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By
Bill Spindle and
Saeed Shah
Updated Aug. 6, 2019 4:43 pm ET
NEW DELHI—India’s historic move to end the autonomous governing status of a disputed region threatens to complicate U.S. efforts to forge a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, while Indian authorities locked down the streets of Kashmir.
The spike in tensions between Pakistan and India over the change of Kashmir’s status come as Taliban peace talks appear to have reached a critical final stage. Senior U.S. officials flew into New Delhi and Islamabad—a trip they and their host countries said were planned before India acted on Monday—as Washington sought to build regional support for a critical agreement with the Taliban that Pakistan is expected to play a key role in helping deliver and U.S. officials hope India will support.
Pakistan said the tensions with India force Islamabad to focus its attention and troops on its eastern border with India, not its northwestern border with Afghanistan. In the 1990s, India and Pakistan conducted a proxy battle in Afghanistan, fueling a civil war there, and even after 2001, New Delhi and Islamabad saw themselves as backing different sides.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan even warned that India’s actions could trigger a war.
While India regards Kashmir’s status as a domestic matter, its move to put separate disputed parts of it claimed by Pakistan and China under New Delhi’s direct control has broader implications in a region where the two nuclear-armed countries have fought multiple wars against India, which also is nuclear armed.
Kashmir was quiet on Tuesday, as telephone and internet connections were suspended. Authorities, backed up by thousands of paramilitary soldiers that were added to the usual heavy military presence over the weekend, imposed a complete ban on meetings and rallies, kept local political leaders confined to their homes, closed schools and restricted public thoroughfares in the capital Srinagar, local police said.
China said the Indian move would “undermine China’s territorial sovereignty,” while Pakistan’s army chief said his country would go to any extent to support Kashmir’s population against New Delhi’s action to exercise more control over the area.
Indian leaders say the state’s autonomy, first granted in 1950, encouraged militancy and separatist sentiment and removing it would help attract investment and improve economic ties to the rest of the country.
People in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Tuesday burn a poster of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a protest after the Indian government ended the autonomous governing status granted to the disputed region of Kashmir. Photo: arshad arbab/epa/Shutterstock
The Kashmir turmoil, however, could threaten the Trump administration’s push for a deal if Pakistan-India tensions become a lasting distraction or spill over to a fresh military confrontation. They exchanged airstrikes in February, and almost continuously exchange gun and artillery fire across a line of control in Kashmir where their two armies have faced off for many decades.
The Trump administration invited Mr. Khan and Gen. Qamar Bajwa, the powerful head of Pakistan’s army, to Washington in July to enlist further help in persuading the Taliban, whose leadership is based in Pakistan, to agree to a cease-fire and deal directly with the Afghan government about the country’s future—key elements of any deal for U.S. officials.
The Pakistani officials, who held high-level meetings in Washington, were thrilled when President Trump created an uproar by saying he had been invited by the leaders of India and Pakistan to mediate the Kashmir dispute.
Pakistan has long called for international intervention in Kashmir, but India reiterated that it has long refused any third-party involvement, making clear it hadn’t invited Mr. Trump to intervene.
The Pakistanis’ successful Washington visit may have persuaded Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his dominant Bharatiya Janata Party to press ahead urgently with the Kashmir move, which the party had long advocated.
Pakistan accuses the BJP, which promotes the Hindu religion as the essence of India, of ethnic cleansing in Kashmir, a Muslim-majority area where non-Muslims will now be able to buy property.
“Trump seemed to cut some slack for Pakistan on terrorism and Kashmir in return for helping extricate the U.S. from Afghanistan. That changed the equation,” said C. Raja Mohan, director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. “Pakistan now thinks the pressure will be on India. But the U.S. cannot force India to negotiate with Pakistan. India has learned to navigate pressures from the U.S.”
Mr. Mohan said India fears that after a settlement in Afghanistan, Pakistan would direct more of the Pakistani-allied jihadist groups, who operate in Afghanistan and Kashmir, against India.
Yet the Indian move also has provided a rallying cry for Pakistani leaders, who said it could force them to focus more effort on their dispute with India than issues in Afghanistan, where the U.S. wants their focus on the Taliban.
“We will fight to the last drop of our blood. It will be a war that no one can win,” Mr. Khan told a special session of Parliament on Monday. “I’m not doing nuclear blackmail, I’m appealing to common sense. Is the world prepared for the worst?”
On Sunday, amid signs a major move from India in Kashmir was imminent, Pakistan’s National Security Council, which includes the top civilian and military leadership, met to discuss the conflict and explicitly linked the deteriorating situation in Kashmir to Afghanistan.
“The forum strongly condemned such Indian strategy at this time when Pakistan and the international community are focused on resolving the Afghan conflict. The recent Indian measures will increase the levels of violence and turn this area into a flashpoint and a destabilizing factor in the midst of two strategically capable neighboring countries,” the council said after the meeting.
In India, debate over the decision continued.
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition National Congress Party, which once dominated India’s political landscape, tweeted criticism of the BJP over the decision for the first time.
“National integration isn’t furthered by unilaterally tearing apart J&K, imprisoning elected representatives and violating our Constitution. This nation is made by its people, not plots of land. This abuse of executive power has grave implications for our national security,” he tweeted.
BJP supporters and other parliamentarians, however, backed the measures and they passed the lower house easily.
—Vibhuti Agarwal contributed to this article.
Write to Bill Spindle at bill.spindle@wsj.com and Saeed Shah at saeed.shah@wsj.com
Bill Spindle and
Saeed Shah
Updated Aug. 6, 2019 4:43 pm ET
NEW DELHI—India’s historic move to end the autonomous governing status of a disputed region threatens to complicate U.S. efforts to forge a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, while Indian authorities locked down the streets of Kashmir.
The spike in tensions between Pakistan and India over the change of Kashmir’s status come as Taliban peace talks appear to have reached a critical final stage. Senior U.S. officials flew into New Delhi and Islamabad—a trip they and their host countries said were planned before India acted on Monday—as Washington sought to build regional support for a critical agreement with the Taliban that Pakistan is expected to play a key role in helping deliver and U.S. officials hope India will support.
Pakistan said the tensions with India force Islamabad to focus its attention and troops on its eastern border with India, not its northwestern border with Afghanistan. In the 1990s, India and Pakistan conducted a proxy battle in Afghanistan, fueling a civil war there, and even after 2001, New Delhi and Islamabad saw themselves as backing different sides.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan even warned that India’s actions could trigger a war.
While India regards Kashmir’s status as a domestic matter, its move to put separate disputed parts of it claimed by Pakistan and China under New Delhi’s direct control has broader implications in a region where the two nuclear-armed countries have fought multiple wars against India, which also is nuclear armed.
Kashmir was quiet on Tuesday, as telephone and internet connections were suspended. Authorities, backed up by thousands of paramilitary soldiers that were added to the usual heavy military presence over the weekend, imposed a complete ban on meetings and rallies, kept local political leaders confined to their homes, closed schools and restricted public thoroughfares in the capital Srinagar, local police said.
China said the Indian move would “undermine China’s territorial sovereignty,” while Pakistan’s army chief said his country would go to any extent to support Kashmir’s population against New Delhi’s action to exercise more control over the area.
Indian leaders say the state’s autonomy, first granted in 1950, encouraged militancy and separatist sentiment and removing it would help attract investment and improve economic ties to the rest of the country.
People in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Tuesday burn a poster of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a protest after the Indian government ended the autonomous governing status granted to the disputed region of Kashmir. Photo: arshad arbab/epa/Shutterstock
The Kashmir turmoil, however, could threaten the Trump administration’s push for a deal if Pakistan-India tensions become a lasting distraction or spill over to a fresh military confrontation. They exchanged airstrikes in February, and almost continuously exchange gun and artillery fire across a line of control in Kashmir where their two armies have faced off for many decades.
The Trump administration invited Mr. Khan and Gen. Qamar Bajwa, the powerful head of Pakistan’s army, to Washington in July to enlist further help in persuading the Taliban, whose leadership is based in Pakistan, to agree to a cease-fire and deal directly with the Afghan government about the country’s future—key elements of any deal for U.S. officials.
The Pakistani officials, who held high-level meetings in Washington, were thrilled when President Trump created an uproar by saying he had been invited by the leaders of India and Pakistan to mediate the Kashmir dispute.
Pakistan has long called for international intervention in Kashmir, but India reiterated that it has long refused any third-party involvement, making clear it hadn’t invited Mr. Trump to intervene.
The Pakistanis’ successful Washington visit may have persuaded Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his dominant Bharatiya Janata Party to press ahead urgently with the Kashmir move, which the party had long advocated.
Pakistan accuses the BJP, which promotes the Hindu religion as the essence of India, of ethnic cleansing in Kashmir, a Muslim-majority area where non-Muslims will now be able to buy property.
“Trump seemed to cut some slack for Pakistan on terrorism and Kashmir in return for helping extricate the U.S. from Afghanistan. That changed the equation,” said C. Raja Mohan, director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. “Pakistan now thinks the pressure will be on India. But the U.S. cannot force India to negotiate with Pakistan. India has learned to navigate pressures from the U.S.”
Mr. Mohan said India fears that after a settlement in Afghanistan, Pakistan would direct more of the Pakistani-allied jihadist groups, who operate in Afghanistan and Kashmir, against India.
Yet the Indian move also has provided a rallying cry for Pakistani leaders, who said it could force them to focus more effort on their dispute with India than issues in Afghanistan, where the U.S. wants their focus on the Taliban.
“We will fight to the last drop of our blood. It will be a war that no one can win,” Mr. Khan told a special session of Parliament on Monday. “I’m not doing nuclear blackmail, I’m appealing to common sense. Is the world prepared for the worst?”
On Sunday, amid signs a major move from India in Kashmir was imminent, Pakistan’s National Security Council, which includes the top civilian and military leadership, met to discuss the conflict and explicitly linked the deteriorating situation in Kashmir to Afghanistan.
“The forum strongly condemned such Indian strategy at this time when Pakistan and the international community are focused on resolving the Afghan conflict. The recent Indian measures will increase the levels of violence and turn this area into a flashpoint and a destabilizing factor in the midst of two strategically capable neighboring countries,” the council said after the meeting.
In India, debate over the decision continued.
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition National Congress Party, which once dominated India’s political landscape, tweeted criticism of the BJP over the decision for the first time.
“National integration isn’t furthered by unilaterally tearing apart J&K, imprisoning elected representatives and violating our Constitution. This nation is made by its people, not plots of land. This abuse of executive power has grave implications for our national security,” he tweeted.
BJP supporters and other parliamentarians, however, backed the measures and they passed the lower house easily.
—Vibhuti Agarwal contributed to this article.
Write to Bill Spindle at bill.spindle@wsj.com and Saeed Shah at saeed.shah@wsj.com
