India and Pakistan: Peace Representations

Lord Hussain Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Hussain]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the governments of India and Pakistan to bring about peace between the two countries, including with regard to Kashmir and the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, we are starting slightly late, so we will go on to 5.02 pm.

[Lord Hussain (LD)]

My Lords, I will begin by reminding your Lordships that the issue of Kashmir is the oldest dispute in the history of the United Nations and has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan since their independence. According to United Nations resolutions in 1948-49 and many subsequent ones, both countries agreed to hold a ceasefire, withdraw their military and help the UN Commission hold a plebiscite. As a result, the ceasefire took place, but the plebiscite did not, hence the state was divided between the two countries, with both claiming the entire area. Both countries have been to war several times over this, but Kashmir remains unresolved and divided.

The human rights situation in the state, particularly in the Indian-controlled part, started deteriorating from day one. With time, Kashmir has become the biggest militarised zone in the world, with 900,000 military and paramilitary personnel operating with complete impunity under the Indian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. According to renowned international human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN Commission on Human Rights and Genocide Watch, more than 100,000 people have been killed, with many more injured, and thousands are held in detention centres and prisons in Kashmir and other parts of India.

The Indian Army is reported to be involved in illegal detentions, torture, extrajudicial killing, rape, fake encounters and enforced disappearances, while more than 3,000 mass graves have been identified. The Amnesty International report, A ‘Lawless Law’ illustrates a catalogue of cases where individuals were subjected to repeated use of draconian laws such as the Public Safety Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, detaining them in custody from two years to more than 30 years. The victims of a widely publicised case of gang rape in the remote village of Kunan Poshpora, where more than 100 women and girls were reported to have been raped by the Rajputana Rifles 68th Mountain Brigade of the Indian Army, are still waiting for justice.

Prominent Kashmiri leaders Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru were hanged and buried in New Delhi’s Tihar prison, while Mirwaiz Mohammed Farooq, Ashfaq Majeed Wani, Burhan Wani and many others were shot dead, and 90 year-old Ali Gilani died under house arrest. Other prominent leaders, including Shabir Shah, Yasin Malik, Asiya Andrabi and dozens of others have spent most of their adult lives in torture cells, detention centres and prisons.

In its reports of 2018 and 2019, the UN Commission on Human Rights asked for free access to both sides of the state to investigate all the reports of human rights abuses, but India has refused to co-operate. Instead, the Indian Government unilaterally abrogated sections 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution, which gave some internal autonomy and preserved the state’s Muslim identity. According to a 2019 Genocide Watch report, Kashmir is at the brink of genocide.

With this grim picture of India’s human rights record in Kashmir, all 1 million British Kashmiris are dismayed to know that the British Government are not even prepared to include a human rights clause in our free trade agreement with India. Many call this double standards. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what more must happen in terms of human rights abuses in Kashmir to convince the British Government to include human rights in our free trade agreement with India. When was the last time our Government raised human rights in Kashmir with their Indian counterparts?

Recent India-Pakistan military clashes started after a massacre of tourists in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, which killed 26 innocent tourists. This was a cowardly act of terror, and it received international condemnation. India blamed Pakistan-based insurgent groups for the attack, an allegation Pakistan disputed. It is reported to have offered full co-operation in any joint or international investigation, but India instead announced Operation Sindoor to hit what it called “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

Soon after this terror attack, India closed its border with Pakistan, stopping bilateral trade and unilaterally suspending the Indus Waters Treaty. The treaty was signed in 1960 to regulate the management of the Indus river basin, which is important for supplying both countries with water for irrigation and hydropower. Those tensions turned into a conflict between 6 and 10 May 2025. India and Pakistan conducted a series of military strikes that saw the countries strike deep into each other’s territory, and civilians and soldiers killed on both sides of the line of control.

One of these Indian strikes hit a residential area in my parental town of Kotli in Azad Kashmir, where some of my close relatives escaped very narrowly, while two of their neighbours were not so lucky and were killed while asleep in their homes. The scale of the recent conflict took many international observers by surprise, leading to fears of further escalation between two countries which both possess nuclear weapons.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, this is the first time India and Pakistan have engaged in drone warfare in their rivalry, indicating a new era of technological conflict in the region. Similarly, the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada noted how close the conflict came to sensitive sites in both countries, including nuclear command and control installations.

International mediation, including the British Foreign Secretary and American President Donald Trump, who offered to help resolve disputes, including the Kashmir issue, and greater trade with both countries, secured a ceasefire on 10 May 2025. Despite that ceasefire agreement, according to Al Jazeera on 22 June 2025, the Indian Home Minister Amit Shah reportedly said that India would “never” restore the Indus Waters Treaty and that the water flowing there would be diverted for internal use. Pakistan has previously suggested that any such move would breach the terms of the treaty and would constitute an act of war. Using water as a weapon of war is a highly dangerous and inhumane act. Water is a lifeline for the people of Pakistan and any attempt by India to disrupt the water supply would have serious consequences. Hence, I ask the British Government to use their friendly relations with India to encourage it to restore the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan to avoid any future conflict on this issue.

The ceasefire agreement of 10 May 2025 is hugely welcomed by all, but the world has seen many ceasefires signed by both countries in the past, with commitments to resolve disputes—including Kashmir—peacefully, and they have never reached an agreement for the past 78 years. I therefore believe that third-party mediation is the only way to get the leadership of both countries to sit down and agree on a settlement, taking the aspirations of the people of Kashmir on board. The road to long-lasting and sustainable peace in the region goes through Kashmir. As long as this open wound keeps bleeding, any prospect of peace in the region will remain pie in the sky.

The majority of the people in India, Pakistan and Kashmir want peace. Now that the US President has made the offer to help to resolve the Kashmir issue to bring peace, stability and prosperity in the region, countries such as Britain must seize this opportunity and join these efforts to bring a solution to this issue that is acceptable to India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir. Finally, I ask the Minister whether the British Government would join the mediation efforts to bring peace between India and Pakistan.