Are India and Pakistan on the brink of war over Kashmir?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tension is high in Indian administered Kashmir following the killing on 22nd April of 26 civilians almost all of whom were Hindu tourists. They were visiting Pahalgam - an area often described as the “Switzerland of India”. Militants opened fire on them and in the days since relations between India and Pakistan, which both claim Kashmir in full but only administer it in part, have deteriorated. India accuses Pakistan of supporting the militants and Islamabad rejects the allegations. This is the latest attack in a decades-long dispute over the region. David Aaronovitch and guests ask what happens next and what sort of a response we are likely to see from India and also Pakistan?
Guests: Andrew Whitehead: Former BBC India correspondent and expert on Kashmir and its history, author of ‘A Mission in Kashmir’ Anbarasan Ethirajan: BBC South Asia Regional Editor Husain Haqqani : Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC and former Pakistan ambassador to Sri Lanka and the US Michael Kugelman - South Asia analyst based in Washington DC and author of Foreign Policy magazine’s South Asia Brief newsletter Sumantra Bose: Professor of International and Comparative Politics at Krea University in India and author of Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict
Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producers: Caroline Bayley, Nathan Gower, Kirsteen Knight Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Sound engineers: Sarah Hockley and James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:10.4 | India has nuclear weapons. Its neighbour Pakistan has nuclear weapons. |
| 0:15.6 | So when they fall out with each other, it creates a potentially very dangerous situation. |
| 0:20.7 | And fallen out they have, following a terrorist attack in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir |
| 0:25.7 | in which 26 civilians were killed. |
| 0:29.6 | India blames Pakistan for this as for past attacks in Kashmir, a region partitioned between |
| 0:35.2 | the two countries. |
| 0:36.5 | Pakistan indignantly denies it. |
| 0:39.0 | Sabers are rattling. |
| 0:40.9 | So what is happening in Kashmir and why? |
| 0:43.8 | And could this crisis lead to a serious conflict |
| 0:46.4 | between these two nuclear powers? |
| 0:49.3 | Step into the briefing room and together we'll find out. |
| 0:55.4 | First, a brief history of Kashmir. |
| 0:58.2 | Caroline Bailey spoke to former BBC India correspondent Andrew Whitehead, who's an expert on |
| 1:03.2 | Kashmir and its history, and author of A Mission in Kashmir. |
| 1:07.6 | First of all, then, Andrew Whitehead, how far back do the tensions in Kashmir go? |
| 1:12.6 | Well, Kashmiris have got a long memory, and some Kashmir historians would say you need to go back to 1586, |
| 1:18.5 | because they would say that was the last time that Kashmir was governed by Kashmiris. |
| 1:24.0 | Ever since then, it's been, in their view, a succession of outsiders. But I think more |
| 1:29.2 | approximately it was 1947 when the British left India and in leaving they partitioned |
| 1:36.0 | the area that they controlled to carve out Pakistan, a mainly Muslim nation, so they |
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