Freedom for Kashmir! Azadi!

APRIL 26—Pahalgam is the latest in a long list of atrocities to occur on the soil of Indian-occupied Kashmir. Carried out by The Resistance Front (TRF), a Kashmiri separatist group, the attack claimed the lives of 26 tourists, making it the deadliest non-military event in the conflict since 2000. Within hours, tensions between India and Pakistan escalated sharply. India blamed Pakistan for “terrorism” and downgraded diplomatic ties. It also halted the water-sharing Indus Treaty, a provocation that Pakistan declared an “act of war.” Pakistan retaliated by suspending the Simla Agreement, a peace treaty between the two nuclear-armed countries. Their armies have even exchanged fire.

Meanwhile, anti-Muslim sentiment in India is rising ever higher, and nationalist demagoguery has exploded on both sides. With Modi roaring that India will pursue the attackers to “the ends of the earth,” the military wants to apply Israel’s playbook on Gaza to Kashmir. As we go to press, the region stands on a knife’s edge. Pahalgam is a glaring example of the South Asian powder keg.

Behind the grandstanding of both countries, what is lost is the question of Kashmir itself. Carved up between India and Pakistan during Partition, both countries claim Kashmir; it has been at the heart of tensions and wars between the two since 1947. Yet Kashmir belongs to no other than the Kashmiri people who have been struggling against their national oppression since Partition. The most elementary duty of any revolutionary in the subcontinent is to champion the democratic struggle of the Kashmiri people against their national oppression and demand: Freedom for Kashmir! For the right of self-determination for all of Kashmir!

The Hindu-supremacist Indian state calls the struggle for Kashmir “terrorism” in order to impose draconian measures on the region (such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA), justify its forcible occupation, crush the fighting spirit of the Kashmiris and whip up anti-Muslim sentiment among India’s Hindu majority. India also uses Kashmir as a club against Pakistan and to foster divisions between the two populations. Pahalgam is a direct outgrowth of these dynamics: the TRF was founded in 2019 with the explicit aim of fighting for secession as a response to the government’s stripping Kashmir of its special status, further subjugating it to the Indian state. Down with UAPA! Indian troops out of Kashmir!

We reject the indiscriminate killing of civilians and condemn the Pahalgam attack. Such acts are counterproductive. It is not the tourists who are the problem but India’s rulers. Murdering civilians can only breed distrust and anger among the broader masses who are themselves crushed by the Indian state and whose support is crucial to mount an effective struggle against it. Such methods only deepen the poisonous divisions that are fostered by the ruling classes.

Kashmiri militants must win over the Hindu, Sikh and other working masses of India to their cause and show why fighting for the freedom of Kashmir must be part of their own struggles. This is not only necessary but possible. The Modi government, licking Donald Trump’s boots, will devastate the poor and farmers, while throwing Sikh nationalists in jail and further imposing Hindi on the Tamils—all while Manipur continues to burn. For a united struggle against the pro-imperialist Hindutva government!

The escalation with Pakistan threatens communal carnage and nuclear war. As the two governments go head-to-head, the disastrous consequences will be borne by ordinary people who have no interest in going to war to kill their neighbors. The rulers sow divisions because it helps them create an “enemy” against which they can build and secure domestic support. Anti-Pakistan sentiment builds national unity in India, so that youth temporarily overlook the massive unemployment crisis and focus on the “terrorists” on the other side of the border. Likewise, anti-India sentiment in Pakistan allows the Sharif-Bhutto government to distract from the massive economic crisis crushing the masses and cover the fact that its own army does the exact same thing to the Baloch people that the Indian army does to the Kashmiri people!

Ultimately, behind the escalation and national unity are the narrow interests of the elites of both countries. Ordinary people in India and Pakistan have nothing to gain from this. Instead, they must combat the propaganda of their governments and forge working-class unity with their Hindu and Muslim brothers and sisters across the border, and together raise: Freedom for Kashmir! Kashmir ke liye, azadi!