Out in the Cold

What the thaw in India–Pakistan relations looks like from Kashmir / Politics

- Riyaz Wani

This February, India and Pakistan made a surprise re-affirmation of their 2003 ceasefire agreement, drawing mixed reactions across party lines. The agreement, the first formal verbal declaration by both countries to maintain peace along the Line of Control, had come four years after the Kargil War. Relations between the two countries took a nosedive in August 2019, when India revoked Article 370, which granted Jammu and Kashmir semi-autonomous status within the Indian Union. This was a body blow to the complex system of relations in the region and left the people of Kashmir seething. The Indian government enforced a communication blackout, ramped up its military presence in the valley and put Kashmir’s elected leaders under house arrest. Following this, in 2020, there were over five thousand ceasefire violations, the most in a single year in two decades.

So when, on 25 February, the Directors General of Military Operations of both countries promised to resolve “each other’s core issues” in order to ensure peace and stability in the region, it was a rude shock for large sections of people in the valley. The joint statement said that the agreement occurred in a “free, frank and cordial atmosphere.” In a later speech at the Islamabad Security Dialogue initiative, Pakistan’s army chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa, said that “it was time to bury the past and move forward.”