Srinagar, India
Kashmir dispute: Kashmir was on lockdown this week after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government revoked a 65-year-old law that had granted limited autonomy to the disputed Himalayan region. Anticipating violent protests, India sent tens of thousands of soldiers to Kashmir ahead of Modi’s announcement, placed some 400 Kashmiri political figures under house arrest, and cut off internet and phone service. Muslim-majority Kashmir was divided into Pakistani and Indian administered areas following Britain’s 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent, and Pakistan and India have since fought three wars over the region. Hindu nationalists have long resented the presence in India of a Muslim province that has been a hotbed of separatist and Islamist violence. Now that India has rescinded Article 370 of its constitution—which prevented non-Kashmiris from owning property or working there—Hindus could attempt to take over the area. This is a “historic step toward establishing the Hindu Rashtra,” the Hindu nation, said a spokesman for Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, a Hindu nationalist group.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said he believed that Modi “may initiate ethnic cleansing in Kashmir to wipe out the local population.” He said that Kashmiris may attack Indian security forces out of anger and that India would inevitably blame Pakistan. “If India attacks us, we will respond,” he said. “We will fight until the last drop of blood.” Some analysts speculated that President Trump’s recent offer to mediate between India and Pakistan—both nuclear powers—over Kashmir may have hastened Modi’s decision to scrap Article 370. India has long resisted international attempts to become involved in the dispute.