MADRAS, India -- At a time when the world needs it the least, India and Pakistan appear to be inching toward armed conflict.
On March 23, Islamic fundamentalists massacred 24 Hindu men, women and children in Kashmir's Nadimarg village. A sleepy little place, Nadimarg had a Hindu population of 52. Twenty-four were wiped out in a bloody slaughter that has rocked Kashmir, a region claimed by both India and Pakistan.
Despite a new government in Kashmir that appeared to have gotten violence somewhat under control, the latest killings indicate that Muslim militancy, backed by Pakistan with or without the connivance of the country's military dictator, President Pervez Musharraf, is set to follow a predictable pattern. As the snow melts in Kashmir in spring, insurgency and infiltration across the border between the two hostile and nuclear armed neighbors will increase.