have?

Tanvi Madan: I think, you know, the, the, you've seen, so the, the usual kind of cast of characters who get involved in the situation have been in the past, have been the U.S., China, which has leveraged with Pakistan in particular. The U.S. has, has usually intervened with both India and Pakistan, but in recent years has, has tended to back India, and I'll come back to that. And, and the U.K. usually used to, to play a role, though some in India don't quite see it as neutral on this, have, have sometimes said that, you know, London has tilted towards Pakistan's position.

The other couple of countries that have in recent years come up have been the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which have historically been close partners of Pakistan, but in recent years have actually been deepening their ties with India, including defense and economic ties. And so, in the last crisis in 2019 you saw them actually also intervening to stabilize the situation, pressing—the U.S. UAE and, and, and Saudi intervene to kind of press Pakistan to de-escalate and, for example, turnover the, that Indian pilot that I mentioned over back to India,

China in the, in the kind of recent past has played a somewhat different role when there have been crises. In 1999, there was a Kargil conflict; in the two thousands there were a couple of or at least one major conflict initially and then the Mumbai attacks in 2008, you saw China try to kind of, also deescalate the situation, work with the us.

Having said that, in 2019, you heard some when there was a crisis, then some Trump administration officials from that time have said that China actually didn't play a helpful role in deescalating, and in some cases was even egging the Pakistanis on and actually playing an unhelpful role.

So, you know, in terms of who has leverage with India, it's actually not clear that if India wants to act, any country has an ability to restrain it. There's also some resentment in India that any other—and they particularly say this to the U.S.—that if this happened to you, you would not show restraint, why are you asking us to? Now the international community is doing that partly 'cause the fact that these two countries have nuclear weapons. But that does cause some resentment in India. So I'm not sure if any countries have the ability to, you know, restrain India if it really wanted to do, wanted to act.

The other thing is most of these countries have other things they want from India. And so, you know, the question is, would they be at least very public in their calls for restraint? We have not seen the U.S. publicly called for Indian restraint since before 2016. So both the Obama and Trump administrations have condemned similar attacks called out Pakistan by name, not called for Indian restraint. This time we've seen the Trump administration essentially support India broadly in terms of language but also back, say, back India as in terms of its, you know, fight against terrorism and condemned the attack.

What we haven't seen this time—and there could be some reasons for it—we have not yet seen the U.S. government or officials or President Trump for that matter name Pakistan at this point, while we're till the point we're recording. And, and so, you know, the question is what's gonna be done behind the scenes is more likely to be private.

The country to, one other country to watch is China. In some senses, you know how they, India and China have been in, in, in the middle of a process of stabilizing relations after their 2020 crisis. But China, on the one hand has, has said that this is a terrorist attack, but also at the same time kind of, backed Pakistan's position broadly, that, that, you know, they will back and support Pakistan sovereignty and, and security.

And so the question is how do they, what do they do behind the scenes? Do they actually weigh in with Pakistan and say, this is no time to cause more, you know, instability, you need to do X to show that you're responding to some of some of India's concerns about your support for terrorism. They have called for that, backed Pakistan on that investigation, so the question is, you know, do, does India say we're gonna put more information out there or say, well, you know, we don't need to put more information out there.

China doesn't have leverage to persuade India to act one way or the other. It does potentially though have a different kind of ability to shape India's response, which is if it did take some action on its border with India. That, having said that, would, would really stymie any India-China stabilization effort, which at the moment China is doing in part because of its concerns about the U.S.

So it's a pretty complicated international picture and, and those are the kind of countries to watch. But a lot of this will come down to what India decides to do, how Pakistan retaliates. And then sometimes it's not a question of what people can do to get people to exercise, the countries to exercise, you know, shape their behavior before any escalation, but after some escalation has taken place, then to make sure that it doesn't escalate beyond a certain point up that ladder.

Daniel Byman: One question I have is how much really, from a U.S. point of view, history should be, should be a guide. And part of that is as, as you know, better than anyone under previous administrations the United States had a lot of equities in Pakistan. But many of them were due to the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, and that's gone.

And of course, over recent decades, the United States has moved a lot closer to India; India has been seen as vital to any confrontation with China. So there are kind of a host of reasons where the United States might be a lot more favorable to India, a lot less favorable to Pakistan than in the past. Is, is that an accurate read or is that an overstatement?

Tanvi Madan: That is what we've seen in recent crises. I mean, almost though since 1999 the U.S.—I mean before that, the U.S. used to take the, a pretty neutral position.

But since 1999, for a very variety of reasons—you know, more intelligence, U.S. independent intelligence about responsibility for such attacks, U.S. concern about terrorism, including from groups based in Pakistan; also kind of experience through, you know, the, the 2010s, of U.S. experience with what they saw as kind of the in, interservice intelligence, Pakistani intelligence agencies’ kind of collaboration even, you know, egging on of not just the Taliban, but other terrorist groups who had been attacking you know, U.S. interests directly.

You had seen because of a lot of these factors and, and as you said, because the U.S. was also seeing India in a strategic, from a strategic prism of competition with China or as a growing market and a growing partner in the, on the international stage, you had seen the U.S. move from you know, a more neutral position as such, and not, or not saying very much or causing calling for restraint. You have seen the U.S. now call out Pakistan, back India.

And then the third thing that, you know, some have advised against, but you saw both the Obama administration in 2016 and the Trump administration in 2019, not call for Indian restraint. Some have said, oh, you know, that egged India on you know, you could argue that it's not clear that India, even if the U.S. had said something different, if the Modi government would've reacted differently in those cases and not taken military action.

So you, you know, you do, you have seen a different approach. Now, when it comes to the Trump administration, President Trump might not have that same view of kind of strategic competition with China and seeing that prism, but there is something he wants from India right now, which is a trade agreement. And so, you know, in that context, again, India becomes important to the U.S.  Having said that, you've seen all U.S. governments essentially also not want to see escalation that could jeopardize those very interests with India, but also stability in South Asia more broadly. So, yes, you have, I think history will probably serve as, as somewhat of a guide.

One constraint I would say is you know, just the moment we're in the capacity in the U.S. government to respond. There are chargé d'affaires in both New Delhi and Islamabad, not ambassadors. You also do not have in place the assistant secretaries for either, either in the Defense Department or the State Department. One has been nominated. You know, the question is how is this gonna be managed, probably outta the National Security Council, but a lot of other things going on as, as your listeners know, on that front.

So history will be a guide; it's not, there are not too many people in the government right now who have experience with that history, so a lot of this will, I think, depend on who they're reaching out to, what they're hearing from New Delhi and other partner governments as well, 'cause I think, for example, I, I, I, I would think that the U.S. and U.K. will probably be in touch on this and perhaps the US and, and France. France is another country that has, has tended to, to speak out in Europe. So I think at the moment history will serve as a guide perhaps in a slightly different way.

One question is, you know, how much do people also look to history and say, you know, these are countries who, yes, they've escalated, but at the end of the day have also managed these escalations including, you know, with using their partnerships with other countries. Former Indian National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon has said—and he was national security advisor in the previous Indian government—has said that he is not worried about escalation beyond the point because he says both countries have learned to live with managed hostility. So, you know, the question is how much of that will continue to be a guide or, or, you know, do you see things go in a different direct direction this time?

Daniel Byman: How has the latest attack and the back and forth, how has that been affecting kind of politics in Kashmir itself? And then if you don't mind taking it down one more level, is there any help for some form of improved resolution? I don't wanna say peace, but you know, I'll say broader, more stable situation in Kashmir emerging in the coming years.

Tanvi Madan: So I think, you know, what's been, what's been interesting to see this time is you've seen within Kashmir—in a way that even Kashmir politicians are noting you hadn't necessarily seen this in the past—a, a real kind of backlash against this attack, condemnation. There was kind of people in protest of against the attack. Kashmiris is closing their shops, for instance, also coming out on the streets condemning the attack. You, you've seen Kashmiri politicians speak out against this.

Now, some of this is, I mean, it comes in a situation where there were elections in Jammu and Kashmir last year. There's a, a chief minister who is not from the ruling party in India, is, is from the, the National Conference, which is a Kashmiri state, whereas India calls them a regional party.

And, you know, the chief minister has been very eloquent in saying against this attack that this has an attack, not just against you know, the, just the people who were there, but against Kashmiris as a whole.

Now, some of this could be because of the nature of the attack; it was against civilians and civilians who were tourists. It has, it could be because also Kashmiris largely seemed to be positive about the increase in tourism. It was an economic—you know, it's added to their kind of economic growth, but also that, you know, you did, I think there had been some hope that after elections there would also be a return to statehood in Kashmir. And there will now be questions, and even the chief minister Omar Abdullah said, with what face can I ask for statehood? Now we can't manage this kind of situation.

And so I think, you know, you, you've seen kind of this almost come in a context of some movement, at least within Jammu and Kashmir, but also now, what will be seen as a setback to kind of movement forward. I would say in terms of more normalization, you know, people have said, this call, calls into question this idea that normalcy was returning to Kashmir.

And so, you know, in some ways this is both. I think that, that, you know, people within India have seen this as a heartening response from Kashmiris, but also opening the question of whether the situation is quite secure there. Now, some of these questions are not just directed against, you know, at the government in Kashmir, but actually—because law and order is being handled by the center—is directed at the central government.

But nonetheless, I think, you know, you, you, you have seen some steps forward, but also I do think that this will, will pause some of those efforts. There have been some calls from other parties in India saying—and you've seen this in op-eds and others—is you do not want this situation to essentially be a win for those terrorists. if they wanted to disrupt you know, the, the movement forward in terms of economically, etc. in Kashmir, you don't want to punish Kashmiris. There, there have been some instances of attacks against Kashmir's students in other parts of the country, but you've also seen others saying don't do that because it then plays into the hands of those who've who've perpetrated this attack. So I think, you know, it's it, it, it comes in a, in a context of movement forward, but will be seen as a setback.

Briefly, Dan, no, I'm not optimistic that we're gonna see any resolution. I actually think this is going to make things, make things harder to resolve. You know, it, it, it comes at a time where you'd see actually a ceasefire hold between India and Pakistan for four years, but you've al already, we've already seen signs that that is breaking down as well of, you know, setting any escalation aside.

So, no, this is not, you know—this is we've seen in the past that crises can and have led to dialogue and, and movement forward. But particularly given some of the remarks just before this attack from the Pakistani military chief that were considered fairly incendiary both in terms of Kashmir but also Hindu Muslim questions, I, I find it hard to believe that we will see any resolution anytime soon of, of the broader issue.

Daniel Byman: That's a depressing way to end our podcast, but Tanvi Madan, thank you very, very much. That was incredibly enlightening.

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