What went wrong? To be sure, India’s only Muslim-majority state is also its most volatile. In a decade of separatist fighting, police say more than 25,000 people have been killed in Kashmir. India accuses Pakistan of arming and funding the separatist rebels; Pakistan says it provides only encouragement, not materiel. But the ceasefire’s quick collapse may indicate widening differences within Pakistan’s ruling junta. It also comes as a setback to recent U.S. efforts to stabilize South Asia, which President Clinton has called “the most dangerous region in the world,” now that both India and Pakistan possess nuclear capability. The renewed bloodshed proves just how apt that description remains.
