The Indian subcontinent and billions of workers, once again, stand on the threshold of war. A terrorist attack on April 24th in Kashmir’s Pahalgam Valley killed 26 civilians and set off nearly two weeks of border skirmishes between India and Pakistan. In response, India first withdrew from the Indus Waters Treaty that guarantees water rights for Pakistan, threatening millions with starvation, an act which the Pakistani government had warned would be seen as an “act of war”.
Then, on May 7th, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated open military conflict with missile strikes deep into Pakistani territory—the furthest and most intense Indian incursion into Pakistan since the war of 1971. Over 30 civilians were reported dead. Pakistan, which claims to have shot down five Indian fighter jets on May 7th, immediately responded with attacks across the “line of control” in Kashmir, including on civilians, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to “avenge every drop of blood.”
While its Defence Minister stated on 8 May that a retaliatory attack was “increasingly certain”, he also denied assertions by India that a new Pakistani missile and drone attack had been thwarted, stating “We will not strike and then deny,” and that when they do, “it will be known all over the world”.
On 10th May, following reports of new “preemptive” air raids on Pakistani military installations, the promised retaliatory strike arrived from Islamabad. Indian military installations were hit in multiple locations in a major air assault, including an air force base and major missile storage facility.
The specter of an extremely dangerous major war between two nuclear powers is growing. While both sides will seek to avoid an all-out conflagration, and have danced on the edge of conflict several times over recent decades only to pull back from the brink, there is much combustible material which could ignite leading tit-for-tat attacks to spiral out of control. Modi’s regime nauseatingly described its historic missile attacks as “measured, not escalatory, proportionate and responsible” and has already announced large troop mobilisations to the border in response to Pakistan’s 10th May response.
Imperialist competition in the backdrop
The conflict today takes place in a changed world situation marked by an intensification of the power struggle between US and Chinese imperialism. The Modi regime, emboldened by its deepening ties with US imperialism and Trump’s unrestricted support for the Israeli war on Gaza, has ambitions of challenging China’s dominance as the unquestioned economic and military superpower in Asia. While also a member of the BRICs alliance together with China, India is a member of the Quad alliance, also known as “Asian NATO”, and a key part of US imperialism’s strategy to counter China. While the Trump administration has made appeals for de-escalation amid the latest exchanges of fire, it has also lent legitimacy to Modi’s narrative. JD Vance travelled to India in April and gave a greenlight to an Indian “anti-terrorist” retaliation following the Pahalgam attacks, while also warning against a broader regional conflict.
Only a few days ago British imperialism, whose bloody legacy is responsible for the region’s ongoing quagmire of national conflict in the first place, celebrated an “historic” trade deal with New Delhi, and after Modi’s missile attacks the Labour government restated its willingness to provide the regime with arms.
On the other hand, China is Pakistan’s single largest creditor and by far its largest weapons supplier; Chinese defense stocks jumped by 11% immediately following India’s attacks. The Pakistani state’s relationship with Western imperialism has deteriorated since the days of their close collaboration with Washington’s war in Afghanistan and China has stepped in to fill the vacuum. As tensions rose following the Pahalgam atrocity, Beijing expressed support for Pakistan, its “ironclad friend and all-weather strategic cooperative partner.”
Both regimes in crisis
These escalations come at a moment of intense internal crisis for the Indian and Pakistani regimes. Modi faces mass anger for his attacks on the working class. In March, ten central trade unions called a national convention demanding the repeal of four anti-worker labor reforms and set a strike date of May 20th. Those reforms would weaken labor protections by lengthening the workday, restricting the right to strike and making it easier to fire workers. Up to 250 million workers could go on strike against these attacks. Modi, who was forced to back down the last time the might of the Indian labor movement was brought against him, is using the war with Pakistan to whip up nationalism and deepen communalist tensions to cut across resistance to his agenda, with important state elections approaching. The political “opposition” to Modi, including the so-called communist parties, have unconditionally lined up behind Modi’s war, a shameful capitulation to this naked attack on working-class unity.
The Pakistani masses have been suffering under an economic crisis for the past three years. Last year, 2.6 million more people fell below the poverty line, bringing the poverty rate to 42%. Pakistan is the “sick man of Asia”, and its working class and poor have been made to foot the bill for the IMF’s $3 billion bailout of the ruling class by weathering steep austerity and cuts. The country’s powerful military controls the government, which emerged triumphant from a prolonged struggle with the populist nationalist Imran Khan (who remains imprisoned), but is far from having a firm hold on power. In May 2024, protests broke out across Pakistan-administered Kashmir against price hikes of wheat, electricity and other essentials. The Pakistani ruling class—which has been unable to meet the basic needs of the masses in Kashmir and beyond—is salivating at the opportunity to regain some legitimacy by exchanging blows with India.
Only a socialist solution to the roots of the war
The Indian, Pakistani and Kashmiri working class will be the victims of this war. The Indian occupation has only increased in brutality since 2019, when Modi revoked Kashmir’s special autonomous status. Now, the residents of India-occupied Kashmir are being subjected to mass arrests, arbitrary destruction of homes and Pakistani shelling in addition to all the other burdens of militarization. The workers on the other side of the line of control are not faring any better.
All the working classes of the region need to unite against parasitic ruling classes and imperialist meddlers to fight the specter of slaughter on a mass scale. International Socialist Alternative calls for an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of all Indian, Pakistani and Chinese troops from Kashmir. We support the right of self-determination for Kashmiris to democratically decide their own fate. The Indian and Pakistani labor movements need to build a united, independent, working-class political opposition to Modi, Sharif and all representatives of the ruling class. Ultimately, the roots of this slaughter can only be addressed through a mass movement based on international working-class solidarity that unites the working classes of the region in a fight against the capitalist system as a whole and for a free and voluntary socialist federation of the region.
