鶹ý’s Isaac Nellist spoke to Ammar Ali Jan, Pakistan socialist and general secretary of the Haqooq-e-Khalq (Peoples’ Rights) Party, about the tensions between India and Pakistan which broke out into war when India launched missile strikes on May 7.
In this two-part interview, they discuss the current ceasefire deal, self-determination for Kashmir and steps towards peace in the region.
Ali Jan is speaking at a 鶹ý forum titled “No new India-Pakistan war!” on May 30 and will be a featured speaker in person at the in Naarm/Melbourne from September 5–7.
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India launched nine missile strikes against Pakistan on May 7, sparking fears of an escalating war. Can you tell us about the impact of the strikes?
There is no appetite for war in Pakistan. The country has been going through a lot of crises. We have a government that many people believe is not legitimate, there was a stolen election last year.
We have a lot of internal conflict, particularly on the peripheries of the country, including the restive provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Civil liberties is a huge issues.
To compound this we have an economic crisis: 40% of the population live below the poverty line; indebtedness is a huge issue, the International Monetary Fund basically controls the economy here. In such a situation, war is a terrifying prospect.
Despite the fact that Pakistan is so poor, we have one of the strongest militaries in the region. Maybe it is because of that we are so poor, either way, the notion that there can be a war between two nuclear-armed rivals was frankly something not even the Pakistani state had an appetite for.
There were constant attempts after the April 27 attack in Kashmir by various echelons of the Pakistani state to reach out to India and call for a joint investigation, to call on the international community to engage.
There was a lot of hope that there would be negotiations before any kind of violence or adventurism by either side, however, a lot of people in Pakistan underestimated the kind of hysteria that had already been created in India.
The ruling party in India has more legitimacy, it is a right-wing party that derives its legitimacy from war and violence, particularly against Muslims and belligerence towards Pakistan.
When these strikes started people were aghast and horrified. This happened on May 7 and again on May 8, then the worst happened on the morning of May 10 when Israeli-manufactured drones were attacking Israeli cities.
That is when fear turned into anger, public opinion shifted and Pakistan retaliated with a barrage of drones and missiles, eventually leading to a ceasefire.
More than 30 people were killed in Pakistan, including at least one child. These are extremely dense cities. Lahore is a city of more than 10 million people and there were Israeli-manufactured drones above Lahore.
We were on the brink of an absolute catastrophe and I am really glad that eventually sense prevailed and we achieved a ceasefire.
The ceasefire deal was announced on May 10, by United States President Donald Trump, but there are reports that the ceasefire has already been broken. What is the current situation?
On the first day there was a lot of violations — and that is normal in ceasefires, it is very difficult to immediately cease all hostilities — but since then there have been no reported violations.
But the hysteria and belligerence continues. This particular ceasefire has made India extremely angry because Trump announced it before the Indians or Pakistanis could announce it.
I think that is part of Trump’s narcissism that he did not wait for the ministers of India and Pakistan to announce it. He said he achieved peace and is almost insinuating he should be nominated for the Nobel prize.
That is what his MAGA base is pushing on social media, that he is a “peacemaker”. In reality, I believe what happened is that India was not expecting the kind of response that Pakistan gave.
The aerial battles — which military historians will study for a very long time — were extremely dangerous. This was high-tech military warfare that we saw. French fighter jets pitted against Chinese fighter jets, Rafales against J-10s and J-17s.
At least two of the French fighter jets on the Indian side fell, which was part of the initial embarrassment that the Indian government felt.
After the drone attack on Pakistan on May 10, the barrage of drones and missiles from Pakistan shook India. Partly because one of the things the Indian side was hoping was that this would be like the Arab-Israel situation in which they could keep on going in and bombing, there would be minimal resistance and they could continue it for 10–15 days and claim victory at the end.
They miscalculated, the stakes were raised by Pakistan, including the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe, and that got the world community involved and eventually the ceasefire was achieved because escalation was not possible after a certain point.
What is the broader context of the tensions between India and Pakistan leading up to this? What about Kashmir?
Kashmir is at the heart of this. It is the unfinished business of the partition. It is the only state that never got the right to choose and was split between an Indian side and a Pakistani side.
Both countries have used it for bargaining purposes, for riling up internal nationalist sentiment, for cementing public opinion and for attacking dissenters.
On the Indian side it has been far more brutal, partly because for a while many Kashmiris were either pro-separation or pro-Pakistan. And since the 1990s there has been an insurgency in Kashmir which India blames on Pakistan.
But Indian has also used horrific tactics like torture, violence and extra-judicial killings. At least 20,000 people have been killed, some say more than 100,000.
It is one of the most militarised zones in the world. In 2019 India’s Narendra Modi government ended Article 370 as part of a plan to integrate Kashmir with India. Article 370 essentially gave Kashmir a certain amount of autonomy within the Indian administration.
That led to a reaction in Kashmir which was swiftly destroyed and contained by a mass lockdown, before COVID lockdowns became famous, Kashmiris experienced a mass lockdown in September 2019 when people were not even allowed to leave their homes.
Eventually Modi and his far-right government were able to tell the world, including his Indian audiences, that they had created “normalcy”.
That was one of the reasons why the Pahalgam attack happened recently — a terrible attack against tourists in Pahalgam that killed at least 25 people.
This attack shattered the myth of normalcy that Modi had cultivated, which is part of the reason why his base wanted retribution and he was playing to his base, and Pakistan was responding in kind.
But both parties have to realise that Kashmiris are not objects. They have a long, proud history, not only of their own statehood, but a long history of resisting colonialism, occupation and militarisation.
There will be no peace in South Asia until and unless there is justice for the people of Kashmir. That is the key aspect of any kind of negotiation moving forward.
What is the Pakistani left’s stance towards Kashmiri self-determination?
There is absolute clarity. The United Nations has a resolution, UN Security Council Resolution 47, from 1948 which very clearly states there should be a plebiscite to determine the future of Kashmir.
Kashmir is for Kashmiris, it is not for Pakistan or India. If the Kashmiris choose either of these two states it is up to them, if they choose independence it is up to them.
That is the only true internationalist position and anybody who does not hold that should not claim to be on the left.
[Ammar Ali Jan is speaking at the No New India-Pakistan War forum on May 30 via video link. He will be a keynote speaker in person at the conference, in Naarm/Melbourne, from September 5–7.]