India and Pakistan on the Brink of War
On April 22 in Indian-administered Kashmir, a terror attack on a tourist venue resulted in the deaths of 28 individuals, including 25 civilians (24 Indian nationals and one Nepali national). The Resistance Front (TRF), linked to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed responsibility for the attack but subsequently retracted their claim.
For decades, India has systematically undermined Kashmir’s limited autonomy, imposing direct central rule, silencing dissent, and flooding the region with military forces. Ending Article 370 in 2019 was a flashpoint that Indian capital used to escalate their ambitions. Through legal changes encouraging outsider land ownership and increased tourism, the Indian state has accelerated a strategy of settlement to mold Kashmir’s demographic and cultural character to the interest of Indian capital. This process serves the dual purpose of consolidating Hindu nationalist ideological control and further opening the region to Indian capital for exploitation, especially in real estate, tourism, and resource extraction—at the expense of Kashmiri national self-determination.
Kashmir is the world’s most heavily militarized zone, raising questions as to how such a large attack on a tourist location was perpetrated. Regardless, the Indian ruling class has rushed to take advantage of the tragedy in pursuit of their aims. In the days following the massacre, Indian authorities conducted investigations and accused Pakistan of harboring the attackers, allegations Pakistan has vehemently denied. Indian media has been saturated with jingoist outrage as military forces were mobilized along the India-Pakistan border.
In the early hours of May 6, the Indian Air Force launched Operation Sindoor—a 23-minute aerial bombing campaign that struck nine targets deep inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. At least 26 Pakistanis were killed, including several children. Pakistan retaliated by allegedly shooting down five Indian jets and initiating intense cross-border shelling, vowing to go to “any extent” to respond to India’s attacks.
But what lies beneath this military escalation? A far more dangerous contradiction: the sharpening conflict between two competing capitalist states vying for their respective control in the region, their imperialist machinations clashing in fire and blood. This war fever is imposed on the working class of both states, by the capitalists headquartered in Islamabad and Delhi. Each side stands to gain at the expense of the other in a military confrontation between these nuclear-armed powers. The proletariat, however, loses everything: their homes, their lives, their national self-determination.
The workers must reject the reactionary ideologies of the ruling class that demand workers of each state kill each other for the profits and pride of their exploiters. Not one drop of blood should be spent in defense of either bourgeois state.
The path forward for the working class of India and Pakistan remains the same: no war but class war. We echo the call from the Communist Party of Pakistan: “Let the war drums of chauvinism be silenced by the battle cry of international solidarity! Workers of the world, unite!”