The impact of these events will surely spill over into 2020

Four events in 2019 portend profound changes in the future of India and Pakistan, neighboring nations umbilically tied by a very complex past. The impact of these events will surely spill over into 2020.
India, shaking off its ‘soft state’ image, sent war planes inside Pakistan to bomb what it alleged were jihadi training camps from which the Pulwama terror attack on February 14, 2019 – which killed 44 Indian soldiers – had been launched.

Delhi followed this up by removing Kashmir’s special status and integrating the state fully with the nation’s mainstream, in a stunning political manoeuvre.

Pakistan, a champion of the cause of Kashmir’s freedom from India, was far from looking at this positively.

In Pakistan, 2019 was the year the might of its military establishment was challenged. The country’s Supreme Court denied a three-year extension to Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa (Though later Pakistan’s National Assembly passed bills to extend Bajwa’s tenure).

Also, an Islamabad court sentenced former army chief and president Pervez Musharraf to death for treason. Even though the Pakistani government is to back Musharraf’s appeal, it’s symbolic of the erosion of the military’s grip on the country.

These verdicts leave an invisible noose hanging over Pakistan’s military headquarters and its real power centre, Rawalpindi.