JKAWP - Jammu Kashmir Awami Workers Party: On the Ongoing India-Pakistan Conflict and the Crisis in Jammu & Kashmir

The Jammu Kashmir Awami Workers Party (JKAWP) expresses grave concern over the recent escalation of violence in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly the horrific fundamentalist attack on civilians in Pahalgam, Indian-occupied Kashmir. We strongly condemn this brutal act and mourn the loss of innocent lives. Violence against unarmed civilians — regardless of its source — is unacceptable and must be universally opposed.

This new wave of armed conflict and cross-border aggression has once again turned the region into a warzone. The working class and oppressed communities of Jammu and Kashmir are paying the highest price — in lives lost, homes destroyed, and futures shattered. This violence is not spontaneous; it reflects a long-standing strategy by both the Indian and Pakistani states to maintain instability, divide the people, and suppress any movement that demands freedom, dignity, and democracy.

JKAWP asserts that the governments of both India and Pakistan are using the current situation as a pretext to intensify state repression. Under the cover of “national security,” they are cracking down on pro-people, progressive movements — both in Indian-occupied Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied Jammu Kashmir, including Gilgit-Baltistan. Activists, students, workers, and journalists are being harassed, detained, or silenced for simply speaking out for rights and justice.

The Kashmir conflict is rooted in the colonial partition of the subcontinent by British imperialism — a sectarian division that has left behind an unresolved national question. Today, the ruling elites of both India and Pakistan continue to exploit this legacy to serve their own nationalist, capitalist, and military agendas. The people of Jammu and Kashmir remain denied their right to self-determination, while their land is militarized, their resources exploited, and their voices suppressed.

Instead of addressing the legitimate aspirations of the people, both states have escalated their proxy wars, fortified their military presence, and promoted religious extremism. These policies have not brought security or peace — they have only deepened the suffering and division.

JKAWP denounces the use of Jammu and Kashmir as a permanent battlefield. Border communities live under constant threat of shelling, arrests, surveillance, and displacement. Thousands have been killed or injured. Livelihoods, education, and healthcare have been devastated. The youth of Kashmir continue to grow up under the shadow of occupation and fear.

Despite this, the people’s call remains clear and unwavering: self-determination and reunification of the entire region of Jammu and Kashmir. This is not a demand for charity or concession — it is a democratic and historical right.

JKAWP calls on the international working-class, anti-imperialist, and democratic movements to stand with the people of Kashmir. The struggle of Kashmir is not isolated — it is part of the global fight against colonialism, militarism, and neoliberal exploitation. We appeal to trade unions, student organizations, social justice networks, and left movements around the world to raise their voices and support the just cause of the Kashmiri people.

JKAWP Declares:
      •     We reject war, militarism, and proxy conflicts between India and Pakistan.
      •     We reject religious fundamentalism, sectarianism, and state repression in all forms.
      •     We reject the ongoing occupation and artificial division of Jammu and Kashmir.
      •     We demand the immediate release of political prisoners, the restoration of civil liberties, and an end to the suppression of pro-people movements.
      •     We demand the full and unconditional right to self-determination for all regions of Jammu and Kashmir, as one, undivided political and historical entity.

JKAWP stands unwaveringly with the oppressed people of Jammu and Kashmir. We believe that only a united struggle of the working class — beyond borders, religions, and ethnic divisions — can bring real peace, justice, and liberation.

Peace with justice. Reunification with dignity. Liberation through people’s power.

Jammu Kashmir Awami Workers Party (JKAWP)

 Alternative Viewpoint (IN) Statement on Operation Sindoor : Say no to war ! forge class unity from below !

Wednesday 7 May 2025, by Alternative Viewpoint (IN)

“The governments of India and Pakistan must cease all forms of armed hostilities immediately. We call upon the working people of both countries to reject the war hysteria and militarism and raise their voices for peace, solidarity and unity. Only popular pressure from below can compel the two states to seek meaningful dialogues and resolve issues.”

The Indian government has stated that in the early hours of May 7^th, the Indian armed forces commenced ‘Operation Sindoor’, characterised as a “focused, measured, and non-escalatory” strike aimed at targeting “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan, including areas of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The alleged purpose of this operation was to seek retribution for the terror attacks that occurred in Pahalgam, Kashmir, on April 22, 2025.

Alternative Viewpoint strongly condemns the military actions undertaken by the Indian government that target Pakistani civilians under the guise of pursuing terrorists.The x-handle of the Additional Directorate General of Public Information, IHQ of MoD (Army), celebrates this unjust assault as “justice served”. However, the lack of information regarding the arrests of the militants responsible for the terror attacks in Pahalgam prompts us to question the nature of justice that is claimed to be achieved by taking the lives of unarmed civilians, including children. Moreover, it is unsurprising that India’s boastful military actions receive endorsement solely from Israel, a state with a notorious history of massacring unarmed civilians, including children, in Palestine and beyond.

It is also reported that at least 10 Indian civilians were killed and 40 were injured, mostly in Jammu’s Poonch sector, as Pakistani troops resorted to heavy shelling across the Line of Control in response to India’s Operation Sindoor.

We are opposed to any form of warmongering and urge the working people of the region to reject the war hysteria incited by both states. Indeed, actions taken by India and retaliatory measures from Pakistan have the potential to escalate into a full-blown war, including the risk of nuclear aggression. Any nuclear exchange between these armed neighbours could lead to widespread destruction and irreversible climatic consequences for the region.

An attack by militant groups resulted in the deaths of 26 tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir. Rather than accepting moral responsibility for the serious security lapses that led to this tragic incident, the Indian government appears to have exploited the situation to incite panic, frenzy, war hysteria, jingoism, and a new wave of Islamophobia. Over the past week, Indian media outlets have been fabricating a new falsehood about Pakistan each day. These media channels have morphed into war rooms, stirring up millions of citizens across the country. This phenomenon has been deliberately orchestrated to divert the attention of the working masses from the real crises facing the country, namely growing unemployment, inequality, poverty, and various forms of deprivation. The announcement of mock drills across the country to “strengthen civil defence preparedness” will only exacerbate strong anti-Pakistan sentiment and Islamophobia.

Narendra Modi has already announced the granting of ‘full freedom’ to the army, a move that appears to aim at subverting democracy and promoting militarism while also shifting responsibilities onto the armed forces in the event of any devastation.

We express our shame and indignation at how a segment of the Indian left and liberals in the country are actively endorsing the warmongering actions of the Indian state. This act of capitulation will only serve to empower the expansionist Indian state, encouraging it to engage in further acts of aggression both domestically and internationally. Any support for Indian military actions will, among other consequences, weaken the struggle for secularism within the country.

The name “Operation Sindoor” conjures associations with patriarchy, the ownership of women, “honour killings”, chastity, the sacralisation of marriage, and other similar obsessions linked to Hindutva. The message of militarisation, jingoism, patriarchy, and Hindutva is unmistakable.

We believe that even if the military actions target “terrorists” and their “camps” in Pakistan, war or warmongering can’t solve the contentious issues and reduce the hostility that is responsible for terrorist attacks in the region. Wars, jingoism and bellicosity strengthen the ruling classes across the border to the detriment of the population. This situation will further deepen the communal hatred and polarisation that has already reached alarming proportions in the region. The governments of India and Pakistan must cease all forms of armed hostilities immediately. We call upon the working people of both countries to reject the war hysteria and militarism and raise their voices for peace, solidarity and unity. Only popular pressure from below can compel the two states to seek meaningful dialogues and resolve issues.

Finally, we support the struggle of the people of Kashmir for their right to self-determination and liberation from all forms of exploitation and oppression.

Long live the unity of the working people of the region!

Alternative Viewpoint, May 7, 2025
https://altviewpoint.in/say-no-to-war-forge-class-unity-from-below/

 Radical Socialist (IN): Statement on Operation Sindoor

Wednesday 7 May 2025, by Radical Socialist (India)

The Indian Armed Forces have launched Operation Sindoor which has carried out strikes in as many as nine places spread over three cities in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Punjab province while a counter-strike by Pakistan, also to be condemned, has led to lives lost in Poonch.

All this is an extremely worrisome development, though not entirely unexpected. After the Pahalgam terror act which deserves to be universally and unequivocally condemned, the Modi government should have made public and transparent the information it has as to who the likely perpetrators are and accepted the call for an international investigation in which Indian involvement would be necessary and central and demanded that the Pakistan government participate in uncovering the complete truth so that the culprits can be caught and punished in the name of justice. A Pakistani refusal to cooperate in this manner would have put it in the dock internationally and then justified various actions that could be taken diplomatically and materially by India against the government but not against the welfare of the general Pakistani public.

Indeed, the most sensible approach and the one most damaging to the Islamabad government is precisely to drive an ever greater wedge between the Pakistani public and a government that is already deeply unpopular. Instead, by illegally holding the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance and calling on all Pakistani citizens in the country (except non-Muslims with Long Term Visas) to immediately leave, this Hindutva government is pursuing the path of endorsing the collective economic suffering of the Pakistan public as well as endorsing the principle of the ‘collective guilt’ of all Pakistani Muslim citizens. First, this only reinforces anti-India jingoism within Pakistan and enhances public support for the military establishment which rules and seeks to drown out all progressive and dissident voices within, thereby eroding efforts to move towards greater democratic freedoms desired by the vast majority of its citizens. Second, these two steps by New Delhi are also taken with the aim of domestically whipping up a hyper-nationalistic frenzy (also the purpose of the pan-national civic military drills) that can benefit the BJP for the coming Bihar elections and more generally beyond this. In carrying out these cross border assaults by its official Armed Forces, New Delhi has entered the terrain of committing internationally illegal ‘acts of war’. This is the second time after Balakot that this has happened. It sets the precedent for this to happen again and again, only at a progressively higher military level should similar such terror acts by groups (i.e., non-state actors) take place which is all too likely despite our hopes.

Also, since the dawn of the nuclear age in 1945 it is only in South Asia that two nuclear powers have assaulted each other with conventional military weaponry creating a frighteningly real possibility of escalatory retaliation that can reach the level of a nuclear exchange. There is a large proportion of people in India, and a very bellicose, communal and loud right-wing media, that have been baying for blood since the ghastly act in Pahalgam. This creates conditions for much stronger calls for war both externally—with Pakistan and internally—against the imagined enemy within, namely the Muslims in general, and Kashmiris in particular. Pahalgam has pushed almost all political parties to stand behind the BJP. Leading members of the Congress, not unexpectedly, have been urging military action. Regrettably, the statements issued by both the CPI and CPI(M), after the launch of Operation Sindoor, have refused to oppose such military action. A similar situation arose in 2019, when India escalated the stakes and struck targets within the borders of sovereign Pakistan. We were lucky that the situation did not then escalate out of control. But there is no guarantee now that Pakistan will act in a manner which might lead to a situation where both India and Pakistan can claim victory and then let matters rest. If that does not happen, and if we go down the path of war, this will only mean further loss of lives on both sides of the border, and intense suffering on the part of those people who want war the least.

Radical Socialist opposes these military strikes because such acts do not go to the heart of the underlying political crisis of Kashmir, which has been exacerbated by the Modi regime since 2019. We condemn fanning the flames of Islamophobia by large sections of the media and organized right-wing forces, and the culpability that the government has shown on that front. Such military exchanges apart from the loss of innocent lives (state terror by each side), strengthens religious and political hatreds in both India and Pakistan. We hope that ordinary workers and people in both countries will stand on the side of peace and a political resolution of the Kashmir conflict, instead of seeking military solutions.

Radical Socialist

 Haqooq Khalq Party: Statement on escalating tensions between Pakistan and India

Wednesday 7 May 2025, by Haqooq Khalq Party

Haqooq e Khalq party (HKP) strongly condemns the missile strikes launched by India across nine locations in Pakistan, killing and injuring dozens of civilians.

We decry the loss of innocent lives in this deadly and dangerous escalation in hostilities and call upon both states to exercise restraint and immediately stop any actions that could harm ordinary people on both sides and threaten nuclear war.

While both countries bear responsibility for proxy warfare, the Modi regime has clearly instrumentalized the Pahalgam tragedy to divert from failures in Kashmir, boost domestic popularity, and advance strategic goals regarding the Indus River system and regional hegemony.

We urge Pakistan to uphold international humanitarian law when protecting its people against aggression, rather than mimic India’s senseless aggression against civilians.

Continuing the war will only result in more loss of lives. We demand an independent inquiry into the Pahalgam attack to establish facts and accountability.

A durable peace requires respecting sovereignty, ending proxy warfare, and demilitarizing Kashmir.

We call on Pakistan’s government to restore communication platforms, release political prisoners, and enable free flow of information during this crisis.

Any war between nuclear-armed nations would be catastrophic regionally and globally. Progressive forces throughout South Asia must unite against war hysteria and work toward a peaceful future.

Haqooq e Khalq party (HKP)