More than a respite? A year of peace sparks hope along Kashmir border.

Sajad Ahmad and other villagers were huddled in an underground bunker in the mountain village of Gundishat when they heard a loud thud. The group was hiding from heavy mortar shelling the Indian and Pakistani armies were exchanging along the Line of Control (LoC), a 450-mile de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

When Mr. Ahmad emerged, he found houses reduced to rubble. His older neighbor, Mohammad Sidiq, was killed. That was in October 2019.

Two years later, on a breezy April evening, Mr. Ahmad points out a newly built cement house in the same spot where that mortar shell landed. There are several others like it under construction throughout Gundishat, and in other villages scattered along the LoC. These new houses signal hope as the border region experiences a rare period of peace. 

The villages situated along the LoC have long been caught in the crossfire of two nuclear-armed rivals. Although India and Pakistan agreed on a cease-fire nearly two decades ago, peace did not last long. From 2007 onward, cease-fire violations have been frequent on both sides, with small border communities bearing the brunt of the violence. In 2020 alone, India reported 5,100 violations by Pakistan and 36 deaths along the LoC, marking a 17-year high. But since military leaders recommitted to the cease-fire in February 2021, peace has held. In the absence of gunfire and mortar shelling, villagers say they’re starting to rebuild their lives and feel hopeful about the future. 

Although history suggests the peace is fragile, experts say there’s reason to hope, especially after Pakistan’s recent shift in leadership.

“It appears to me this truce is likely to hold for a long time, and this will pave the way for some positive developments between the two countries,” says Zafar Choudhary, a Kashmiri peace-building expert who’s participated in back channel dialogues.

Return to normalcy

In recent years, incidents of violence along the LoC increased as the relations between India and Pakistan turned hostile. There were over 3,200 cease-fire violations in 2019 — the year Delhi revoked Kashmir’s special autonomous status and brought the territory under the government’s direct control, a move that Islamabad condemned. Most casualties were civilians.

Gundishat resident Mohammad Maqbool shows a scarred hand and recalls how the splinters of a mortar shell hit him when he tried to flee during the October 2019 incident. “It was a warlike situation,” he says. “We can only hope there is no more shelling. I can’t explain what a relief last year has been.”

There have been a few cease-fire violations over the past 14 months, but nothing close to the scale of violence the LoC witnessed in the preceding years. Overall, the return of peace has meant a return to normalcy for villages located along the border. Reports show tourism is picking back up in remote villages, and farmers who’ve faced frequent displacement are finally returning to their fields. 

In the nearby village of Dragad, Kalam Din sits in a small green pasture where his goats and cattle graze. Formerly a porter for the Indian Army, Mr. Din became a farmer after he was hit in the chest by a bullet during a sudden spate of gunfire in June 1996. Mr. Din’s family depends on his earnings, but during the years of violence, he could not raise livestock. “For the last one and a half years, I have been able to work in the fields,” he says. “I know this is not enough, but it is better than before.”

As the guns and heavy artillery have fallen silent on both sides of the border, residents hope India and Pakistan will soon allow cross-LoC travel, tourism, and trade to resume, specifically the famous Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service. Suspended in 2019, the route was initially launched as a confidence-building measure and connected the respective capitals of India- and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Family respite

A couple miles from Dragad lies Teetwal, a village separated from Pakistan by the narrow Kishanganga River.

Elder resident Abdul Rahman has seen the two armies at war with each other his entire life, and one of his sons, Naseer, was killed by Pakistani snipers in 1995.

Whenever the two armies would engage in firing, their family would try to flee for safer places. “But all the villages here are a target of these armies,” he says. “It is like living in a bowl and the mortar shells fall in. Where can we run to?”

Mr. Rahman’s wife, Resham Jan, says life on the border has been especially unkind to children. “Every time there is a thud or a bang, children here run into houses,” she says. “They mistake every loud noise for a mortar shell.” 

The last year and a half has offered relief, says Mr. Rahman, but he hopes for more. Many of his relatives and friends live just over the river, in the village of Chilyana in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but for years, it’s been impossible to meet.

A small suspension bridge once connected Teetwal with the Chilyana village, one of five LoC crossing points that India and Pakistan opened in 2005 to allow separated Kashmiri families to reconnect. But it’s been closed off since 2018 due to increased tensions on the border.

“If this peace lasts, maybe the bridge will be reopened,” Mr. Rahman says as he sits on a green pasture, overlooking the bridge. On one end, the flags of Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir flutter in the wind, while the Indian flag waves on the other. As the villages around it come back to life, the barricaded bridge remains quiet. 

Path to progress

Experts agree that the lack of shelling alone won’t be enough to build lasting peace – but it is a step in the right direction. Sustaining the cease-fire and making larger moves toward peace, such as opening the Chilyana-Teetwal bridge or resuming Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, will take political will from both countries.

Manoj Joshi, a former member of India’s national security task force, says the ongoing truce could benefit the India-Pakistan relationship, but it’s still very delicate. He notes how, in the past, cease-fire violations were often used as an excuse by Pakistan to send militants across the border, leading to more violence. 

“Infiltration [across the LoC] is down to historical lows,” he says. “It all depends on Pakistan. If they intend to cut infiltration and slowly end it, [the cease-fire] could last a long time.”

There are signs that Pakistan’s current administration is invested in maintaining peace. The newly appointed prime minister’s recent offer to hold talks with India and its army chief’s call to resolve disputes with India through dialogue signal their intent to resume diplomatic ties, says defense expert and editor of Force Magazine, Pravin Sawhney. Reports also suggest India and Pakistan could soon reinstate high commissioners in each other’s capitals, three years after Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties with India for changing Kashmir’s autonomous status.

“Now whether India accepts that, only that will determine how it will go forward,” says Mr. Sawhney. 

Back in Gundishat, villagers say many of those who had migrated to other parts of Kashmir because of the shelling have now returned home. When asked what the yearlong calm along the LoC feels like, 60-year-old Khalid Mohammad breaks into a grin. “Tell me,” he says, “what does this smile mean?”