Issue of Kashmir between India and Pakistan

Kashmir

Kashmir, officially referred to as Jammu and Kashmir, is an 86,000-square-mile region (about the size of Idaho) in northwest India and northeast Pakistan so breathtaking in physical beauty that Mugal or Moghul emperors in the 16th and 17th century considered it an earthly paradise. The region has been violently disputed by India and Pakistan since their 1947 partition, which created Pakistan as the Muslim 

History of Kashmir

After centuries of Hindu and Buddhist rule, Muslim Moghul emperors took control of Kashmir in the 15th century, converted to population to Islam and incorporated it into the Moghul empire. Islamic Moghul rule should not be confused with modern forms of authoritarian Islamic regimes. The Moghul empire, characterized by the likes of Akbar the Great (1542-1605) embodied Enlightenment ideals of tolerance and pluralism a century before the rise of the European Enlightenment. (Moghuls left their mark on the subsequent Sufi-inspired form of Islam that dominated the subcontinent in India and Pakistan, before the rise of more jihadist-inspired Islamist mullahs.)

Afghan invaders followed the Moghuls in the 18th century, who were themselves driven out by Sikhs from Punjab. Britain invaded in the 19th century and sold the entire Kashmir Valley for half a million rupees (or three rupees per Kashmiri) to the brutal repressive ruler of Jammu, the Hindu Gulab Singh. It was under Singh that the Kashmir Valley became part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The 1947 India-Pakistan Partition and Kashmir

India and Pakistan were partitioned in 1947.

Kashmir was split as well, with two-thirds going to India and a third going to Pakistan, even though India's share was predominantly Muslim, like Pakistan. Muslims rebelled. India repressed them. War broke out. It wasn't settled until a 1949 cease-fire brokered by the United Nations and a resolution calling for a referendum, or plebiscite, allowing Kashmiris to decide their future for themselves. India has never implemented the resolution.

Instead, India has maintained what amounts to an occupying army in Kashmir, cultivating more resentment from the locals than fertile agricultural products. Modern India's founders, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, both had Kashmiri roots, which partially explains India's attachment to the region.

To India, "Kashmir for the Kashmiris" means nothing. Indian leaders' standard line is that Kashmir is "an integral part" of India.

In 1965, India and Pakistan fought their second of three major wars since 1947 over Kashmir. The United States was largely to blame for setting the stage for war.

The cease-fire three weeks later was not substantial beyond a demand that both sides put down their arms and a pledge to send international observers to Kashmir. Pakistan renewed its call for a referendum by Kashmir's mostly Muslim population of 5 million to decide the region's future, in accordance with a 1949 UN resolution. India continued to resist conducting such a plebiscite.

The 1965 war, in sum, settled nothing and merely put off future conflicts.