It was 20 years ago this week that young people in Kashmir, emboldened by the fall of the Berlin Wall, became a separatist insurgency demanding independence from India.
Kashmir, known for its beautiful scenery, has become the focal point today for the conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Today the insurgency is being called the “Kashmir intifada,” and has implications for the war in Afghanistan, and for the nuclear arms race.
Shops, businesses and schools are closed again this week in the volatile region of Indian-controlled Kashmir, after separatist militants called for five days of strikes, protests and demonstrations, according to the Pakistan Daily Times.
After weeks of strikes and protests, life in Kashmir was being described as “normal” over the weekend. But the relief was short-lived after the death, allegedly in the hands of the police, of Tariq Ahmad Dar. Dar had been arrested on charges of being involved in militant activities, according to DNA India.
But according to the pro-militant Kashmir Media Service, Dar was an innocent youth who was arrested and tortured to death while in custody. His body was returned to his family on Saturday evening.
The police have promised a full investigation, but that didn’t stop thousands of Muslim protestors from filling the streets, causing the police to reinstate curfews that are infuriating the population.
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If a war breaks out between India and Pakistan, which Generational Dynamics predicts WILL happen, there’s a good chance that the first shots will be fired in Kashmir and Jammu, the two provinces that were the major site of the extremely bloody war between Hindus and Muslims that followed Partition in 1947.
The Hindu nationalist “Hindutva” (“the Hindu way of life”) movement began officially in 1923, led by terrorist Veer Savarkar (Vinayak Damodar Savarkar), mostly as a movement against British colonization.
By the 1940s, the Indian independence movement was being led by Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi is considered the founder of India, while Muhammad Ali Jinnah is the founder of Pakistan. The two men had met during WW II to plan for the coexistence of the two nations when the time was right. Savarkar and other Hindu extremists were infuriated that Gandhi was even meeting with Jinnah.
Of course, the planning of Gandhi and Jinnah didn’t produce the desired results. After Britain allowed Partition to go forward in 1947 (partitioning the Indian subcontinent into the independent nations of India and Pakistan), there was a huge, bloody, genocidal war between Hindus and Muslims.
The forced migration of 14 million people and the killing of perhaps a million more makes the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent into two countries, separating Muslims from Hindus, one of the largest mass migrations in history, and arguably the bloodiest war of the 20th century.
Gandhi himself was assassinated in 1948. Savarkar was acquitted of participating, even though he was associated with the nationalist Congress Party, whose members were found to be responsible.
The assassination of Gandhi caused a big backlash against violence and nationalism in Indian society. This often happens after a generational crisis war, as people realize in horror all the atrocities that were committed. However, those feelings are missing from generations of people born after the crisis war, and by the 1980s the nationalist, pro-Hindutva BJP party was opposing Muslim jihadi movements.
Now, 62 years after Gandhi’s death, radical elements on both sides are appearing as terrorist groups. Muslim Jihadists have been recognized for years, and various suicide bombings in India were always assumed to be caused by Jihadist groups. But the realization that radical Hindutva groups may also be conducting suicide bombings targeting Muslims, such as appeared to have happened in the September 2008 suicide bombing in Malegaon, has been shaking India’s secular society.
Kashmir and Jammu were a major site of the extremely bloody 1947 war between Hindus and Muslims after Partition. After the war, Kashmir and Jammu were split into Pakistani-controlled and India-controlled regions, separated by a “line of control” (LoC). Since then, Pakistan and India have fought two non-crisis wars over the region, and it’s been a continuing source of unrest, terrorist attacks, and violence.
Prior to 9/11/2001, most of the terrorist violence in Pakistan and India was directly related in one way or another to Kashmir, which has become a highly emotional symbol of the differences between Sunni Muslims and Hindus in Pakistan and India. However, once the war in Afghanistan began, the war presented an opportunity for al-Qaeda to directly attack India’s ally, the United States. If the United States and Nato withdraw from Afghanistan, then al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other Islamist terrorists would declare victory, and violence would quickly surge in Kashmir, possibly triggering another war.
Generational Dynamics analyzes this situation as follows. The survivors of the 1947 war were traumatized by the massive violence, causing them to devote the rest of their lives to assuring that their children and grandchildren should never have to go through anything so horrible. As the survivors disappear (retire or die), the people born after the war have no such experiences, and no fear of a new war. At this point, a new generational crisis war becomes increasingly likely. (For more information, see “Basics of Generational Dynamics.”)
We already see some of this. Several years ago, when Partition survivors Pervez Musharraf and Dr. Manmohan Singh were personally pursuing Pakistan-India peace talks, they went fairly well. But now, with decisions being made by younger people, peace talks recently collapsed in acrimony.
Generational Dynamics predicts that India and Pakistan are headed for a major new war, re-fighting the war between Hindus and Muslims of 1947-48. Both countries have nuclear weapons. Pakistan will be supported by China, and India will be supported by the US and Russia, so it’s possible that this war will spiral within months into a nuclear war and a world war.
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