India’s Hindutva President, Narendra Modi, has used the Kashmir terrorism incident to abrogate the 1960s Indus Waters Treaty – a longstanding goal of Modi. The Indian version of the “terrorist attack”, most of whose victims were Muslim, has largely been accepted by Western governments without evidence.
False flags abound nowadays. You may recall that we were told that the most deadly rocket ever fired by Hamas killed only Palestinians in a hospital compound, while the most deadly rocket ever fired by Hezbollah killed only Druze children. I have at present an open mind about what occurred in Kashmir.
It is however certain that tearing up the Indus Waters Treaty is a long term Modi goal. The Indus supplies 80% of Pakistan’s agricultural water, and the supply is already insufficient, with disastrous salination of the lower reaches of the river as the sea creeps into the areas once occupied by the mighty flow. I visited the area of lower Sind five years ago and witnessed the fields encrusted with white salt.
India controls the upstream flow into Pakistan of approximately 70% of the total water of the Indus, about 55% of all of Pakistan’s agricultural water.
In September 2016 in response to earlier violence in Kashmir, Modi initiated his slogan “Blood and water cannot flow together” and threatened to cut the Indus supply. He increased India’s out-take from the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej tributaries and restarted the Tulbul canal project. In both 2019 and 2022 while campaigning in Haryana, Modi made strong speeches threatening to cut off the water “wasted on Pakistan”.
In 2023 Modi issued formal notice to Pakistan of India’s desire to renegotiate the Indus Waters Treaty and repeated this in 2024 when Pakistan did not respond. On both occasions India cited “counter-terrorism” as one of three reasons for review (the others being environmental protection and hydro-electric generation). As counter-terrorism can scarcely be linked to agricultural water allocation, this illustrates Modi’s grandstanding approach.
Modi does not have the physical power to stop the Indus, but does have the ability short term to divert more of the river to Indian irrigation and storage, sufficient to cause some immediate distress in Pakistan. Indian media are already thrilled with the idea. But long term major rebalancing of the river water allocation would require substantive new infrastructure in India. Such projects however would be both economically viable and likely wildly popular with Modi’s Hindutva base both for promoting Indian development and for damaging Pakistan.
In 2019, Modi revoked Article 270 of the Indian constitution which gave special autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir, incorporating them into India proper. He did this despite the Constitution stating it could only be done with the support of the “Constituent Assembly of the State”. That body no longer existed, having been replaced by a “Legislative Assembly”. Modi used another Constitutional provision to replace “Constituent Assembly” with “Legislative Assembly”, which seems fair enough. But having suspended the Legislative Assembly, he then claimed that its powers were now vested in the Governor, a Modi appointee.
Modi then agreed with himself to remove the autonomy of Indian Kashmir – a move that had no significant support among its 97% Muslim inhabitants and was accompanied by a ferocious crackdown – indeed, lockdown – and the destruction of its once thriving tourism industry. He simultaneously repealed another provision preventing non-Kashmiris from buying property in the region. Modi himself is therefore very much the cause of heightened ethnic, political and religious tension in Kashmir.
It is generally recognised that the situation of Kashmir, partly in India and partly in Pakistan with a small portion in China, and the Indian part occupied by deeply dissatisfied Muslims, is a result of the disastrous British partition of India in 1947. But in fact British responsibility for the disaster of modern Kashmir goes back a hundred years further than that, to 1846.
Kashmir was part of the Durrani Afghan Empire from 1758 until 1819, when it was captured by the Sikh Empire of Maharajah Ranjit Singh. Singh was always careful to place Muslim Governors over Muslim lands, including from the Durrani family itself. He allied with the British during the First Afghan War, and sent troops, including Kashmiri levies, to aid the British invasion in 1839. However after Ranjit Singh’s death and civil war over the succession, the British attacked the Sikh Empire to “restore stability”. Following the Battle of Sobraon, the British annexed the land between the Beas and Ravi rivers, while by the Treaty of Amritsar of 1846 the British sold Jammu and Kashmir to the former Sikh wazir, Gulab Singh, for 50 lakhs of rupees.
Gulab Singh was a particularly murderous character who had played an extraordinarily Machiavellian role in the Sikh court of Ranjit Singh and his immediate successors, and had of course looted from the Sikh treasury the money he paid to the British. So he paid the British with stolen money for land the British had just stolen.
This is how the extraordinary situation arose that the Muslim territories of Kashmir and Jammu had a Hindu ruler (Gulab Singh was a Hindu Dogra). That anomaly was the direct cause of the disastrous division of the territory by the British in the Partition 100 years later.
It is extremely frequent that today’s conflicts are caused by the actions of the British Empire reverberating down and continuing their evil over generations. It is equally frequent that it is very hard to find analyses that explain the truth behind the conflicts.
———————————
My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.
Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.
Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.
Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
“the disastrous British partition of India of 1947”. Bollocks. The partition was the work of the Hindus and Moslems in the face of British opposition. In the end all the British could do was ratify what the two sides had agreed and march off.
Why was Jinnah so keen on a separate Pakistan? Amongst other reasons, because one of the Hindu politicians (Nehru, perhaps?) had told him that Congress’s sweet words about the treatment of Moslems in a united India were intended to be forgotten the moment independence was achieved.
It’s a strangely racist cast of mind that allows no agency to the Moslems and Hindus of India and claims that the partition was “British”. Get a grip, man! Brown fellas weren’t mere children.
Co- pilot to Murray’s defence.
“The claim that the Kashmir conflict stems from the British partition of India in 1947 is widely discussed in historical and political analyses. Several sources provide evidence supporting this perspective:
– Britannica explains that the partition of British India led to massive population transfers and communal violence, shaping the geopolitical tensions that persist today, including the Kashmir dispute.
– JSTOR highlights how the partition left Kashmir in a precarious position, with its ruler initially seeking independence before acceding to India, triggering conflict with Pakistan.
– Springer discusses how the partition led to the migration of Kashmiri Muslim refugees, reinforcing the argument that the division of British India had lasting consequences for the region”.
I do not know if the views on partition are bollocks or not but I would like to see more evidence for the assertion that “in the end all the British could do was ratify what the two sides had agreed and march off”. Defending the British Empire down to the last Imperialist was the line usually taken.
One point is missing. The massacre on the day of Vance’s visit bears an uncanny resemblance to the 2000 Chittisinghpora massacre, which occurred on the eve of Clinton’s visit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2000_Chittisinghpura_massacre&oldid=1219625808 (deliberately an older version as the article recently got a lot of whitewash).
A “previously unknown group claiming responsibility” is a classic telltale sign that it was done by a new actor here, to avoid denials from established groups. I’m quite certain it was the Indian security establishment, or certain factions within it. It is hardly the case that random people in Kashmir can easily access weapons, ammunition, and military training — let alone have the necessary planning skills. Everything appears to have been designed to provoke maximum outrage within India and to provide Modi with a convenient argument for Vance, just as it was the case in 2000.
As an aside, it is worth noting that the principal sources of income in Kashmir are the export of agricultural produce to India and inbound tourism from India. All genuine local militant groups are careful not to damage these interests, as doing so would result in a loss of crucial community support. Their attacks are almost exclusively directed at the Indian Army, the Border Police, and, most commonly, the Indian paramilitary forces, who are present in the Valley in vastly greater numbers than Indian tourists and have been ruling the region with an iron fist since 1990.
“most deadly rocket ever fired by Hamas killed only Palestinians in a hospital compound, while the most deadly rocket ever fired by Hezbollah killed only Druze children”
Is the first that hospital in Gaza City on 17th Oct 2023? Al-Ahli hospital. It seems that both sides were firing rockets over by the hospital just prior. The Palestinian authorities seem to have exaggerated the likely fatalities by about five-fold or ten-fold. But then never showed the shrapnel that should have been present.
The second one must be the football field in the Golan Heights, 6 miles from a Lebanon launch site. Wth an Israeli base inbetween, too close for Iron Dome to work for that launch site. Israel apparently doesn’t defend some settlements as much as others. They showed photos of the shrapnel, a rocket of the type Lebanese were firing. But not independently verified for some reason.
Re: ‘most of whose victims were Muslim’
According to multiple sources, all but one of the victims were Hindu. This checks out, as most of them seemingly came from majority Hindu states in India. After initially claiming responsibility, ‘The Resistance Front’ (reportedly an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba) now deny it, which is what tends to happen when small terrorist groups realise that, to quote Admiral Yamamoto, all they’ve done is to awaken a sleeping giant. I’m going with the attack being genuine*.
P.S. It’s Article 370, not 270, that gave special status to J&K.
* Assuming you haven’t already, anyone who would like to read about a (very likely) false flag attack can do so here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/the-salisbury-poisonings-episode-was-all-staged/page/6/#post-103404
Maybe Modi has a hatred of the Muslims – the way, Erdogan has of the Kurds.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/04/07/745712/waqf-bill-attack-indian-muslims-also-indian-constitution-mp
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/04/04/745547/India-parliament-passes-Waqf-bill-opposed-Muslims-Gandhi-Shah