The Main Enemy Is at Home!

14 May—India and Pakistan have averted all-out war, for now. India claims that the 22 April attack in Pahalgam in Indian-occupied Kashmir was an act by Pakistan-backed insurgents, a claim Pakistan denies and for which no official proof exists. Conjuring up “escalation” by Pakistan, India launched Operation Sindoor to “defend its sovereignty.” Pakistan retaliated to “defend” itself from Indian aggression. Both governments used the defense of their nations to rally entire populations against the other, deepening divisions along national and religious lines and bringing all of South Asia one step closer to calamity. There is now a tense cease-fire brokered by U.S. imperialism, which has no interest in an unstable South Asia as it seeks to asphyxiate China. Nevertheless, national unity is riding high in both countries, antagonisms between the two countries have been heightened and none of the underlying problems have been resolved.

War is the continuation of politics by other means. Neither India nor Pakistan was fighting a just or defensive war. In India, the war drive is a continuation of rabid Hindu chauvinism, and in Pakistan it is a continuation of the regime’s policy of subordination to imperialism and repression of Imran Khan supporters. Two religious fanatics in control of nukes brought the region to the brink to shore up their own rule. The masses have nothing to gain from backing these crooks and everything to lose. To defend themselves, workers of India and Pakistan must unite and turn this into a war against their rulers!

India: War of Hindutva Aggression

Let’s get something clear: 22 April in Pahalgam—an indefensible act—cannot be the starting point to make sense of the current situation. Kashmir is at the heart of the murderous rivalry between the two countries since Partition, and its national oppression has fueled insurgent movements ever since. Most recently, Modi’s scrapping of Article 370 stripped Kashmir of any special protections it had and brought it further under the boot of the Indian state, fueling more militancy. Endless debates about whether or not Pakistan nurtured terrorist groups evade the basic point that it is the national oppression of Kashmir that breeds insurgency. As we explained in “Freedom for Kashmir! Azadi!” (Spartacist [English edition] No. 70, May 2025), The Resistance Front (TRF), the group that claimed responsibility for the attack, was formed in 2019 in response to the scrapping of Article 370. The blame for the current escalation lies not with Pakistan, as India would have it, but with the Hindutva government’s escalation of the oppression of Kashmir.

More fundamentally, the current situation benefits the Indian government by allowing it to turbocharge Hindu nationalist hysteria in opposition to an external enemy and distract from burning issues on the domestic front. After a decade in power, Modi failed to get his supermajority in the last elections and is in a coalition government. The reason? None of the promises of billionaire-led development have materialized. The economy is in dire straits. Sure, Modi has built infrastructure—but you can’t eat roads. There is mass youth unemployment, and aside from a sliver of the middle class, much of the population continues to struggle or depend on handouts from the state. To deliver some jobs, Modi is slashing tariffs and offering the country on a silver platter to Trump, which could irk his nationalist base and damage his long-cultivated image of standing up for India.

Pahalgam and the escalation against Pakistan give the Indian elites the perfect opportunity to use the age-old rivalry to inflame Hindu nationalism and gain some room to maneuver under growing domestic pressures. This is not new. Let us not forget that the Indian bourgeoisie decisively turned to the BJP and the butcher of Gujarat in the 2014 elections because the ideology of Hindu nationalism was more effective and therefore more useful to tamp down the social contradictions and keep the Hindu-majority working masses in check. Operation Sindoor serves the same purpose: while selling the country to U.S. imperialism, Modi is whipping up Hindu chauvinism by “defending India” from Pakistan. The only victim in this war will be the workers! To defend itself, the working class must reject Hindutva and the war against Pakistan, and organize in opposition to the government and all pro-war opposition parties.

Pakistan: War of National Traitors

The overwhelming sentiment in Pakistan remains in line with the army’s narrative: India started the war without proof that the Pahalgam attack was Pakistan-backed, and Pakistan reserves the right to defend itself from such blatant aggression, which it did with Operation Bunyan al-Marsoos, or Iron Wall. The army, widely hated in recent years, found ample support as it “defended Pakistan” from the “Indian enemy.” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thundered that the army will “avenge each drop of blood” (Guardian, 7 May), and support for the discredited regime and army increased as it postured as the victim of unprovoked aggression by the Hindu nationalist government. While Hindutva aggression was plain for everyone to see, it was more difficult to cut through the narrative that Pakistan is merely defending itself since there is an element of truth: India did attack without any proof.

Just as with India, we must not start with Pahalgam but root our understanding in the broader dynamics and interests of the Pakistani elite. For several years, Pakistan has been in a state of acute crisis: Longstanding servility to U.S. imperialism has left the economy in a shambles, with soaring foreign debt and the IMF ready to choke the country further; there is huge support for Imran Khan, who harnessed mass anger against the regime only to be thrown in jail; and there is a growing Baloch separatist movement. And while India launched the first strike, it is a sick joke that the army generals are defending the national sovereignty of Pakistan! Shooting down a few Indian planes does not advance the national liberation of Pakistan—you need to get rid of these generals who have played lackey to the U.S. for decades and threw Imran Khan in jail on its behest! Indeed, under the guise of defending Pakistan, the Supreme Court now allows civilians to be tried through military courts.

Backing retaliation under the guise of “defending Pakistan” amounts to defending the regime. In reality this means defending the rule of the army and the landlord dynasties that dominate politics, keep Imran Khan rotting in prison and maintain Pakistan’s oppression of Balochistan and Kashmir. Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is called Azad [free] Kashmir, but names cannot change the fact that Pakistan also forcibly occupies Kashmir. The only difference is that the shared religion between Pakistan and the Kashmiri majority renders this oppression less naked and brutal than it is on the other side of the border. The Pakistani masses have no interest in defending the regime. It will sell what’s left of the country to the IMF! Workers, farmers: to defend your livelihoods, reject the war and get rid of the Sharif-Bhutto government and the generals!

Two Prison Houses of Peoples

The war drums and jingoism on each side express the interests of their ruling classes. The talk of “defending sovereignty” by both India and Pakistan means defending their existing borders. Any understanding of the India-Pakistan question, indeed of the entire subcontinent, is incomplete without acknowledging that these states were arbitrarily carved out during Partition and that both forcibly retain many oppressed nationalities.

Kashmir is at the heart of India-Pakistan tensions because it is the clearest intersection of two rabid nationalist ideologies and regimes that must defend the integrity of their borders in the interest of their self-preservation. Thus, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan fancies itself the rightful benefactor of Muslim-majority Kashmir to justify its national mythology, whereas Hindu-majority India subjugates Kashmir and multiple ethnic and religious peoples under its banner of “secularism and democracy.” These national ideologies serve to forcibly keep the myriad nationalities and oppressed minorities under the boot of both ruling classes. Giving an inch to any separatist movement will unleash multiple cans of worms, jeopardizing the entire set-up of post-colonial South Asia and threatening the rule of the national bourgeoisies.

The struggle against the ruling classes of Pakistan and India is inseparable from attacking the integrity of these borders—the emancipation of the working classes of both countries lies in the national emancipation of oppressed nations. This means fighting for the right of self-determination for these nations, i.e., the right to secede. The next time Indian and Pakistani rulers raise “defense of the nation” to go to war, workers must rally to the defense of the oppressed nations, centrally Kashmir, to cut through the nationalist propaganda on both sides. Freedom for Kashmir!

Cleaning Up the House: A Balance Sheet of the Left

We have established that a revolutionary position in the war needed the following elements: opposition to the ruling class and its war aims in both countries; a break from national unity; and freedom for Kashmir. Only on such a basis could revolutionaries combat the jingoism on both sides and fight to unite the workers across the border. The central task of revolutionaries remains fighting against the social-chauvinists as well as the pacifists and centrists who, while speaking of peace and unity, refuse to break with the social-chauvinists. Using this compass, let us examine how the left fared. Key to assessing the left is not the words they used but which aims they supported, whether openly or covertly.

Social-Chauvinist Left: Lackeys of Modi & Pakistani Army

The criteria for social-chauvinism is support to one’s own government; for leftists to not be social-chauvinist, they had to oppose Modi in India and Sharif and the generals in Pakistan. This meant breaking with the narratives fueling national unity on both sides: in India, opposing the aggression under the guise of fighting “terrorism”; in Pakistan, opposing the army’s lie that it is defending national sovereignty.

In India, the two main nominally “communist” parties of the anti-Modi INDIA bloc—CPI and CPI(M)—openly backed Operation Sindoor on the basis that it was directed against “terrorism.” For example, the CPI(M) “extended support to the measures taken by the Union Government aimed against the terrorists and their handlers…. The Indian government should ensure that the unity of the people and integrity of the country are protected” (7 May). From their years-long alliance with the liberal Congress, the class-collaborationist program of these traitors brought them full circle to embracing the war aims of the Hindutva government. Playing the role of faithful lackeys of Modi, their treacherous backing of Operation Sindoor was key in building national unity and lining up workers behind the Hindutva agenda.

Backing the war against Pakistan—the so-called “handler” of “terrorists”—and calling upon the Modi government to protect the country and unite the people, they drag the name of communism in the mud and contribute to deepening divisions among Indian and Pakistani workers and alienating Indian Muslims from the left. The social-chauvinism of the Stalinists on the war is inseparable from their position on Kashmir: by refusing to stand for self-determination, these so-called communists concede to the very Hindu chauvinism they claim to oppose (see “South Asian Powder Keg,” Spartacist No. 70).

The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation did not openly support the war and called for de-escalation, it nonetheless belongs to the camp of social-chauvinism because of its support to the government’s campaign against “terrorism.” How can you agitate for de-escalation when you are propagating the views causing escalation?! The only principled position was to explicitly oppose the government and its war campaign.

On the other side of the border, where the dominant illusion was that Pakistan’s retaliation is just and defensive, the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (People’s Rights Party) takes the gold medal as the most ardent cheerleader for the army and government. Ammar Ali Jan, its general secretary, hysterically tweeted, “Enough is enough! Pakistan retaliates to the continued aggression of the fascist regime in India.” Following the Pakistani counter-attack, he declared proudly that “Pakistan has successfully defended its legitimate sovereignty and territorial integrity against repeated Indian aggression” (9 May) and offered his “love and respect for the officers of the PAF (Pakistani Armed Forces)” (10 May)!

As we explained above, the retaliation was a means of defending the regime, not the Pakistani people or national sovereignty. The war gave the regime and army the opportunity to revamp their image. But true defense of ordinary Pakistanis can only come through a struggle against imperialism and the Pakistani army and government which are responsible for the rise of Islamism. Consider the frank admission by Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, who told Sky News that “we have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about three decades.” Supporting Pakistan’s retaliation is just as social-chauvinist as the blatant backing of Modi’s Operation Sindoor by the Communist parties. Both end up subordinating the working class and poor to the aims of their governments, splitting Pakistani and Indian workers in the process.

Pacifist Left

When fanatic leaders of nuclear-armed countries are approaching war, it is understandable that sentiment for de-escalation and peace is looked upon favorably. However, the call for peace is in reality a swindle that ends up spreading the illusion that the problems fueling recurring wars can be resolved short of a revolutionary struggle against the Pakistani and Indian ruling classes. The wish for a “restoration of normalcy” in the Kashmir Valley (Revolutionary Democracy) amounts to nothing but the continuation of decades-long oppression of Kashmir by India and Pakistan, which has time and again triggered war and Islamist insurgencies in the region.

One figure that has emerged with some hype from the whole episode is Pakistani singer and academic Taimur Rahman of the Mazdoor Kisan Party (Workers and Peasants Party). In a video explaining his views, Rahman opposed the war, calling for an immediate de-escalation and peace talks and for the “international community” to “play its role in helping to stop war” (7 May). A self-proclaimed Marxist, Rahman’s craven call to the international community to establish peace, combined with his blatant refusal to call for the right of self-determination for Kashmir, is in reality a call to maintain the status quo and therefore an abject capitulation to all powers that be. Indeed, the cease-fire was brokered by Trump of the “international community,” Kashmir suffers from heightened repression, and there is a new normal in terms of the tensions between the two countries. Yet Rahman congratulated the peoples of India and Pakistan on the cease-fire, spreading the illusion that ordinary folk achieved a good outcome from this! Lenin was scathing about such self-righteous pacifists:

Centrist Class Warriors

What we call “centrists” are those who correctly opposed the war, only to issue abstractions on the need for class war or international solidarity without confronting the sponsors and conciliators of national unity. Thus, the Communist Ghadar Party of India wrote that the war “is not in the interests of the workers, peasants and other working people of either country” and called to “reject the chauvinist war hysteria of the Indian ruling class” (9 May). Similarly, the Communist Party of Pakistan said, “No India-Pakistan war, but class war,” calling on the working class to “reject this false nationalism” (7 May).

While both organizations denounce their ruling classes, neither are able to counter the chauvinist notions that gripped the masses on either side of the border: what to do about “terrorism” in India, and how to defend Pakistan? Without confronting the masses’ illusions, such calls for class war and unity remain a dead letter. Crucially, failing to champion the right of self-determination for Kashmir undermines any opposition to the ruling class is undermined since it does not combat the nationalist ideology underpinning their drive to war.

Adam Pal, a leading member of the Inqalabi Communist Party (ICP), the Pakistani section of the Revolutionary Communist International, wrote a lengthy analysis of the situation, making several correct points about how the ruling classes are using this to shore up their rule, how the Kashmir question is used, etc. (while once again managing to not say a single word about Imran Khan’s imprisonment). But what did these revolutionaries propose should be done to fight for a working-class solution to the war? Pal wrote on 7 May:

“On 20 May, more than 250 million workers and farmers are expected to go on a general strike in India. This is a moment when the leadership of this strike could give a programme of working-class solidarity to end these wars forever and could launch a class war against Modi and his regime. Along with the immediate demands of the workers and farmers, political demands must be added, attacking the exploitation of the bourgeoisie in India and their class interests.”

But the ICP says nothing about the fact that the leadership of this general strike is entirely beholden to the government’s national unity aims and is dominated by Stalinists who backed Operation Sindoor! The Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions and Independent Sectoral Federations/Associations—a forum representing ten main trade-union bodies in India participating in the general strike—issued a press release imbibing the government’s line of fighting terrorism. They noted: “All efforts, including utilizing diplomatic channels must be taken to punish the terrorists” (9 May). When millions of workers will march under the banner of these treacherous leaders, the ICP is fooling everyone by entertaining the illusion that these same leaders could somehow defend the interests of the working class. And which political demands shall be added? How exactly should the workers of India attack the exploitation of the bourgeoisie? Nothing, except socialist revolution. The defining quality of centrism is to say revolutionary words while leaving the social-chauvinists in charge of the workers movement. All talk of socialist revolution and the social-chauvinism of the Communist parties is utterly useless when the leadership of the general strike is left untouched.

Revolutionaries Must Prepare

The cease-fire is tenuous and fanatics remain at the helm of these two nuclear powder kegs. There can be no peace in the region short of workers rule, and all talk of revolution is meaningless so long as revolutionaries don’t fight for a split from the social-chauvinists and centrists in the workers movement. This is the key lesson of Leninism. If revolutionaries are to have an impact on the course of events, they must assimilate the lessons of this conflagration in order to prepare for the next one. We offer this as our contribution to politically arming revolutionaries in India, Pakistan and Kashmir.