Curta. I'm Richard Martin in for Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. After a week of tensions, India and Pakistan have reached a ceasefire deal. Tensions over the disputed territory of Kashmir were reignited after a massacre of Hindu tourists last month, leading to a series of bombings between the two countries that sparked fears they would return to
all out war. While the ceasefire deal is holding for now, many in the Kashmir region are hoping a permanent solution can be found. Today on the Front Page, Auckland University Director of Global Studies, Chris Ogden is with us to explain the historical tensions between the two countries and what
is needed for permanent peace. Okay, so to start off with Christus might be a bit of a loaded question, but can you explain to us what the Kashmir region is and why it's disputed by both India and Pakistan.
So it's the territory that straddles the border between India and Pakistan and it's been under dispute since the two countries came into formation after the ending of British India in nineteen forty seven, and the end of British India came about due to partition, where the territory was split into Muslim dominated areas and other areas within India, and that whole region and Kashmir was disputed from the very beginning.
There was a war almost immediately after the mutual independences, and then there have been wars periodically across the time since then. A lot of it's to do with territory, but realistically it's also to do with identity. Which country is the dominant Muslim entity, which one represents all the other religions on the subcontinent, and for that reason it's
seen as being highly existential. And both sides they lose Kashmir, they can lose other bits of their territory and that could be the end of their kind of national independencies.
And then just in terms of this latest round of bombings, can you run us through what prompted that?
Yep, so one thing that's happened over the years. It's not just that Pakistan and India have had say, direct military conflicts, but there have been other ways that they've kind of needed each other or tried to have contract to proxies. Pakistan has been very adept at doing this, in particular by harnessing terrorist groups that it trains in its territory and then sending them into India and causing attacks either within Indian control Kashmir or other parts of India.
Rather and this is what happened a couple of weeks ago, where a group went in who are.
Affiliated to a group called Lashkar Etoiba.
Who are a very long standing kind of fall in the side for India in terms of terrorism. They've carried out lots of different and terrorist attacks, and they attacked tourists in Kashmir in Indian control Kashmir.
With a direct religious dimension to it.
So it's said that before people were killed, they were asked if they could in tone parts of the Quran, for example, and if they couldn't, then they were directly
targeted and executed. Those events combined with an uncertainty about exactly whose control are under which is an ongoing dimension of all of these tensions, that often we don't know exactly who's controlling these groups, if it's the Pakistani military or the intelligence services of the government itself, I think provoked lots of the emotions of previous conflicts, including even going back to nineteen forty seven that then it was
kind of irregular troops you came in. And this has reasserted these linkages between the events of last week and all of that, those toxic, very emotional kind of experiences from the past that then vote the Indians into the reaction that they had.
It's interesting because now we've reached a ceasefire really quickly. And do you think that this was a case of just sort of both sides getting tip for tat, but of retaliation and against the other and then moving on, or do you think there was a chance that this could have turned into all that war?
Yeah, I mean, I think first of all, there's always a chance of rapid and very quick escalation, which often is based upon tip for tap, but is also driven by high degrees of nationalism on either side. So it's not possible if you're the Indian prime minister or the Pakistani prime minister to not react if you're attacked in some way, either towards your civilians or towards your military.
So there always has to be some kind of retaliation in this case, there is definitive retaliation from both sides repeatedly. I think we can draw different conclusions or kind of get to different endpoints. One could be you could say that both sides are kind of testing out the other.
So in this.
Conflict, if we can call it a conflict, we saw the use of drones from both sides, which hasn't happened before. We also saw incursions, particularly into Pakistani territory that we've not seen for decades and decades. And some of this can be testing capabilities of the other side, trying to understand how to respond militarily effectively, but also seeing what
their defensive systems are like. But many reports are also saying that because of the emotional side, plus the capability side, plus the proximity side, escalation was expected to really increase,
some ramp up rapidly over the weekend. I think what's also notable too, is is that in many Indian reports at the moment, they're saying that they don't recognize it as a ceasefire, and they say that their military forces are still on high preparedness, and so the perspective from their side is first of all, on ongoing fear but also think they've tried to kind of exsert.
A high degree of cost on the Pakistani.
Side to say, if you are supporting these groups and these attacks happen, you can expect more of this in the future.
It will be a challenge for the international community to keep that and maintain. You know, this cease fire that has been announced, well, it has come from the highest office in America. So President Trump has a very good relationship with Prime Minister Modi. He's called him his a very good friend, and every time they've met, they've hugged, and he maintains that Prime Minister Mody is a good
friend of America. And I'm sure there will be a lot of pressure on the political establishment out here to make sure that this cease fire holds.
Yeah, do we know the details of sort of what's been agreed so far?
I think the only details so far are is the recognition that if both sides don't stop, or at least if one side doesn't stop, then that escalation will just mount up a mount up. So I think that's what all these diplomats from all these countries have done. They've been able to pull back both sides from further escalation. The other thing that I'm aware of is that certainly the Pakistani side was quite shocked by the incursions into its territory by Indian drones and missiles, the direct targeting
of military installations. So in the past the targeting would often been against terrorist camps. But here again, I think the Indian strategy is is you hit much much harder to make the other side much more afraid. And that's continuing now that there's retro coming out from the Indian side about how their ships were prepared to attack Karachi, for example, or other major cities. So I think what's happened is is that that kind of tip for tap
has been and that's allowed there to be calm. But again, the amount of military preparedness is still there, so I don't think either side has certainly not pulled back all its troops. I think it's more a recognition from the international community of the dangers of what can happen quite quickly in South Asia.
Yeah.
Well, and both sides have now claimed victory as well, is that right?
Yeah, they have.
And this is the other thing, so you know, now there's a kind of battle for narratives, there's a battle for the kind of moral high ground, if that is even possible in this situation. And certainly on one level, you could say that both leaders have had the chance to prove that they are strong in the sense of a terrorist attack has occurred, India has reacted with force. Pakistan has then have been able to react with force. But certainly these kind of claims and counter claims will
keep on going. I feel certain that Pakistan will now come out with statements to say, well, we were always prepared to hit Deli with weapons or these other major cities with weapons as well. But I guess within all of that is how useful is that in terms of diffusing tensions, because in many ways it's just kind of ramping up the rhetoric even further even though there isn't direct conflict, and in that sense, the kind of triggers or the kind of sense of it being a powder keg haven't gone away.
I've read some commentary with people from Kashmir have spoken up about this latest incident, and many of them have said that they want to see some sort of permanent solution in place for their country. Do you think that there's any path to that realistically?
Yeah, So this is a.
Really this is a really interesting observation, right because often within this conflict, we think, well, there's this disputed territory. India claims it's part of its territory and it needs that for its kind of territory integrity. From the other side, Pakistan claims it, and Pakistan's a acrosstic interestingly, so its name comes from different bits of its territory. So the K in pakistanis for Kashmir, so it makes it truly existential.
But we often forget about what the Kashmiri's want, and most Kashmiris, I think in most polls consistently across time, would like some kind of plebiscite or referendum which would give them the right to choose their future, including their own self determination. So there are three pathways that Kashmi could go to Pakistan. Kashmi could go to India, or Kashmir could become independent.
For the big players in the region, and.
We should also remember that China holds ten percent of Kashmir territory, the idea of Kashmir becoming independent will not satisfy or help anybody from those big actors.
But certainly if you live in Kashmir, you.
Live in very difficult circumstances, so your kind of day to day life will be heavily militarized. If you live in Kashmir for say the last two to three years, the vast majority of that time you'll have had no internet because the Internet will have been switched off because it's considered from the Indian side to be too much of the security threat and also quite high degrees of poverty.
So one interesting thing about this attack was that it was directly against tourists, and maybe the militants chose to do that as a way to break down the kind of emergent tourist industry within that region. And again, these are all things that are directly affecting people on the ground. So in terms of that Kashmir voice, I think it's lost.
It could definitely be stronger. But again this maybe explains why the border within Kashmir between India and Pakistan hasn't really changed much since nineteen forty seven, because the status quo is the kind of it's kind of the way to muddle through the mess.
I think in different ways.
India is one of the fastest growing populations on the planet and one of the biggest populations in general, and it does sort of seem like lately the country is trying to rise out of being seen as this sort of third world subcontinent. They're eyeing up trade deals with countries like New Zealand and I believe they're even eyeing up a bid for the Olympics in twenty thirty six.
So would go against Prime Minister Modi's attempts to sell the country on the world stage to get embroiled in a conflict like this.
Yeah, so it definitely seems paradoxical, doesn't it. It does seem as though engaging this conflict, or at least escalating and pushing it further, would be detrimental to India's self image. I think the biggest thing to think about, though, is that I would argue that India is now becoming a great power in the sense that it's highly influential on
the global stage. It's huge economy, huge population, as you mentioned, so huge emergent middle class, lots of military spending that this is quite unknown in the West, but it's important, more weapons than any other country in the last sixty years in terms of overall spending. And if we think about what's happening in the global system as a whole. There are lots of pressures against a rise in China and a need for countries to counterbalance against China, and
India's key to all of that. So in many ways, because India has become more essentially necessary in global politics, in a sense, it protects it from direct criticism. So if you're going to India, for example, this could be New Zealand, but the kind of big ones would be saying the UK and the US. I think Indian leaders will say, you know, if you want a trade deal, that's great, and we really want one, but make sure you don't criticize us when it comes to Kashmir. We
see this as an internal issue. So I think that positional factor actually plays into places to India's advantage. And then beyond that, you could also say that it appears that the UA is kind of decoupling or pulling itself
out of global affairs. And if you are an ally over the United States, such as say Israel, then in many ways there are fewer controls in terms of how you conduct your policy, and certainly there are fewer leaders in place who are able to maybe pull back conflicts or pullback escalation, and I think that's also partly something
to do with India's calculation. And then one final facts would be and that this is also quite under reported that Pakistan itself are combating militants in Pakistan and Balukistan who want to separate from the country. They're also combating the Taliban on their border with Afghanistan. So many senses, the attempt to maybe regain Kashmir, or at least rebalance the relationship is a prime opportunity for India at the moment.
From as the Moodia and I sat down today and we charted out the future of our two countries relationship, a future that builds from where we have been and one that is wholly more ambitious about what we will do together in the future. We agreed to our defense forces building greater strategic trust with one another while deploying together and training together more. We want our scientists collaborating on global challenges like climate change and on commercial opportunities
like space. We are supporting our businesses to improve airlinks and build primary sector cooperation. We will facilitate students and young professionals and tourists to move between our two countries, and we've instructed our trade negotiators to get on and negotiate a comprehensive free trade agreement between our two great nations.
Just on New Zealand specifically, we're pursuing quite close ties with India at the moment. It seems to really be Christopher Luckson's big sort of trade bet. Do you think what sort of position does that leave us in if they were to engage in war.
So I think fundamentally with Kashmir, the Indian position has always been this is an internal issue. They also strongly believe in kind of anti interventionist values or norms, so that stems from their colonial period. So there have been lots of powers in the past who've tried to interfere or negotiate or mediate about Kashmir, and they nearly every single time they get told, this isn't to do with you.
This is our kind of issue.
Within that context, even though it might seem quite uncomfortable. I do think it's possible to separate different dimensions of foreign policies. So it's very possible to have lots of great trade with India. India does this with China, for example, but when it comes to its territorial dispute or a dispute in another area of international politics, then that dispute will kind of take place. So I think from a New Zealand point of view, you can emphasize the trade.
That's definitely possible. I think when it starts to move into politics, human rights, treatment of minorities, those sensitivities, the Indians will definitely push them back and remove them from negotiation. In terms of a conflict. I don't think India will be looking to anybody in terms of say international support
or justification. So in many senses that would leave possibilities for New Zealand in terms of probably what most other countries are doing at the moment, asking for restraint, pointing out the regional ramifications, pointing out the ramifications in terms potentially in terms of trade and how that might affect other countries.
And one final.
Point would be maybe New Zealand has a benefit in being quite a small country, so certainly a trade deal is beneficial for everybody involved, but in many ways it's probably more beneficial for New Zealand than it is for India and the overall scheme of things.
So just finally, Chris how likely do you think it is that there will be peace in the short and long term in Kashmia.
My feeling right now is is I don't think that this is finished, So I think I think it's very easy for these tensions to kind of blow up again. It's intriguing to think if the leaders do me and this has happened in the aftermath of every other kind of conflagration or conflict, to see what they're able to negotiate.
Because India is definitely much stronger than it ever has been relative to Pakistan in terms of the exceptionally long term, it's very difficult to determine that, primarily because parties such as the BJP, the ruling party at the moment in India, are super Hindu nationalists. It is one of their aims to regain Kashmir, and it is possible to think of scenarios in the future where they would try to militarily
gain Kashmir. And again, if this was just the kind of testing to see how Pakistan would react, that's also possible overall. Though on balance, so if we look at the last seventy five years, it's status quo.
Which has kind of been there.
So the current split between territory and Kashmir has stayed where it is. There are periodic issues, periodic tensions, periodic flare ups, and then with a broader hope for all of us that that doesn't escalate very quickly into a nuclear confrontation.
Thanks for joining us, Chris.
Pleasure, Thanks for having me.
We should note that the Pakistani government has denied any involvement in the Peholgam attack and disputes India's claims that Pakistani linked groups were responsible for the attack. So that's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at inzherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced
by Ethan Sills. I'm Richard Martin. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
MHM.