This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Dozens of people have been killed in the worst fighting between India and Pakistan in more than two decades, following a deadly attack last month on Indian tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir. Early today, India attacked nine locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, killing at least 26 people, including a child. Dozens were wounded. Pakistan called the attacks “an act of war” and responded by shelling areas of Kashmir under Indian control. India says the Pakistani shelling has killed at least 15 people. Pakistan claims to have shot down at least two Indian fighter jets. Tensions have been soaring between the two nuclear-armed nations since April 22nd, when gunmen massacred 26 tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir in a rampage that India blamed on Pakistan.
For now, we go to London, where we’re joined by Mirza Waheed, award-winning Kashmiri journalist and novelist. His books include The Collaborator, The Book of Gold Leaves and, most recently, Tell Her Everything. His recent Guardian piece is headlined “A massacre has reignited the forever war between India and Pakistan — once more, Kashmiri voices are missing.”
Well, they’re not missing here, Mirza Waheed. So, if you can start off by talking about what’s at stake right now, and give us the progression of what took place, first the attack on Indian tourists in Indian-administered Pakistan — in Indian-administered Kashmir, and what that means?
MIRZA WAHEED: Thank you for having me.
Those killings were reprehensible, and it was a massacre of Indian tourists in a pristine, really, idyllic meadow in Pahalgam, where I lived as a child. And it’s a very gorgeous and beautiful place. And those killings were shocking, obviously, and condemnable, reprehensible, and that is the main trigger for this recent escalation now, because soon after the killings, there was obviously outrage in India, in the public, in the media, across the society and the political classes. And we very soon heard big clamors for war, clamor for war, especially in the media, thorough pressure to strike on targets in Pakistan. And it was kind of — we knew it was happening. Obviously, one hoped it shouldn’t happen, it wouldn’t happen, but that’s what’s happened now.
And in many ways, Amy, this is an old war. This is a very, very old war, and not as old as the American president believes it to be, not centuries old, but about 75 years old. My grandfather saw the First India-Pakistan War in 1948. My father saw the wars in 1965 and 1971, and then, in 1999, the limited war over Kargil. And I have seen 1999 and now this recent, the latest escalation.
This is a dangerous escalation. It’s a dangerous intensification, because, as your preview said, people have been killed on both sides of the border, almost all of them civilians. That has to be emphasized and noted, that people who’ve been killed in the shelling are all civilians. And as we speak, in the borderlands between Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, people are hiding in makeshift bunkers, in underground shelters. Some of them are kind of contemplating leaving. The main airport in Kashmir is sealed off, as are other airports in some parts of northern India. There’s a huge amount of fear in the public. And this is that old thing, isn’t it? When elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled upon. So, Kashmiris have been kind of the middle for a long, long time now.
And it fills me with despair as a Kashmiri person, as a writer, as someone who’s kind of thought about it and written about it. It fills me with a lot of despair. And I’m upset about the killings in Pahalgam, about the subsequent clampdown in Kashmir, where thousands of people were arrested, houses of families who are linked to Kashmiri militants demolished, and now these strikes and the counteroffensive from Pakistan. So. I’m really, really upset. And I didn’t sleep last night, because we were worried. We didn’t know what we were going to see in the morning.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Mirza Waheed, you mentioned that this has a long history, that there have been numerous conflicts in past decades. But at the heart of it, why has it been so difficult to resolve? And why have the Kashmiris fallen under both Pakistan-administered territory and India-administered territory?
MIRZA WAHEED: I’m going to try and give a basic sort of primer on history. Say we go back to the partition. India and Pakistan become modern nation-states. Kashmir is left unresolved. Soon they begin their first war over Kashmir in 1948, which is then brought to an end through U.N. mediation. There’s a ceasefire. In fact, there’s an interesting thing I must note. The Line of Control that divides two parts of Kashmir right now was actually called a ceasefire line, a CFL, which came into existence soon after the first war I mentioned in 1948. And then it was formalized and renamed as Line of Control in 1972 after India and Pakistan fought another war, which created — which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh.
So, they have fought these wars. And it’s very clear. I mean, they have fought over Kashmir historically, all my life and my father’s life. And there’s three generations of Kashmiris and Indians and Pakistanis who have kind of, you know, grown or grown old with — under this threat of war. It kind of — there’s relative periods of peace between the two countries, and then something will bring about a fresh escalation — right? — as the attacks in Pahalgam have done.
They haven’t been able to solve Kashmir. India has in recent years claimed that it’s kind of brought Kashmir to normalcy, but this doesn’t look like normalcy to me. There’s the fighter planes. Pakistan claims it’s kind of brought down fighter planes. India has hit — this is also unprecedented because India has hit targets inside Pakistan. In previous escalations, previous conflicts, they would hit targets inside Pakistan-administered Kashmir, all of Kashmir, you know, being disputed territory. But this time they have gone into targets inside Punjab, inside interior Pakistan, which is what I cited as a very, very dangerous intensification.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how has the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi affected relations between Pakistan and India, his increasingly nationalist stand in India?
MIRZA WAHEED: Yes, it is a different regime than previous regimes. They are more open to armed response, which we have seen. And they believe, and they say — they had a presser where they said that they have responded in retaliation to the attack in Pahalgam, as they did in 2019, when there was an attack on an Indian paramilitary convoy in Kashmir, in south Kashmir, in which about more than 40 Indian paramilitary troopers were killed, and then there was a strike in Balakot, which is in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. But this time they have kind of gone into inside Pakistan.
And the Indian government claims that they have resolved Kashmir, by which I mean they — in 2019, they revoked Kashmir’s limited autonomy under the law, you know, under Indian dominion, and said, “Now tourists are coming. This is a return to normalcy. The economy is looking up. And Kashmir is normal.” But it is not normal, because what happens is, you see, you can’t impose solutions. You can impose order. You can impose law and order. You can’t impose peace. And it’s clear that this is imposed peace, and it’s now, yeah, blown wide apart.
And I really, really worry. And until they solve Kashmir, my worry is that it’s going to come back to haunt the two countries again and again. And, well, nobody wants that. Nobody wants that, least of all the Kashmiri people. They’re tired. They are tired of the enormous, enormous suffering they have seen over the last 30, 40 years. Thousands and thousands of killed — of Kashmiris have been killed. And people in India and Pakistan, they have been killed. And it’s in nobody’s interest for this conflict to continue to claim lives like this.
And, you know, I was thinking earlier that I really miss the old days, you know, when people used to be opposed to war and warmongering. But now we are — I also want to kind of point out that we are now at a point in history where — you see, back in the day, we used to look up to the United States and Britain and Europe, because phone calls would be expected to be made to the leadership in India and Pakistan urging restraint, urging people — calmer minds to prevail, and so on and so forth. But now that that order has collapsed — post-Gaza, it has collapsed — I don’t think the Americans and the Brits have the same legitimacy. I mean, not that they had much back in the day, but, you know, there was at least the semblance of this expectation that phone calls would be made from London and Washington to urge a statement. I don’t think they have the same legitimacy and same influence as they have —
AMY GOODMAN: Mirza, we just have 30 seconds. These are two nuclear-armed nations. The final comment on the significance of this?
MIRZA WAHEED: Solve Kashmir. The two countries have to solve Kashmir; otherwise, they’ll keep kind of — they will stay engaged in this forever war.
AMY GOODMAN: Mirza Waheed, I want to thank you so much for being with us, journalist and award-winning Kashmiri novelist. We’ll link to your recent piece, “A massacre has reignited the forever war between India and Pakistan — once more, Kashmiri voices are missing.”
When we come back, a historic settlement. Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital have agreed to pay $750 million to hundreds of women who were sexually abused by the former Columbia OB-GYN Robert Hadden, while Columbia ignored his patients who spoke out, undermined prosecutors and shielded the sexual predator. We’ll speak to two survivors and the lawyer who accomplished this settlement. Back in 30 seconds.
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AMY GOODMAN: “The Body Electric” by Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff in our Democracy Now! studio.
