Why India fights Pakistan

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Nearly two years ago, Erin Patterson served beef wellington to her family at that now infamous mushroom lunch and her murder trial has finally begun.

I'm Stephen Stockwell.

Each day we're racing straight from court to our Mushroom Case Daily studio to bring you all the evidence from the trial.

We'll have a new podcast every evening that court is sitting.

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This podcast is recorded on the lands of the Awabakal, Darug, and Iora people.

Cricket is a very fragile sport.

Matches can be called off for all sorts of reasons, like rain.

The washout has brought financial disaster to organisers of the Australia-South Africa cricket test.

Or not enough light.

The most painful blow may yet be inflicted inflicted by the English weather.

Several big matches have been stopped by too much sun in the batter's eyes, or on several occasions.

Players were forced to lay low for several minutes in the final session of yesterday's play as a swarm of bees flew across the ground.

Play has been delayed because lunch hadn't arrived or because the umpire lost the key to the cabinet with the balls in it.

But until May 2025, I've never heard of a match being cancelled because of a possible war.

So basically, the whole stadium in the middle of the game was evacuated and it was very scary.

Pakistani airstrikes caused the sudden cancellation of an Indian Premier League match.

It was terrifying for Elise Sahelian husband Mitchell Stark, who were in Durham Salah when Stark's game was abruptly abandoned.

It started with a terror attack on Indian tourists and escalated with missile strikes.

Tensions reached boiling point on Wednesday

when India launched airstrikes on Pakistan and Pakistani-held territory.

And yet despite the danger, the Indian government and the cricket board tried to hold a big match within driving distance of the Pakistan border.

The city was plunged into darkness.

Residents told to switch off lights, stay indoors and avoid windows.

It was an interesting confluence of two of the things the Indian government and its supporters love most, playing cricket and bombing Pakistan.

Funnily enough, the Pakistani government and its supporters have very similar interests, playing cricket and bombing India.

Whatever they may do, we are prepared for an eventuality.

They want to continue it?

Fine.

A ceasefire deal was reached after four days of fighting, but India says it's only a pause to hostilities, not the end.

This flare-up in tensions between South Asia's two most powerful nuclear-armed countries is shocking, but not surprising.

Over the next two episodes, we're going to take a look at both sides, India and then Pakistan, why they want to fight, and what they have to lose.

I'm Matt Bevan, and this is If You're You're Listening.

India and Pakistan have been fighting over the same patch of land for nearly 80 years, and you can tell by this old-timey piece of documentary tape.

A storybook land, steeped in ancient ways and thrust into modern times.

An abundant land, a productive land, picturesque and diverse.

Tense and troubled Kashmir.

Why is it tense and troubled?

Well, it's the British Empire's fault.

They drew the borders that created Pakistan and India in 1947, and like most colonial powers drawing up vibes-based maps, they didn't do a very good job.

Already the province of Kashmir is in dispute.

Pakistan, the shaded area, and India lay claim to the territory, which is roughly the size of Idaho.

Study geography, kids.

Getting it wrong can be deadly.

Prejudices and passions explode, neighbor against neighbor, Hindu against Muslim, in an unholy war that takes more than half a million lives.

Kashmir becomes a symbol of the anguish and agony of independence.

But the real mistake wasn't made in 1947.

It was a hundred years earlier.

And it really was because of bad geography.

Looking at India and Pakistan on a normal map isn't actually that helpful.

The best way to understand the situation is to look at them on a topographic map.

And remember that mountains are annoying for multiple reasons.

On a topographic map, you can see two important things.

One is the Indo-Gangetic Plain.

This is a boomerang-shaped area of fertile flat land that stretches from the Pakistani city of Karachi in the west, up the Indus River, through Pakistan until it hits the Himalayas.

Then it turns east and follows the Ganges River all the way across northern India to Bangladesh.

About a billion people live on this plain, one in seven humans.

To the north of it is hundreds of kilometers of basically vertical mountain ranges.

Except there is one little area of flat, farmable land amongst those mountains.

Enchanting as the lotus is the beauty of Kashmir, a lovely valley splashed with colour, bursting with nature's bounty.

The snow-capped mountains and the wide lakes and marshes give Kashmir a European-style climate.

totally unlike any other part of India or Pakistan.

To this land nestling amid the towering Himalayas came the kings of long ago to escape from the sweltering summer heat of the parched plains of India.

The Kashmir Valley is really a hidden little bit of paradise.

It's like India's Hawaii and it's always attracted a lot of tourism.

And like Hawaii it has a strange mix of military significance and unique culture.

The Kashmiris are a handsome people, a blend of many races, of Indian and Mughal, Tatar and Persian.

Okay, thanks for that weird old-timey news guy.

But these handsome people speak Kashmiri and almost all of them are Muslims.

In 1846, the British East India Company won this region in a war with the Sikh Empire, and they sold it to one of their allies, a puppet prince with the grand title of Maharaja of Jammu, creating the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The problem is, the city of Jammu isn't in the Kashmir Valley.

It's around 260 kilometers away, or 26 hours by pony, right down on the Indo-Gangetic plain.

The people who live there are Hindus and they don't speak Kashmiri.

It's kind of like putting the mayor of San Francisco in charge of Hawaii, if the mayor of San Francisco was carried around from place to place on an elephant with a throne saddle.

When India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947, both sides wanted control of the valley.

India insists that Kashmir has been and must be an integral part of the Indian nation.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's leader, points out that 80% of Kashmir's population is Muslim.

So who would take ownership over the territory, India or Pakistan?

Theoretically, it was up to the Maharaja to decide.

The Hindu ruler, a predominantly Muslim Kashmir, opted for India.

In the rioting between Muslims and Hindus that followed, an estimated half million people were killed.

The fighting lasted for 14 months.

After UN intervention, India held two-thirds of Kashmir, Pakistan the remainder.

What they don't mention there is that pretty much all of the territory that was divided up were those uninhabitable vertical mountains.

So what about the bit that actually matters?

The Kashmir Valley.

Below the giant peaks, they call it the Valley of Heaven.

This area is in Indian Kashmir.

Yeah, so India won.

But they knew that victory wasn't necessarily permanent.

Small skirmishes were common.

By air and by land, India poured in men to protect her new state.

Kashmir became a fortress.

India has half a million troops stationed in the heavily militarized area.

It was the only Muslim-majority part of India, and when it was incorporated, it was kind of treated as separate.

It had its own constitution and its own government.

But it was still part of India, but separate too.

Kind of like Hong Kong or Scotland or depending on who you ask, Palestine.

In 2019, all of that changed.

More than 40 soldiers have been killed in the deadliest attack for two decades in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Terrorist attacks were common in Kashmir, but in February 2019, there was a really big one.

When a suicide car bomb was rammed into a convoy of buses carrying paramilitary police, an al-Qaeda and Taliban-aligned Islamist group has claimed responsibility.

The response in India was quite over the top.

The terrorists who are conducting what many people will say is a genocide genocide against the Indian state by targeting its braves.

Pakistan continues to use state terror as a state policy against India.

And across India, the call for revenge, real revenge, a bloody revenge is loud and clear.

It doesn't take much to trigger a vigilante mob in India and all this nationalist fervor on television was enough to get the job done.

There are reports of attacks on Kashmiri students and residents residents in several states of the country.

Bracketing all Kashmiris as anti-nationals is what terrorists in Pakistan actually want.

And Indian citizens must not fall prey to this design.

While obviously the terrorists weren't directly employed by Pakistan, the Indian government and media accused them of funding and harboring the terrorists and demanded that Pakistan pay for it.

It is time for blood.

The enemy's blood.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to send in fighter jets to bomb terrorist training camps in Pakistan, triggering a two-day air war.

Exactly what happened in that air war is a matter for debate.

From an Indian nationalist media perspective, it went fantastically.

Ladies and gentlemen, India has struck back and India has struck back really hard tonight.

Strike one in Balakot, Pakistan, a terror camp destroyed in eight minutes.

Strike two in Muzaffarabad in seven minutes, another terror camp destroyed.

And then the following day, India claimed that two fighter jets, one Indian and one Pakistani, were shot down in a dogfight.

Biraj 2,000 jets sending Pakistan into a tizzy.

But how much of a tizzy was Pakistan really in?

India said its bombs killed hundreds.

Pakistan has denied there were casualties.

Now, to be fair, they never said the hundreds killed were people.

When you look at the footage from the ground, it seems like the casualties were all arboreal.

They've dropped their last leaves, if you know what I mean.

Also, there's no evidence that they shot down any Pakistani jets.

But make sure you don't say that on TV.

I will confront all those traitors who continue to question our forces tonight.

And viewers, each one of them who does so is an anti-national.

The only evidence of anything significant happening at all in this two-day air war was the smoking remains of an Indian fighter jet and video of its pilot in custody.

Pakistan says it has the pilot in detention.

The story of this pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Vathman, is worth dwelling on for a moment because it's fascinating.

It's fascinating because exactly what happened to him while he was in Pakistan is a matter for dispute as well.

Everyone agrees that he was beaten by a mob of villagers when he landed before being rescued by the Pakistani army.

But there is a significant dispute about what happened to him after that.

Many Indian news outlets say that he was mistreated, tortured, sleep-deprived, and pumped for information.

Pakistani officials say they did no such thing and released a very strange video of him as proof.

Okay, I hope you have been treated well over here with us.

Yes, I have and I would like to put this on record and I will not change my statement if I go back to my country also.

Ah, yes.

What a normal thing for a person to say.

I always declare in normal conversations that I won't change my statements in the future.

The officers of the Pakistani army have looked after me very well.

They are thorough gentlemen.

I hope you like the tea.

The tea is fantastic.

Thank you.

Now if you give me a fantastic tea, I'll sing like a bird.

But Abhinandan kept his trap shut under questioning.

Which aircraft you were flying?

I'm sorry Major.

I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I'm sure you found the wreckage.

And what was your mission?

I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to tell you this.

Of course, that did the job, and everyone in India was satisfied that he was being very well treated.

You know, they faked a video about him having tea.

Abu Nandan was in Pakistani custody for two and a half days before he was released back to India.

And by the time he arrived home, he was a national hero.

We're finally getting you the first visuals of Wing Commander Abhinandan reaching the Bago border right now.

And there on your screens, the hero finally comes back home.

This hero sent back 20 jets loaded with missiles into our country and which tried to bomb our army.

You know, he sent them backpacking, and that's why we are so happy to get Wing Commander Abinandan back home.

Again, two and a half days is how long he was a prisoner for.

Watch the tricolours today fly and flutter and let it be sounded.

Let it sink in in this country that with Wing Commander Abhinandan back in this country, with this resolve of a billion bound together, this will now be the beginning for the enemies of this great nation.

I really think that we need to get some of this stuff going in the Australian media.

Really get the blood pumping.

There are emotions today, therefore, of India's deep and abiding resolve to conquest and conquer anything

and always to put India first.

The Indian people fully embraced Abhinam Dhan.

They were obsessed with everything about him, right down to his facial hair.

Now, I know this is a podcast, so you can't see Abinandan's mustache, but it is immense.

It's a mustache so masculine that not even Chopper Reed would dare to attempt it.

It's like Chopper and Wolverine had a mustache baby.

Within days of his capture, Indian men across the country were copying this distinct mustache style.

And look, I can see why.

A guy who can look like a badass while sipping tea in a Pakistani interrogation room is a guy worth emulating.

Babies were named after him.

There was merch.

There have been multiple movies and TV shows made about his two days detained in Pakistan.

The vibe is Bollywood Top Gun.

Now, after this very brief air war, India and Pakistan stopped with the fighter jets, but India wasn't done with Kashmir.

It's time, high time, that

the world understands the gravity of the situation.

The Indian government rewrote the constitution to revoke the autonomy over its affairs that Kashmir had enjoyed for 70 years and placed the Kashmir Valley under lockdown.

No phone signals, no internet, and no media.

It's hard for any news to get in or out of Kashmir right now.

Local political leaders were put under house arrest.

India says the militant threat is why it needs greater control.

The valley went dark.

Curfews were imposed.

Phone and internet service was blocked.

If we are living in a democratic country,

the world see it, you know.

What's going on?

You know, we're humans.

Of course we are Muslim, but we are humans.

Phone service resumed after 72 days.

Internet service resumed after 18 months.

Tourists were kept out of the valley for nearly two years.

When they eventually returned, locals resumed what they had been doing for years, helping tourists have a good time and not bothering them with politics.

Until May 2025.

Rishi Butt is a tourist from Gujarat state on India's west coast who took his family to see the incredible sights of Kashmir.

While in the valley, he decided to take a zipline ride across a famous, picturesque, touristy meadow.

As he zips along, holding his selfie stick and grinning, you start to hear loud bangs in the background.

People start to run.

Rishi's face starts to change as he slowly realizes what's unfolding beneath him.

When he got to the end of the zipline, he ran into the woods with his wife and son.

He told a local news channel that he saw other people being shot by men dressed as security guards.

Two more couple.

That terrorist came, he just spoke with them about the name and religion and he fired.

Just because I was on rope, my life was saved.

The terrorists shot 25 Hindus and one Christian in the meadow that that day.

All of them were men.

Now, this attack was far more disturbing to Indians than the one in 2019.

These were civilians, tourists, and there had been a long-standing unwritten rule that tourists to Kashmir were left alone.

The Indian government reacted in exactly the way you would expect.

India gathers out precision strikes on Pakistan military braces!

The thing about this conflict is it's very simple to look at this from a Hindu nationalist point of view.

According to them, the Kashmir Valley is part of India.

Insurgents, many of whom have ties to Pakistan, keep attacking Indian soldiers and civilians.

India demands that Pakistan do something about it, but the attacks keep happening.

Since he first took office, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a very hard hard line on Kashmiri insurgents and on Pakistan, and that is a position that's generally very popular with Indian voters.

But I think the interesting part of this story is from the other side of the disputed border.

Pakistan's motives are far more complex and unpredictable, and you'll see why in the next episode of If You're Listening.

If You're Listening is written by me, Matt Bevan.

Supervising producer is Cara Jensen-McKinnon.

Audio production is by Cinnamon Nipard.

Kashmir isn't the only thing that India is concerned about in their northwest.

If you want to hear more about their border skirmishes with China, check out our episode, Can India and China Bury the Hatchet from last September.

If you keep scrolling back, you'll also find all seven episodes of Aveni Diocese's Looking for Modi series.

I'll catch you next week.