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Biman Mukherji

Seven words, spoken almost in passing on a recent afternoon in Srinagar, have set off a diplomatic tremor across South Asia.
“This is an important part of India,” Sergio Gor told reporters on August 19, during the first visit by a US ambassador to Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in six years.
Within hours, Pakistan had summoned the top American diplomat in Islamabad, Natalie Baker, to deliver a formal protest.
Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, has been the casus belli for no fewer than three wars between the nuclear-armed arch-rivals, as well as numerous other skirmishes and border stand-offs since their independence and partition in 1947.

India now administers the populous central and southern Kashmir valley, while Pakistan controls a western portion of the region known as Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Washington’s long-standing official line has been that Kashmir’s status remains unresolved and should be settled bilaterally.
In New Delhi, Gor’s remark was welcomed by some as a sign that the United States might be edging closer to India’s position. For Islamabad, it had the look of Washington abandoning decades of studied neutrality on one of the world’s most combustible border disputes.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry called Gor’s statement “irresponsible” and “factually incorrect”, while an Indian foreign ministry spokesman told local media in response that he saw “no reason to comment on Pakistan’s frustration”.
Slip or strategy?
Analysts were divided on how much weight the US envoy’s comment should carry, but few who spoke to This Week in Asia thought it was accidental.
Vivek Mishra, deputy director of strategic studies at the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi, read it as “subtle messaging” aimed squarely at Pakistan: a reminder that Washington’s support was not unconditional.
He said Jammu and Kashmir’s trajectory had been “largely peaceful and development-oriented” in recent years, contrasting it with this summer’s unrest in the Pakistan-administered part of the region, where security forces have clashed violently with protesters demanding governance reform and relief from inflation.
India revoked the decades-old special autonomy of the part of Kashmir it administers in 2019, bringing it under the direct control of the central government. This move was initially followed by protests and intense security lockdowns, but has since led to a boom in domestic tourism and infrastructure spending.


A deadly militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir last year that Delhi blamed on Islamabad triggered a four-day conflict involving direct cross-border missile and air strikes from which the region has been slowly recovering.
For Priyajit Debsarkar, a London-based South Asia analyst, Gor’s remark was more than a diplomatic slip. He framed it as a “change of stance by a senior American representative” that showed Washington was “probably not happy” with the ceasefires in the US-Israel war on Iran that Pakistan had helped broker.
Debsarkar suggested that it was “only natural that the US should do a course correction” by acknowledging India’s position “especially in the security paradigm of cross-border terrorism” – noting that the two countries “have a lot of confluence of values, trade and people-to-people contact”. Gor’s dual role as special envoy for South and Central Asia lent the remark added weight, he said.

But not every Washington watcher is convinced. South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman of the Atlantic Council think tank cautioned against reading too much into the remark – attributing it instead to Gor’s own “one-man mission to strengthen a sputtering relationship” since arriving in Delhi in January.
“By saying Kashmir is an ‘important part of India’, he was giving it a handsome compliment,” Kugelman wrote in the Indian Express newspaper.
Gor’s visit and his suggestion that the US might downgrade its travel advisory to Kashmir – praising authorities for making “some incredible steps in keeping this area safer and making it more safe” – were welcomed by some as an American vote of confidence in the region’s recovery.

Mishra predicted it would “boost business sentiment”, regardless of what it did or did not mean for US foreign policy.
Yet some of the same analysts who saw intent in Gor’s words were also careful to frame them as an adjustment in tone, not doctrine.
Harsh Ramaswamy, an independent political commentator, suspects there is a transactional layer beneath the diplomatic one.
Officially, nothing has changed. There has been no formal statement from the US State Department and India’s foreign ministry declined to engage directly with Pakistan’s protest.

Ramaswamy said Gor’s remark might have been Washington testing the political waters on Kashmir even as it worked on a very different negotiation: a bilateral trade deal that the ambassador said in June was just steps away from completion.
Gor had been consistently upbeat about ties since taking up his post, Mishra said, though progress on a deal was slower than his optimism suggested.
“We have been hearing that a trade deal is around the corner,” Mishra said, but “the Trump administration has not been budging from some negotiating points and neither has India”.
What is clear to observers is that both sides appear to be working to repair a relationship bruised by trade friction and by Washington’s recent warmth towards India’s regional rival.
Gor announced on Monday that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio would return to India in October, his second visit since May – a trip Mishra believes could be laying the diplomatic groundwork for a long-awaited visit to India by President Donald Trump himself.
Neither Rubio nor Trump has made any such visit to Pakistan in an official capacity.


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US envoy’s Kashmir ‘part of India’ remark rattles Pakistan ties

A paramilitary policeman waves India’s national flag in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir, on the eve of Independence Day celebrations this month. Photo: Reuters

US ambassador to India, Sergio Gor (centre, right), talks to the media as he arrives to meet Jammu and Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah (centre, left) in Srinagar on August 19. Photo: AP

A paramilitary policeman waves India’s national flag in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir, on August 14, the eve of the country’s Independence Day celebrations. Photo: Reuters

Shia Muslim devotees set the national flags of the United States, India and Israel US on fire during a religious procession in Karachi, Pakistan, earlier this month. Photo: AFP

A vendor steers his fruit-laden boat across the waters of Dal Lake in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, on August 18. Photo: EPA

US President Donald Trump shakes hands with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting as part of the G7 summit in France on June 17. Photo: AFP

Sergio Gor talks to the media as he arrives to meet Jammu and Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in Srinagar on August 19. Photo: EPA

US ambassador Sergio Gor looks out from a vehicle in Srinagar on August 19. Photo: EPA

Indian police and paramilitary soldiers stand guard during a protest in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir, on August 24. Photo: EPA

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A masked Kashmiri protester jumps on the bonnet of an armoured Indian police vehicle during a May 2019 demonstration in Srinagar. Photo: AP

Masked Kashmiris shout slogans during a protest after Friday prayers on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Oct. 4, 2019. The image was part of a series of photographs by Associated Press photographers which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Indian army soldiers stand in front of a mosque at the site of a gunbattle at Meej Pampore area of Pulwama district, south of Srinagar on June 19, 2020. - Indian forces have killed eight militants in restive Kashmir, including two who hid in a mosque, officials said on June 19, as New Delhi escalates counter-insurgency efforts in the disputed territory. (Photo by Tauseef MUSTAFA / AFP)

An Indian Air Force aircraft is seen against the backdrop of mountains surrounding Leh, the joint capital of the union territory of Ladakh, on June 27, 2020. - India acknowledged for the first time on June 25 that it has matched China in massing troops at their contested Himalayan border region after a deadly clash this month. (Photo by TAUSEEF MUSTAFA / AFP)

Kashmiri villagers run for cover as policemen chase them away after firing teargas at them during a protest against the killing of a civilian in Makhama village, west of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, May 13, 2020. Indian soldiers fatally shot the young man at a checkpoint in the Himalayan region of Kashmir on Wednesday, residents and officials said, triggering anti-India protests and clashes in the disputed region. India's Central Reserve Police Force said the man was driving a car and ignored signals to stop at two checkpoints in the western outskirts of Srinagar, the region's main city. The victim's father, Ghulam Nabi Shah, denied the police account, saying his son did not drive through any checkpoints, and that soldiers first stopped him and then shot him. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin)

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Whether a slip or a calculated trade tactic, Sergio Gor’s remark upended decades of studied American neutrality on Kashmir


Whether a slip or a calculated trade tactic, Sergio Gor’s remark upended decades of studied American neutrality on Kashmir.


US envoy’s Kashmir ‘part of India’ remark rattles Pakistan ties

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Whether a slip or a calculated trade tactic, Sergio Gor’s remark upended decades of studied American neutrality on Kashmir

Whether a slip or a calculated trade tactic, Sergio Gor’s remark upended decades of studied American neutrality on Kashmir