The attack in Kashmir was “clearly intended” to goad Modi into action with elections looming, wrote Christine Fair, an expert on South Asian politics at Georgetown University. 

“Make no mistake: the interest of Pakistan’s deep state is best served by a Modi victory, which is now uncertain,” she added. 

The animosities of the moment may present a path to victory for Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, whose divisive politics, Fair argued, have “provided Pakistan’s various Islamist proxies with bountiful recruitment opportunities.”
Other experts suggested that India, too, needs to reexamine its own policies. Bloomberg View’s Nisid Hajari pointed to the Modi government’s “heavy-handed” response to growing unrest in Kashmir, where a generation of Muslim men have been brutalized by security forces. “Treating those Indian citizens — and anyone who speaks up for them — as national-security threats only increases the scope for Pakistan-based militants to meddle in the state,” Hajari wrote.
[END REPORT]
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