Author of 'Kashmir in Conflict' Says 'India and Pakistan Gain Nothing From Repeated Military Confrontations'

In February 2019, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a convoy of Indian paramilitary forces in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, killing 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on Indian soil.

India’s response was swift, launching airstrikes on what it claimed were terrorist training camps deep inside Pakistan’s territory. Pakistan, while denying any role in the attack, retaliated with its own airstrikes, shooting down an Indian fighter jet and capturing its pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman.

For days, the two nuclear-armed neighbours stood on the edge of an all-out war. Then, in a rare de-escalatory move, Pakistan’s then-Prime Minister Imran Khan addressed his parliament, announcing Abhinandan’s release and handover to the Indian authorities.

The gesture defused the immediate crisis, and hostilities ceased. Yet, the underlying tensions over Kashmir, the region at the heart of their rivalry, remained unresolved, leaving both nations locked in a fragile stalemate.

Six years later, history repeated itself as the same destructive cycle flared up again. A broad-day terrorist attack in Pahalgam’s Baisaran meadow that claimed 26 civilian lives, sent shockwaves across India.

The government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, responded with a familiar playbook, striking nine alleged terrorist camps across the border in Pakistan, claiming to have neutralised militant threats.

Also read: In These Post-Pahalgam Times of Multiple Partitions, Will Media Do the Right Thing?

With Pakistan responding with artillery barrages and drone incursions along the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border (IB) at multiple places, the escalation was rapid and terrifying. Shelling pounded border villages, drones lit up Srinagar’s night sky, and explosions shattered the fragile peace.

Both sides reported several deaths, including a civil administrator in the Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir. Widespread power outages forced countless families to leave their homes, seeking safety in makeshift shelters or with relatives in less volatile areas.

Unlike the aftermath of the Pulwama blast, the Pahalgam carnage and the subsequent India-Pakistan skirmishes took an unexpected turn. On May 10, US President Donald Trump announced on X that both countries had agreed to a ceasefire, commending the statesmanship of Prime Minister Modi and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

The truce, effective from 5 pm that day, has held, restoring a tense calm. But the costs of this latest clash are stark: lives lost, homes destroyed, and economies battered.

India and Pakistan appear to have returned to square one – an outcome that prompts serious reflection. Instead of resorting to military strikes, India might have opted for a diplomatic approach, leveraging international pressure to compel Pakistan to act against the rogue elements responsible for fuelling such attacks. Experts believe India acted in haste, and the four days of intense drama could have been avoided.

British military historian Victoria Schofield, whose seminal book Kashmir in Conflict has chronicled the region’s decades-long strife, sees this cycle as utterly futile.

Speaking to The Wire from her London residence, where she has hosted South Asian leaders like the late Benazir Bhutto, Schofield offers a sobering analysis.

“Even lower tolerance threshold by the Indian government. Even greater jingoistic rhetoric which will make it difficult for both sides to pull back without losing face,” she observed, pointing to how domestic pressures and media-driven jingoism trap leaders in a relentless spiral of retaliation.

'2019 at core of mistrust'

She attributed the violence in Jammu and Kashmir – including the attack on innocent tourists in Pahalgam – to extreme “rogue elements” who are anti-Hindu and use the unresolved status of J&K to justify their actions, combined with deep resentment toward the Indian government's arbitrary measures in the region.

At the core of this mistrust is India’s 2019 decision to strip Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy, which she sees as a key driver of unrest.

“Prime Minister Modi has to understand that the measures his government has taken since 2019 to integrate the state more fully into the Indian Union have caused widespread resentment in the valley of Kashmir,” she insists.

The futility of these clashes, Schofield said, was undeniable.

“India and Pakistan gain nothing from these repeated military confrontations,” Schofield states. “In fact their positions are diminished because the trust deficit is increased and the ‘baggage’ of more ‘martyrs’ on both sides increases.”

While leaders may briefly ride a wave of approval for “standing up to their hostile neighbour,” she added, “eventually that will wear thin as people realise that nothing has been achieved, instead lives have been lost to no purpose and there is still no resolution of the issues which cause the flare-ups.”

Kashmiris, caught between the competing claims of India and Pakistan, bear the heaviest burden.

Exodus and intolerance

Schofield reflected on the 1990s exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, uprooted from their homes by violence, and the ongoing struggles of Kashmiri Muslims, exacerbated by rising Hindu extremism in India.

“Rising Hindu extremism has to be defied and challenged because it is not the face of India,” she asserted. “India at partition was a secular state which embraced people of all religions.”

Without a shift in this divisive rhetoric, she warned, resentment will continue to fuel unrest, perpetuating the cycle of violence.

Global efforts to mediate, including the US-led push for the current ceasefire, face steep challenges, she added.

“Because both countries are sovereign nations who will not be dictated to by a third party,” Schofield explained. “The international community can suggest and advise, but it can go no further if either country is not willing to listen.”

'Conflict won't resolve differences'

The ceasefire’s survival underscores the limits of external intervention when trust between India and Pakistan remains so fragile. Schofield’s solution is both urgent and pragmatic.

“The only way forward is for the leaders of both countries to realise that armed conflict will not resolve their differences. Instead they have to sit down at the negotiating table, with or without a facilitator, as they pledged in 1972 at Shimla, to work out what exactly causes such hostility, fuelled by their own respective media with its hostile jingoistic rhetoric,” she urged.

Drawing on decades of research, Schofield’s work reveals a harsh reality: military action only intensifies the suffering without bringing any resolution. Meaningful change can come only through dialogue. For the people of Kashmir, exhausted by violence and forced migration, the path forward is obvious.

India and Pakistan must set aside their pride and pursue peace – otherwise, the wounds of the Line of Control will continue to bleed into the next generation.

Farooq Shah is a Kashmir based journalist currently in London.

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