A take on India- Pakistan Conflict

On the night of the 22nd of April, during the Pahalgam attack, I spent around 8 hours trying to figure out why it happened. I went through news from both India and Pakistan, from last one month and honestly, it looked like a short-term manufactured conflict. For the past month, Pakistan seemed to be writing the script for the aftermath. Multiple Pakistani politicians suddenly started showing concern and giving speech about the increasing outside population in Kashmir, and so called " demographic invasion and then came Asim Munir’s outrageous speech.

And aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, the exact same narrative was echoed by The Resistance Front, which claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that they did it because around 80,000 mainlanders were living in Kashmir. That’s when I started wondering: what’s the bigger picture here? couldn't figure out then, what could be the reason?

And now, when, we’re at war, right in the middle of the ongoing US-China tariff war and Trump’s worldwide tariff aggression. Western media platforms like CNN, Reuters, Washington Post, Bloomberg, and Business Standard have been constantly pushing the headline: "Pakistan’s Chinese-made jet brought down two Indian fighter aircraft US officials" in their top three stories for the last three days.  Even before just two months ago, US offered India F-16s, which India didn’t agree to.  There is also an important negotiation going on  between India and United State to reduce tariff gaps.

China is also pushing the headlines  "India-Pakistan war has become a study bed for China to observe and test its weapon systems in real time".  Where as Pakistan is dependent on Chinese weaponry and so called US weapon aid to maintain balance of power, on other hand India relies on Russian, French, American and some indigenously developed arms and ammunition.  

If we look at the situation over the past three days, India clearly stated that, Now It doesn't have any reason to escalate further and rest depends on Pakistan. Then suddenly, there’s an IMF bailout of 1 billion dollars for Pakistan,  where US has the highest share of veto power and voting right. It is done right in the middle of an ongoing conflict, where most countries already agreed that Pakistan was responsible for a dirty terrorist attack. 

It reminds me of Trotsky’s quote: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

Look closely and you’ll see. how we become victim of proxy war's.  for them our people are test subjects for arms and ammunition. A region where dominant powers pump currency through arms deals, loan packages, tariffs, and indirectly control our economies to achieve their strategically measured goals. This is how crisis is brought to your houses, even if you don't wish for !

here’s the uncomfortable truth, that we are not as important as we think, in this global capitalist system. We’re not treated as sovereign minds. we’re markets for cheap products, mass-produced food, low-cost labour, and high-cost weaponry, unwanted wars. We are profitable only in our suffering.

So if we continue to fight wars over religion, Pakistan, being Muslim majority versus India being Hindu majority nation, cling to this hatred, what’s the point? In the end, it doesn't matter at all.  It benefits the manufacturer of arms and ammunitions, sponsor's of terrorism,. Give's them purpose to continue their dirty game.

In the end we are South Asia, just the semi-periphery of Immanuel Wallerstein’s world system.

Pahalgam Attack, what we know so far

Some of the news timeline: 

From Kashmir 

1.. 12 April: 

On late Friday night, terrorists attempted to infiltrate into India from Pakistan near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. The attempt was foiled by the Indian army, and a junior commissioned officer killed in the line of duty during a counter-infiltration operation. Now, a video released by the Army shows the movement of the terrorists near the LoC. The footage, captured by thermal cameras installed for better patrolling of the highly sensitive border areas, showed three terrorists attempting to cross into India through a dense forest in the Keri-Bhattal area of the Akhnoor sector.

 https://www.ndtv.com/video/on-thermal-camera-terrorists-infiltration-attempt-near-loc-in-j-k-925648

 2. 14 April:

Post of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Pahalgham Development Authority (PDA) lying vacant, illegal constructions are reportedly going on unabated in the picturesque tourist resort of Pahalgham, raising serious concerns over regulatory failure and official inaction.

In what appears to be a deeper malaise, several hotels are said to be operating without proper registration from the Tourism Department.

https://gulistannewstv.com/pda-headless-illegal-constructions-and-unregistered-hotels-operate_gulistan_news_tv/ 

3. April 20:

Jammu and Kashmir president of Janata Dal (United), G M Shaheen has urged the Union Railway Minister to reconsider and halt the proposed railway line extensions from Srinagar to Pahalgam and Srinagar to Sonamarg.

https://risingkashmir.com/jdus-shaheen-urges-goi-to-reconsider-railway-line-extension-to-pahalgam-sonamarg/

4. 17 April:

In the recent administrative reshuffle ordered by the Jammu Kashmir government, IPS officer Amritpal Singh has been appointed as the new Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Anantnag, replacing the earlier officer. His posting comes at a crucial time, with Anantnag remaining one of the most strategically important and sensitive districts in South Kashmir, especially in the run-up to the assembly elections. Singh’s prior experience in handling sensitive law and order situations is expected to aid in maintaining stability in the region.

https://thekashmiriyat.co.uk/jk-police-major-reshuffle-srinagar-anantnag-get-new-ssps/?amp_markup=1

5. 18 April:

“For the last one and a half to two years, Poonch has been grappling with a fresh wave of militancy,” the IGP said, adding that a coordinated action plan has been put in place with the Army to neutralise the threat.

https://www.siasat.com/jk-seek-destroy-ops-for-hiding-terrorists-in-poonch-enters-5th-day-3209269/

6. April 16: 

Addressing the Overseas Pakistanis Convention in Islamabad on April 16, General Munir spoke about Kashmir and said, "Our stance is absolutely clear, it was our jugular vein, it will be our jugular vein, we will not forget it. We will not leave our Kashmiri brothers in their heroic struggle."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12oFh0dni0E

7. 15 April: 

National Investigation Agency on Tuesday filed a chargesheet against three accused, including a Pakistani handler, in a terror conspiracy case involving seizure of arms and ammunition in the Poonch region of Jammu and Kashmir.

The chargesheet filed before a special NIA court in Jammu has named Abdul Aziz, Munawar Hussain and Nazir Hussain alias Nazir Ahmed alias Shaheen as accused in the case.

https://kashmirobserver.net/2025/04/15/jk-conspiracy-case-nia-files-chargesheet-against-pakistani-handler-2-others/

From Pakistan on Kashmir: 

8.17 April: 

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman on Wednesday condemned India’s demographic invasion in held Kashmir.

“There is a deliberate, heinous strategy at play—a demographic invasion sanctioned by the Hindutva-driven Modi government. The revocation of Articles 370 and 35A, the Waqf Amendment Bill 2025, and settlement of non-Kashmiris are all part of this forced assimilation,” she added.

https://www.nation.com.pk/17-Apr-2025/sherry-condemns-india-s-demographic-invasion 

9. 21 April: 

A high-level delegation led by Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Special Envoy for Jammu and Kashmir, Yousef Muhammed Saleh Aldobey, visited Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Expressing solidarity with the people of Kashmir and Palestine, the delegation reaffirmed its commitment to raising its voice against human rights violations in the occupied territories.

 https://arynews.tv/oic-special-envoy-visits-azad-jammu-and-kashmir/

10. April 22:

The highly-visible trucks were rented by the Washington-based World Kashmir Awareness forum (WKAF), an advocacy organization, to mark the 77th anniversary of resolution 47, which was co-sponsored by the United States and the United Kingdom, and adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on 21 April 1948.

That resolution and other Security Council resolutions, WKAF Secretary-General Ghulam Nabi Fai, said binds both India and Pakistan to respect the outcome of the Kashmiri people’s vote to be conducted under U.N.’s impartial supervision.

https://www.app.com.pk/foreign-correspondent/digital-ad-trucks-flash-kashmir-freedom-messages-in-two-us-cities-on-key-un-resolutions-anniversary/

11. April 20: 

The All Parties Hurriyat Conference has strongly denounced the projection of Hindutva agenda by the India’s ruling BJP-RSS regime in the name of reviving so-called pre-Islamic Hindu civilization in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

APHC spokesman Advocate Abdul Rashid Minhas in a statement issued in Srinagar termed the the settling of non-locals in Kashmir and the selling of Kashmiri properties to outsiders as an attempt to to eradicate the Muslim majority character of the occupied territory.

https://www.app.com.pk/national/aphc-slams-hindutva-agenda-projection-in-iiojk-urges-release-of-detainees/

News From Pahalgam on 22 April:

At least 26 tourists were killed and several others injured in what's been one of the deadliest civilian strikes in recent years in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam. The Resistance Front (TRF), a shadow outfit of the banned Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to central agency sources.

TRF, believed to be backed by Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI, is considered a proxy of LeT founder and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed. On Tuesday, the group said the "demographic change" in the region was the reason for the attack.

"More than 85,000 domiciles have been issued to non-locals, creating a pathway for demographic change in Indian-occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK). These non-locals arrive posing as tourists, obtain domiciles, and then begin to act as if they own the land. Consequently, violence will be directed toward those attempting to settle illegally," TRF said.

What Is The Resistance Front?

The Resistance Front (TRF) is a proxy terror outfit of the banned Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), formed in 2019 in the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.

It began as an online entity but quickly evolved into a full-fledged terrorist group by combining elements from existing outfits such as Tehreek-e-Millat Islamia and Ghaznavi Hind.

:https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/pahalgam-terror-attack-let-affiliate-resistance-front-claims-pahalgam-attack-all-about-it-8232840

My Village Has a Pradhan Pati

 

 

 

 

I belong to a rural village in Uttar Pradesh but currently live in Delhi. For passport-related work, I had to go back to my village. After completing the documentation process, the next step was police verification. I got a call from the police station saying that I should have a residence certificate issued by the Gram Panchayat, along with my Aadhaar card.

The Pradhan of my village is a woman from SC category. I asked my mother if she would be available. Mom, being an ASHA worker, stays in contact with her. She replied, "Her husband might not be home right now." I asked, "But the Pradhan will write the address proof, right?" Mom said, "No, he will write it."

I didn’t take my mom very seriously and ran straight to the Pradhan’s house. When I reached there,  Pradhan was present, but her husband was not. She asked me what work I needed. I told her, and she said, "I don’t know what to write." I asked, "There must be some format for this, right?" She responded, "I don’t know."

I said, "Okay, I’ll check the format on the internet. Will that work?" She said, "No." I suggested, "Let your daughter guide you." She again refused. "He (her husband) will write it," she said. I pointed out, "But the signature will be yours, right?" She went silent.

Luckily, the Pradhan Pati arrived just then. He asked me what I needed, so I told him. He himself wrote the letter, stamped it, and signed it. I was shocked—he is not the Pradhan, yet he was the one issuing and signing the document.

From this incident, I recalled almost three to four Five-Year Plans during which she had been elected since my childhood. Her husband has been contesting elections every term using her name because he is a government employee and cannot run for office himself.

While the reservation of seats for women paved the way for greater political participation, in reality, it has not been entirely successful. Practices of Pradhan Pati and Sarpanch Pati are widespread and remain significant issues in local self-governance.

The menace of Pradhan Pati is widespread because there are about 2.63 lakh panchayats, and women make up 46.6% of the 32.29 lakh elected representatives in Panchayati Raj Institutions. In states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, and Rajasthan, power is usually controlled by male relatives instead of the elected women. Whereas in states like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh, have 50% reservation for women, aiming to ensure their actual participation in governance.

while the reservation of seats for women and marginalized groups in Panchayati Raj Institutions was intended to enhance political participation and empowerment, the ground reality often reflects tokenism rather than genuine representation. Tokenism in panchayat elections is not limited to women alone. It also occurs in seats reserved for  general SC population or any category other than the general seat. Upper caste/ruling caste often selects a symbolic puppet to contest the election on their behalf. If their candidate wins, they indirectly control the power. 

Genuine empowerment requires not just electoral representation but also structural and social changes that enable elected women to exercise authority independently, without the shadow of male dominance.

Book Review: Janki se Janaki Tak by Jagdish Chandra Pandey

On the fourth Sunday of January 2025, exhausted by Delhi’s freezing cold, I visited one of my favorite places—the Darya Ganj book market (Mahila Hat). While wandering through the book stalls, my eyes landed on a beautiful red cover with a handmade painting. There was something about this book that instantly caught my attention. I picked it up and felt like it had been resting in some kabadkhana (scrapyard) for years. Cover was barely holding together, almost splitting from the book. Out of curiosity, I flipped to a random page and read a few lines and the words struck deep.

Without much expectation, I asked the stall owner how much it cost. "Fifty rupees, madam," he replied. After reaching my room, I revisited the book and, to my surprise, found the author’s signature inside. My curiosity deepened, leading me to search for the book online. There was no digital footprint of either the author or his works. Only place where his books are preserved is NITI Aayog library, in physical format. So i decided to give it a instant read.

While reading, book took me to a remote village in the dense forests of Uttarakhand, where the Kefalta Massacre took place in the 1980s (a horrific incident where fourteen Dalit men were brutally killed because the groom refused to get off his buggy during a wedding procession). In this deeply casteist and patriarchal landscape, the story follows Bholka, a brahmin village sarpanch, walking alone towards his village, full of shame and dilemma because he has to make a decision. which can led entire village to outcast him depending on the decision.

Bholka is the type of man who never remarried after the death of his wife, Devaki, early in life, fearing that a stepmother might be unjust to his children. He has an elder daughter, Janki, and two sons. Janki is not very educated—she has passed 10th—but she is very smart. She farms by herself. She even fulfilled Bholka’s dream of having a buffalo in their home, something he couldn’t even imagine after Devaki’s death. But Janaki, being strong, does all these things. She is an example of an ideal daughter. Bholka is very proud of her. But now, one decision will change Janki’s life forever.

Janki’s father-in-law has come to the village, demanding that the marriage between his son and Janki be annulled. reason? , after a month of marriage, she have a six month child in her womb. In their village, no girl has ever conceived before marriage—it is considered an unforgivable sin. Women like Janki are not just disowned by their families but also banished from the village, their very existence erased from society.

However, Janki’s pregnancy is not a consequence of her choices alone—it is the cruel repayment of a loan.  Bholka’s unpaid debt has been extracted in the form of his daughter’s body. Now, he must decide: should he protect his daughter, or should he sacrifice her to maintain his family’s honor? 

The title, Janki se Janaki Tak, symbolizes the shame of Janki being Janki (Mother) and the painful transformation of a woman’s identity. It forces us to reflect: Do women ever truly own their bodies, or are they merely possessions passed from one man to another? It also sheds light on the absence of solidarity among women and the harsh realities of a society where a woman’s body is nothing more than a transaction in a patriarchal deal.

The novel brutally exposes how women are traded, sold, and disowned in the name of respect and love. It questions the rigid moral standards imposed on women, who are expected to uphold family honor at the cost of their lives.

Jagdish Chandra Pandey’s Janki se Janaki Tak is a raw and deeply unsettling novel that lays bare the hypocrisies of tradition, caste, and gender roles. It compels readers to question the brutal social structures that continue to govern rural India, where women like Janki have nowhere to go, no place to call home—thrown in the river and abandoned by their loved ones.

Moonlight   

In the chilling night of December,

a ray of the night bulb,

from the distant road

comes to the fence of my,

semi-nude, half-closed window,

 

Talks to me for hours,

about love and wars

Some say ! I might catch the cold,

I say, we are kindred souls,

 

One day she told me

Story of a blue window,

Got rusted due to,

Draught in the city,

wounds were covered by,

falling leaves of pipal tree,

 

She was too tightly

fitted with wall

Couldn’t even afford to

fall in the junkyard,

by the time ray could,

finish the story,

 

Owner of the fence, comes

and closed the door

Now both windows are

Buried in the dump store,

Nobody came to save them,

Not even the stormy winds

  

                                                                               मूर्तियाँ  

कौन थे वो, कहाँ से आए थे

जो सड़कों पर मीलों पैदल चले

धूप न उनको जला सकी ,

नदियां जिनको न बहा सकी

सायद उनके हौंसले मंद

और मजबूरियां बुलंद थी !

 

भूख लगी तो खाने को तरसे

प्यास लगी तो दम घुटे

पर बदकिस्मती देखो

उनपे छप्पन इंच के डंडे बरसे

कभी कोई साहब आए कुछ दाने लेकर

पर अफसोस मीडिया के अलावा

वो किसी की भूख न मिटा सके !

 

कभी टूटे ,कभी रोये, कभी घबराए

कभी ट्रेन ,कभी बस की आस भी लगाई

पैरो पे इतने छाले पड़े ,

सड़कों पे अपने खून की छाप भी लगाई

पर वो कभी रुके नहीं ,थके नहीं

चलते चले गए , हमेशा के लिए

रेलवे ट्रैक पर !

 

कौन थे वो ,इंसान तो नही थे

सायद हर चौराहे पर खड़ी मूर्तियाँ थी

हुक्मरानों ने जिनको धड़ाम से

गिराने का फरमान जारी कर दिया था

और ये भी गिनना, ज़रूरी नही समझा

कि मोहल्ले मे कितने मकान टूटे !

 

कौन थी वो स्त्री, कहाँ से आयी थी

जो अपने बच्चे को,

रोता हुआ, छोड़कर चली गई

कौन थी वो लड़की जो ,

बाप को कंधे पे बिठाकर मीलों चल गई

कौन थी वो औरत जो,

हर रोज, बंद कमरों मे मार खाती गई !

 

जो भी होगी, सायद कोई मूर्ति ही रही होगी

खैर कोई बात नही, यहाँ तो हर रोज

ऐसी लाखों मूर्तियाँ टूटकर बिखरती रहती हैं

कोई दूर दूर तक इनके

एक भी टुकड़े को, समेटने तक नहीं आया 

आती हैं तो बस आवाज़ें,

जो कानों को बहुत चुभती हैं!