  Between February 14, 2019 and March 4, 2019, a terrorist attack in Pulwama,
Kashmir followed by retaliatory airstrikes led to rising tensions between India
and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed countries. In this work, we examine polarizing
messaging on Twitter during these events, particularly focusing on the
positions of Indian and Pakistani politicians. We use a label propagation
technique focused on hashtag co-occurrences to find polarizing tweets and
users. Our analysis reveals that politicians in the ruling political party in
India (BJP) used polarized hashtags and called for escalation of conflict more
so than politicians from other parties. Our work offers the first analysis of
how escalating tensions between India and Pakistan manifest on Twitter and
provides a framework for studying polarizing messages.
