The Terrorist Attack

On April 22, the Baisaran Valley, a town near the mountain town of Pahalgam in the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir, was the scene of a terrorist attack. A group of five armed militants killed 26 civilians and wounded dozens more.

The commandos, armed with M4 and AK-47 assault rifles, reportedly targeted groups of Hindu tourists. According to several witnesses, the victims were selected on the basis of their gender (only men) and religion (exclusively non-Muslims); local Kashmiris were spared.

This modus operandi is reminiscent of that employed by Hamas in the attacks of October 7. Some victims were reportedly forced to prove their Islamic faith by reciting the Kalima, an act of faith pronounced to express adherence to Islam. The only confirmed Muslim victim is a local worker, a pony rental operator, who reportedly tried to defend the tourists.

The attack was claimed by a relatively new group known as The Resistance Front (TRF), which emerged in 2019 shortly after the Indian central government’s decision to revoke Kashmir’s partial autonomy.

The TRF is considered to be closely linked to, or an integral part of, the jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which has carried out numerous attacks on Indian territory in recent decades, including the 2008 Mumbai assault, which lasted three days and left 170 people dead.

However, a few days after the attack, the TRF denied involvement, claiming that the claim of responsibility, sent via Telegram, was the result of a cyberattack orchestrated by Indian intelligence.

Targeting tourists is nothing new for these groups; on the contrary, it responds to a clear desire to gain international and media attention. The goal is twofold: to undermine regional stability and damage India’s tourism economy, a sector that has experienced significant growth in Indian Kashmir in recent years.

In June 2024, a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims returning from the Shiv Khori temple near Ransoo, in the Reasi district (Jammu and Kashmir), was attacked and nine passengers were killed. The attack was claimed by the Kashmir Tigers, another little-known group known for its ambush tactics using light weapons. It is believed to be affiliated with the Sunni Islamist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), founded in 2000, which in Urdu means “Army of Muhammad” and which over the years has been characterized by its use of suicide bombers.

In an attempt to reinforce an image of normality in the region, India organized a G20 summit in 2023 in Srinagar, the capital of the district of the same name in Jammu and Kashmir. The event was followed by protests from China and Pakistan.

The attacks are often targeted at civilians, ethnic and religious minorities, pilgrims, tourists, but also workers, as demonstrated by the cowardly action of the TRF in October 2024, when it attacked a tunnel construction site in the district of Ganderbal, also in Kashmir, killing seven migrant workers.

According to data from the South Asia Terrorism Portal, between 2000 and 2024, approximately 15,000 civilians were killed in India as a result of terrorism, not only in Jammu and Kashmir, but in various regions of the country, figures that reflect the complexity and spread of the phenomenon.

From Words to Action: Operation Sindoor

Indian leaders immediately blamed Pakistan, accusing it of supporting and fueling terrorism in the region. Islamabad, while reiterating the illegitimacy of India’s presence in Kashmir, rejected any involvement, referring the accusations back to the sender.

The day after the attack, New Delhi responded with significant retaliation: suspending the Indus Waters Treaty and closing the Attari-Wagah border, the only legal crossing between the two countries, located not far from Amritsar in Indian Punjab.

The Indus Waters Treaty, signed in 1960 under the supervision of the World Bank, regulates the sharing of water from the vast basin of the subcontinent’s longest river. The Indus rises in the mountains of Tibet, crosses part of India (mainly Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir) and flows through Pakistan, emptying into the Arabian Sea south of Karachi.

The Treaty grants India exclusive use (usually for agricultural and hydroelectric purposes) of the left tributaries: Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej. The Indus and the right tributaries: Chenab and Jhelum, are for Pakistani use. However, the treaty allows India to build hydroelectric projects on these rivers, but without altering their flow to Pakistan.

These waters are essential to the Pakistani economy: used mainly for agricultural production, they account for about 80% of the country’s total water needs. Pakistani Energy Minister Awais Leghari therefore called the suspension of the treaty “an act of water warfare; a cowardly and illegal move,” reiterating that “every drop is ours by right and we will defend it with all our might.”

Two days after the attack, both countries canceled visas and severed trade ties. Pakistan closed its airspace to Indian aircraft and suspended the fragile Simla Agreement, which establishes respect for the Line of Control (LoC) and a commitment not to change it unilaterally. As proof of the worth of these documents signed between bourgeois marauders, this agreement has been violated countless times since 1972.

On April 29, Indian Prime Minister Modi, during a meeting with defense leaders, granted the Indian armed forces “complete operational freedom.”

Tensions rise: on May 3, Pakistan flexes its muscles and tests the Abdali ballistic missile, with a range of 450 kilometers. On the same day, India imposed maritime restrictions on Pakistani ships and cut off all trade by sea.

The night between May 6 and 7 marked the beginning of Operation Sindoor. The Indian armed forces carried out attacks on Pakistani territory against nine sites identified as “terrorist infrastructure.” According to Indian sources, these targets included training camps and headquarters of the terrorist groups Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), the latter an organization that includes Kashmiri fighters.

Islamabad responded immediately with intense mortar and heavy artillery bombardment along the Line of Control. On the night between May 7 and 8, Pakistan struck several military targets in northern and western India with drones and missiles; some of these attacks were neutralized by Indian air defense systems.

On May 8, the Indian armed forces responded with missiles and drones, targeting air defense radar systems in several Pakistani locations, including Lahore. During the night between May 8 and 9, Pakistani drone raids against Indian targets continued, hitting, among others, the airport in Srinagar and the air base in Awantipora. It is estimated that Islamabad used over 300 drones.

On May 9, there was a significant increase in the intensity of fire along the LoC from both sides, characterized by the use of mortars and heavy artillery.

The following day, a ceasefire was negotiated between the two sides. However, despite the agreement, there were still numerous clashes along the border. Only on May 12, after four days of violent military exchanges involving missile strikes and intense drone attacks, did the two countries announce a truce, which proved to be stable.

As in any clash between bourgeois states, statements by government representatives and military leaders showed considerable differences regarding the number of casualties and the outcome of the attacks.

Pakistan accused India of striking civilian areas, killing 40 civilians and 11 soldiers, and injuring about 200. New Delhi categorically denied Pakistan’s claims about civilian casualties, but claimed that its operations had killed more than 100 “terrorists” in the first wave of attacks alone.

According to Indian sources, its military losses were five soldiers and 15 civilians killed and 43 wounded as a result of artillery and small arms exchanges along the Line of Control and Pakistani drone strikes.

The Ceasefire

The announcement of the agreement on May 10 was made by the US president and only later confirmed by the Pakistani foreign minister and the Indian foreign secretary. Trump, playing the role of comedian that has been assigned to him, said: “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a complete and immediate ceasefire. Congratulations to both countries for using common sense and great intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this issue!”

These words did not go down well with the Indian ruling class: attributing the credit for the mediation to the United States suggests that India has yielded to external pressure, whereas, in the nationalist imagination, the Kashmir issue and relations with the Pakistani enemy are internal affairs between the two states. Furthermore, Trump has placed the two countries on the same footing, failing to identify India as a victim of terrorism.

It is clear, however, that we are in a historical phase where local issues are part of a global imbalance and cannot be addressed in total autonomy.

In this crisis, the two major imperialist powers, the US and China, have maintained a cautious position, calling for moderation from both contending states, after arming them for decades. Certainly, the United States, although historically linked to Pakistan, is oriented toward strengthening its strategic ties with India in an anti-Chinese capacity. Beijing, on the other hand, is traditionally an adversary of Delhi and an ally of Islamabad, with which it has built increasingly close economic and commercial ties.

Furthermore, for India, an armed conflict would undermine the already shaken global supply chains and scare away international capital, which today finds fertile ground for investment there. A long war could severely test India’s ability to contain, even partially, Chinese influence.

The Position of Revolutionary Communism

The countless conflicts, large and small, that characterize the current phase of the capitalist mode of production are inexorable manifestations of the march of capital toward a new global carnage, dictated primarily by the general economic crisis of overproduction. War is an inescapable necessity for the ruling classes; there is no alternative to our “either capitalist world war or proletarian revolution.” It becomes essential for the bosses, for their governments of all colors, to channel the workers of all nations into fratricidal slaughter.

All the bourgeoisies, and in this scenario the Indian bourgeoisie and its Pakistani twin, will continue to fan the flames of conflict, feeding, when and as much as necessary, the multiple groups of “terrorists,” who are the expression and useful servants of the various bourgeois factions that raise and subsidize them and who, beyond their supposed ideology, will always stand against the revolution and against the workers.

Territorial disputes such as that in Kashmir will be a useful pretext for pushing nationalism, as will religious conflicts, which will be exacerbated to strengthen the bourgeois state and hurl it against the proletarian movement.

But war also has the merit of unmasking opportunism in all its forms. In India, the two large self-styled communist parties, the Communist Party of India and its 1964 split, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), have once again shown their true reactionary nature by openly supporting Operation Sindoor, emphasizing the importance of national unity in response to “terrorism.” The Indian proletariat must reject these dictates and take up, together with their Pakistani class brothers, the slogan “The enemy is in our house,” against national unity for international unity in the struggle of the working class.

Other Indian and Pakistani left organizations, apparently more radical, today opposed to both national bourgeoisies, support national liberation struggles, from Tibet to Baluchistan to Kashmir. In a world at the present general stage of historical development, words denouncing these oppressions of minorities are used as instruments of war between imperialisms, as in the Ukrainian scenario with regard to the Donbass republics, or in the Palestinian carnage.

A third world slaughter can only be stopped by the world proletariat, united above nationalities, ethnicities, and religions, and guided by the international communist party, transforming the war between states into a war between classes for the affirmation of communism.