A report from Pakistan is the basis for the following editorial.

While the drone war between nuclear powers India and Pakistan is on pause for the moment, the cease-fire hangs by a thread. Kashmir is a pawn in a game of war for the capitalist rulers–for the declining U.S. superpower, rival imperialist China, and regional double-dealers in India and Pakistan. Workers are trapped in the crossfire. If there is one lesson from history for the working class, it’s that regional wars will lead to bigger wars. Only a mass movement led by the international communist Progressive Labor Party can turn these wars for land, oil, and profit into a class war for communist revolution. 

On May 7, everything in South Asia exploded—again! Kashmir is one of the most hotly disputed border areas in the world, with India, Pakistan, and China all ruling parts of it. In the India-controlled part, an armed Pakistan-based nationalist group, The Resistance Front, killed 26 civilians. In response, India launched “Operation Sindoor” with missiles that killed at least 31 and injured 57 (BBC, 5/9). Pakistan hit back with artillery, killing at least 16 more. For four days, bombs and shells ripped through homes and neighborhoods. By May 10, U.S. KKKiller-in-Chief Donald Trump claimed that he’d brokered “peace” on the subcontinent. 

The butchery in Kashmir is the result of religious poison, nationalist deception, capitalist exploitation, and imperialist domination. It’s a bosses’ war fought with workers’ blood. The Progressive Labor Party calls on the international working class to reject lethal ruling-class lies and unite to overthrow the capitalist system that thrives on such carnage.

Kashmir: different rulers, same playbook

For centuries, the masses in Kashmir have faced relentless oppression. Empires, kings, and modern states have battled for control, leaving ordinary people chained to division and exploitation. 

It all goes back to the British colonial rulers, who were looting South Asia at the same time they were enslaving people in Africa.  Their global empire was built through violent conquests, brazen land grabs, and ruthless forced labor. After defeating the Sikh Empire, the British bosses found it too expensive and difficult to directly rule mountainous Kashmir. In 1846, they sold it to the Dogra monarchy, the new overseers, who ruled for more than 100 years. 

Meanwhile, workers kept fighting back. In the 1920s and ‘30s, resistance against the Dogra bosses’ brutality picked up. In 1944, a call for a “New Kashmir,” a vision for land and labor reform, was quickly betrayed by nationalist opportunists who sided with the Indian capitalists. It was another case of the futility of reformism and the dangers of class collaboration.

A second world war and the first workers’ state in Russia sent shockwaves throughout global capitalism. Inspired by the Soviet Union, workers all over the world, including South Asia, erupted in anti-colonial movements. In 1947, the British Empire—broke, in crisis, and pressed by workers’ uprisings—scrambled out of town, but not before playing its final divide-and-conquer card. 

Much like the Palestinian Nakba one year later, the British bosses spawned a bloodbath. They hacked new borders in Souith Asia overnight. The 1947 partition between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan killed as many as three million and displaced 14 million more (National Endowment for the Humanities, summer 2022). The new borders were designed to fragment workers’ anti-imperialist unity.
Since partition, India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir, in 1947-48, 1965, and 1999. Each left the bosses’ conflicts over control and profits unresolved. Each left the masses suffering worse than before. 

Fast forward to 2019: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, a nest of Hindu supremacists, revoked Kashmir’s limited autonomy. Much as fascist Israel continues to displace countless Palestinian families, the Indian rulers keep driving workers and children in Kashmir from their homes, keep looting their land, and keep crushing dissent through occupation, curfews, and terror. It’s always our class that pays the price. 

True liberation does not come through policy tweaks or parliamentary deals. It comes from smashing the capitalist system through communist revolution. Kashmir’s working class has long resisted—against Dogra kings, British imperialists, and now Indian and Pakistani bosses. But their struggles have been co-opted by nationalist and reformist misleaders. There are no good capitalist rulers, no lesser capitalist evils. Only a communist party led by and for the working class can lead us to a decent society that serves workers’ needs.

Graveyard of inter-imperialist rivalry

Rich in resources and crucial for military control of South Asia, Kashmir is trapped at the crossroads of imperialist rivalries. China’s alliance with Pakistan, India’s main regional rival, sharpens these tensions.  

During the Cold War, India leaned toward the Soviet Union, while Pakistan became the U.S. gateway to China, a backchannel to drive a wedge between the two ex-socialist giants. This dangerous chess game came at a horrific cost. In 1971, the U.S. funded Pakistan’s genocidal response to the Bengali independence movement in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. More than 50 years later, imperialist-drawn borders and lethal nationalist ideas still rip workers apart.

Today, U.S. imperialism and Chinese state capitalism both exploit the Kashmir crisis. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a cornerstone of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, cuts through Kashmir.  In response, Trump has sustained the bipartisan U.S. strategy of backing India and its virulent racist prime minister, Narendra Modi, as a counterweight to China.  But India is also a member of BRICS, a China-dominated bloc. The U.S. death machine has no choice but to hedge its bets and arm both sides of the India-Pakistan divide (Foreign Affairs, 5/13). 

This is classic crisis management for a fading U.S. empire. All the while, Kashmir remains a graveyard of nationalist rivalry—and a flashpoint where regional tensions could quickly escalate into all-out war. 

Nationalism kills, long live internationalism

Workers in India, Pakistan, and Kashmir must refuse to fight for any bosses! Nationalist “self-determination” under capitalism is a fraud. Instead, we are building Progressive Labor Party. Only by uniting workers across borders in one revolutionary party can we smash the artificial boundaries invented by imperialism. 

The road to peace and liberation does not run through the rulers’ legislatures, courts, or nationalist armies. It runs through revolutionary organization, proletarian dictatorship, and the abolition of all capitalist states. The choice is clear: communism or capitalist slaughter. We stand with the workers, youth, and soldiers in Kashmir, India, and Pakistan, and everywhere. Smash capitalist borders! Long live international communist revolution under the red banner of PLP!