The Current - Why India-Pakistan conflict is ‘last thing the world needs’

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Dozens of people were killed when India fired missiles into Pakistan on Wednesday. India says it was targeting alleged militants linked to a terrorist attack in Kashmir last month, but Pakistan has repeatedly denied any involvement in that massacre — and described the missile strikes as an act of war. The CBC’s Salimah Shivji joins us from Mumbai to explain the soaring tensions between these neighbouring nuclear powers.

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This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. This is the sound of explosions early this morning in Pakistan controlled Kashmir. A major escalation between two nuclear powers is underway. The Indian government says it launched the attack on nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan administered Kashmir in retaliation for a militant attack that killed at least 26 people, mostly tourists and Indian administered Kashmir on the 22nd of April. Pakistan says today's attack

killed more than two dozen people including a child. Salima Shivji is the CBC's South Asia correspondent. She's in Mumbai. Salima, hello. Hi there. The language matters in a story like this. The words that are being used are precision attacks. There's more language that's being applied here. What do we know about what actually happened? Yeah, that's right. It's being called precision attacks by one side in this conflict. Let's start with what we know happened overnight, just after midnight. The strikes lasted more than 20 minutes. Military strikes, explosions that hit nine locations inside Pakistan and in the part of Kashmir that Pakistan controls. The region is of course contested. Both India and Pakistan claim it in full, but each only controls parts of it. Let's start with that language that India

uses to describe these strikes. India is calling them measured, targeted. The focus is what Delhi calls camps where militants trained. And Indian officials say that they have actually shown restraint here. I want to have you listen to Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Mishri, who spoke a short time ago. India exercised its right to respond and preempt, as well as deter more such cross-border attacks. These actions were measured, non-ascalatory, proportionate, and responsible. non-asculatory, proportionate and responsible. They focused on dismantling the terrorist infrastructure and disabling terrorists likely to be sent across to India. So these military strikes were what everyone saw as really inevitable considering the ramped up

rhetoric over the last two weeks, ever since that militant attack where gunmen killed 26 men, mostly tourists. India, you can tell, sees this very much as vengeance, a retaliation for that attack, which India blames on Pakistan, accusing its neighbor of backing terrorism in Kashmir, a charge, of course, that Islamabad denies. And you mentioned that vengeance. I mean, when this was all done, the Indian Army spokesperson put out a tweet on social media saying, justice is served. How has Pakistan responded to this? That's right. Pakistan disputes India's version, not surprisingly. Pakistan says this is an act of war

and that it will defend itself and retaliate. And like you said, the language both sides are using is very strong. That is nothing new here when it comes to these two countries. Obviously there's a lot of tension, long standing tension here between India and Pakistan, which have so much enmity towards each other. Islamabad's military spokesperson, Lieutenant General Ahmad Sharif Chowdhury, actually says that

India has killed 26 people in these missile strikes, at least 26, including a child. There are 46 others injured, he says. Take a listen. women and elderly. Pakistan reserves the right and will respond to this aggression at a time, place and means of our own choice. So Pakistan also claims that it has already shot down several Indian fighter jets but those claims haven't been confirmed by India. There's also been exchanges of shelling, there's heavy artillery fire at the line of control that delineates the contested border, and there are casualties there too. We're hearing that seven people have died so far, but of course, a really fluid situation. You know, homes are damaged and there are very real fears in the region that this could get worse. Absolutely, yeah. As we mentioned, India says that these strikes were in retaliation for a militant attack

in Indian controlled Kashmir. What happened in that attack? Well, it was the deadliest against civilians in more than two decades in Indian controlled Kashmir, which is a region, of course, that's used to violence, but this attack took many Indian security officials by surprise. Militant gunmen targeted a tourist group and the details of the attack recounted by survivors actually shocked and angered many in India. You know, you heard widows explaining that Hindu men were singled out and were summarily shot

in the head. 26 men died. And it also explains India's code name for this military action that they took overnight. It's called Operation Sindor. Sindor is the red pigment that married Hindu women put on their foreheads. You know, they no longer put that there when they are widows. So many of the women after that militant attack that the gunman struck are now widowed. So it's a symbolic name for the Indian side

for this military operation. Both countries claim Kashmir as their territory. I mean, just briefly, what is, this is part of a bigger story, right? What's the history that leads up to what we're seeing right now? Yeah, it is a long and tense history. There has been armed separatist insurgency

in Indian control Kashmir for decades, since 1989, violence sort of ebbs and flows in this region. And it should be understated that Kashmir is considered one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the world. So as these tensions were mounting leading up to this military strike, there was a lot of fear there. It's such a longstanding conflict. The two countries have been fighting over Kashmir for nearly 80 years, ever since partition,

way back in 1947, when British India split into the nominally secular but predominantly Hindu India and then Muslim majority Pakistan. Kashmir is majority Muslim. Two of the three wars between India and Pakistan have been over this disputed region. And as I mentioned before, both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in its entirety, only control parts of it. And there's that contested border

that's called the line of control. So there's obviously so much history here, so much tension, and the potential for it to flare does come up every few years. Pete How did India respond in the days after that attack on the 22nd of April? Dr. Sarah Hickman Well, I mentioned that anger, which was really, really intense, Matt, among Indians. The details of the attack were quite horrifying to a lot of people, people watching scenes from the funerals of the victims, so many victims, 26. There were protests in the days following the militant attack and very loud calls for

India to bomb Pakistan, to crush its enemy. That was the rhetoric that we were hearing from people on the streets and in media. And that really is fueling the Indian government's response here. They do blame Pakistan. Delhi calls it a terrorist attack. It's been using that language quite a lot. And Delhi has accused Pakistan of being involved. It claimed that Islamabad has repeatedly,

over the last few days, vociferously denied. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi's response after the attack was also very angry. And what's interesting is he chose to speak in English to his supporters in the days after the attack. That's really unusual, Matt. But he really wanted his message to be heard widely. India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backer. We will pursue them to the ends of the earth. India's spirit will never be broken by terrorism.

So very strong words and, you know, very much fueled by the pressure in the country, which is why I said that people thought that the attacks overnight were really inevitable, that we were hurtling towards this moment. What about Pakistan's response? Pakistan has denied involvement in that attack in April, right? Yes, repeatedly, over and over. And you know, we've been hearing familiar refrains from Pakistani officials over the time here, over the last couple of weeks, that they will match any military strike from

India or even exceed it. And that's the same language that we are hearing this morning after the strikes overnight. Interestingly, we've been seeing a lot more of Pakistan's army chief, General Saeed Asim Munir these days. He usually operates under the radar, not as much in the spotlight, but now in the last few weeks, he's been front and center. There were shows of force from both sides, right? There was sort of a tit for tat flexing of military muscle before this strike. And we did see General Munir, you know, watch his troops train, you know, do these,

you know, drills in the northeast of the country. And General Munir stood on a tank and spoke to his troops, even led them in a patriotic chant and gave them that same message that Pakistan would act decisively. They won't back down here. And you know, there's a lot of economic turmoil in the country, the country was flirting with bankruptcy, there are hefty loans from the IMF. There's also a lot of political division in Pakistan. A lot of Imran Khan, the former prime minister who's behind bars, a lot of his supporters are angry.

The last elections in Pakistan were not seen as fair or free. So that's the context that sort of explains Pakistan's response here. You know, it this is a Very important issue to them. They you know feel that Kashmir is a vital part of their country It's part of their national identity and of course the flip side of that, you know India feels the same that Kashmir is an integral part of its territory But you know the response from Pakistan is that they sort of need

to respond strongly to any sort of threat over what they see as part of their country. And this is perhaps also a bit of a distraction from some of the problems at home in Pakistan. Two nuclear superpowers that are in the midst of rapidly escalating tensions, the world is paying very close attention to this. The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres,

said that the world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan. The last time we saw an escalation between these two nations was what, 2019? That's right, the last time tensions ran this high, 2019, right before a general election that Narendra Modi won handily, right? There was an attack back then in Indian controlled Kashmir that killed 40 soldiers. India retaliated again

with limited calculated strikes deep in Pakistan. They were calculated targets and they're what India deemed terrorist camps, similar to the language and the description of what India says it's done here. That crisis in 2019 fizzled out quickly, but today it's a bit of a different situation. Both countries' militaries are much stronger than they were in 2019 and the rhetoric is a little louder. And so, as I mentioned, the UN Secretary General has spoken up. What about more broadly the international community? What is it saying in response to what we have seen overnight and what we've seen in the last couple of weeks? I mean, there's a lot of international attention on this. Of course, when you have two countries,

like India and Pakistan, that have such enmity towards each other, they're sworn enemies, they are both nuclear powers. So this is a big deal. There's a very big escalation here. And a lot of people are certainly worried about the dangers of what could happen if there's a miscalculation, if things could spiral further. So we did hear from the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He's called for calm. He's called for de-escalation. He echoed what US President Donald Trump also said when he first heard about these attacks.

They both said that they hope this ends quickly. But the US is usually a bit of a power broker in dialing down tensions in this region. But the US is in a different space now. but the US is in a different space now, and the world is in a different space now as well. So a lot of analysts are thinking that perhaps there won't be as strong an international hand in trying to deescalate this crisis

as there was in the past. And you mentioned the United Nations as well. The United Nations has consistently called for maximum restraint for both of these countries, and that this is really the last thing that the world needs. The world can't afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan, and Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General, is saying that quite loudly here.

The last thing that the world needs right now. Salima, thank you very much for this. You're very welcome. Salima Shivji is the CBC's South Asia correspondent. She was in Mumbai. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.