Kashmir, a 222,236 sq km region in the northwestern Indian subcontinent, is surrounded by China in the northeast, the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab in the south, by Pakistan in the west, and by Afghanistan in the northwest.
One portion of Kashmir is called Jammu and Kashmir and the other, Pakistani-controlled part of the region is known as Azad Kashmir. The Kashmir Valley is one of the most fertile lands on the planet, thick with rich pine and cedar forests and covered in rice paddies, hemp and saffron, apple and apricot orchards and walnut trees. "Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashemere," wrote the Irish poet Thomas Moore in 1817, "with its roses the brightest that earth ever gave." Kashmir is so breathtaking in physical beauty that Mugal emperors in the 16th and 17th century considered it “an earthly paradise”.
If Kashmir was a paradise under the Mugals, it's been nothing of the sort since the middle part of the 20th century (unfortunately). The region has been dubbed "disputed territory" between India and Pakistan since the partition of India in 1947. Although, during partition, the agreement was that any areas more than 70% Muslim would go to Pakistan. Kashmir has more than 90% Muslims and therefore clearly should have been part of Pakistan, but Kashmir was split, with two-thirds going to India and a third going to Pakistan, even though India's share was predominantly Muslim. Due to this integrity, Muslims rebelled. India repressed them and again war broke out. 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 second war over Kashmir, never declared, broke out on Aug. 15, 1965 and lasted un...
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I am a common man and I have nothing to do with politics. I know only one thing that my Muslim Kashmiri brothers are in problem and that needs to be solved. From back of my heart I want Kashmir to be a part of Pakistan. But again we don’t want to force our will on Kashmiri people. Whatever they will decide Pakistani nation will accept. I don’t know when Indian Government will let them decide. The people of Kashmir should come out and pressurize their respective Government to resolve this bleeding issue once and for all. At last the moral is that Kashmiris should be allowed to choose their own destiny. Enough blood has been spilled already. India is the belligerent one here to the point of embarrassment. But all belligerent nations have had to eat the humble pie at some point. We are in no doubt that ultimately Kashmiris would be the final arbiter of their destiny.
The Partition of India led to millions of people displaced and marked as one of the largest mass migration ever over the world. August 15, 1947 was a very significant day for Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and many others. It marked the day of the British partition of India, and India won its freedom from colonial rule, ending nearly 200 years of British rule. This successful attainment of independence from colonial rule defined a narrative of religious nationalism, but also has led to displacement and violence between the two nation states of India and Pakistan. Once a peaceful union of Muslims and Hindus had become separated, whereas Muslims got Pakistan and Hindus got an independent India (Best et al, 2008). “The Other Side of Silence” (Butalia, 2000, pp.264-300) the oral testimony of a Punjabi woman Maya Rani, who was a child living in Pakistan during the Partition. Her testimony was crucial to understand the historiography of the event, because she was a witness of the impact of the Partition, but she was not directly involved in the violence that the emergence and independence of India that has brought.
The primary focus of this tension arises from a common area – Kashmir/Jammu. The conflict in this region can be accredited to the differences in religion. The conflict in Kashmir stems from 1947. This was the year the partition of the Indian sub-continent occurred. However, this partition of land was based on approximate religious lines created by the British empirical rule, when they allowed the princes of 650 states to choose which country they would join. In theory, these princes had the option of remaining independent, but that option was stamped out due to the revolts of the people living in those states. Kashmir was ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh. Because of its location, it could choose to join either country; however, Hari Singh remained neutral. His choice was eventually ignored in 1947, when Pakistan deployed Muslim tribesmen to capture the capital. At this point, Hari Singh freaked out and asked India for military assistance against Pakistan. In return, Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession and ceded Kashmir to India on October 26, 1927. As we can see, the main reason for this conflict is religion. There are some non-religious reasons for this conflict; however, those reasons eventually tie back to religion in one way or another. One of these "non-religious" reasons relates to the recent development of nuclear weapons in both India and Pakistan. While nuclear weapons add to the terror in the area, their development was a result of conflict between India and Pakistan. This conflict has a...
Edin, Peter. "1947 the Birth of India & Pakistan." New York Times Up Front. 30 Jan 2012: 16-
During the Cold War, many regional conflicts occurred and were noted as the significant battles which later led to decolonization. One of the regional conflicts were India and Pakistan fighting for their independence. In 1947, India was released under Great Britain’s control and gained its independence. However, the country was divided between Muslims and Hindus, which share different religions. Muslims wanted church and state to become unified while Hindus wanted a separation of these two establishments. Since these two ethnic groups disagreed, it was difficult to create a new government. Therefore, India was divided into two nations: India for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims. Hindus and Muslims were racing to the border in order to get to their nation state which led to killing 500,000 people due to rioting. Although, Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian National Congressman, wanted to obtain peace between these two religions. Pakistan refused the H...
Indian sub-continent was a British colony for close to two hundred years. After the Second World War faced with intense independence movement in India led my Mohandas Gandhi, the British government decided to leave India. As the British left India, they broke the subcontinent into different countries based mainly on religion and ethnicity. The countries were, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan (Picture of Indian subcontinent). Among the countries, Pakistan was created with unique setting. It had two wings, East and West Pakistan separated by one thousand miles of Indian Territory (Picture of East and West Pakistan). Only thing that bound the people in East and West Pakistan was their religion, Islam. They had different culture, different language, and different history.
Kashmir is conflict territory after the partition of India and Pakistan. Conflict is not only between India and Pakistan but also India and the religious militants. Religious Militants are conducting a jihad to govern by the religious law. Historically, Kashmir included Sufis Muslim not orthodox Muslim. Numerous international events had influenced in the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Kashmir. Jihad is not originally from Kashmir but they are foreign militancy bought during the end of the Soviet –Afghanistan War. Additionally, they are trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan Inter service Intelligence helped them to incorporate into organized militant groups. Pakistan helped Jihad group with full moral, political and diplomatically. Even though Kashmir conflict is territorial issue it has also turned into religious conflict by the foreigner militant.
After its “raj” for three centuries (1757-1947), in 1947, the British power was “transferred” to the two dominions, India and Pakistan. The former land was as the successor state of British India and Pakistan a second successor state. The price of the independence was the partition of continental India on the idea of communal majority principle of the “two-nation” theory theorized by the Muslim League. The partition of British India was a turning point because it left many questions unanswered and many conflicts unresolved. One question left elusive was, “Why did indepen...
In the late 1940s, when the two competing nationalist for India and Pakistani failed to reach accommodation, Britain decided to partition its Indian empire (Wirsing 22). The role of dividing the empire was on the hands of a British representative (Viceroy Lord Mountbatten). He facilitated creation of a Muslim subcontinent, Pakistani. The state of Pakistani was formed with two flanks (eastern and western) separated by 1500 miles of the new states of India (Wirsing 22). The main aim was to establish a region to be occupied by Muslims in the British India. The origins of Indo-Pakistani conflict over the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir are complex, rooted in the process of British colonial withdrawal from the sub-continent (Wirsing 22). Kashmir posed a distinct problem (Wirsing 22), and from the time it was established there have been serial conflicts.
The history of Indo-Pakistani relations has been a dominated by turbulence and bitter rivalry. After the partition in 1947, millions of people migrated to their new home in either the Islamic state of Pakistan or the secular state of India. Only two weeks after independence, India and Pakistan fought a war over Kashmir in 1948. India and Pakistan fought two more wars with each other in 1965 and 1971, with the latter resulting in the creation of Bangladesh. Since then, India and Pakistan have had very hard feelings against each other due to numerous Hindu-Muslim conflicts, the territorial dispute over Kashmir, and other bilateral tensions.
The most threatening conflict between Hindus and Muslims is the province of Kashmir. This is where the decision to divide India into India and Pakistan seems to have been a terrible mistake. Kashmir, which is the only Muslim majority city in India, lies between the divided India and Pakistan. After India’s independence in the 1940’s, Kashmir had to choose to either unite with India or Pakistan. The Prince of Kashmir chose India but Pakistan invaded the province soon after and have occupied part of Kashmir since then. Controversy still surrounds the province today because naturally, Muslims want to control it. While many Muslims relocated to Pakistan and the Hindus to India, half of the Muslim population was left in India and their relations did not improve after being partially separated.
Hindus of India and Muslims of Pakistan have fought for land and power over the centuries, as each culture has attempted to spread their beliefs. This has led to India and Pakistan violently attempting to take control of the Kashmir region to reap the benefits of its vital resources. The conflict between these two countries has been tense since the Partition of British India in 1947, creating an independent India. As borders were determined, the Muslim and Hindu region of Kashmir was an area that India and Pakistan both wanted to control, making it nearly impossible to come to a peaceful solution. The situation has carried over to present day, as people struggle to survive in a war that should not be fought. In modern society, there should be a way to solve the issue, but the situation continues to become more complex with increa...
Athwass in its spirit and essence mirrors the ethos of Kashmir, which, for centuries, has represented peace, nonviolence and brotherhood of man (Kaul, 2012). Since 1989, the low-intensity conflict in Jammu and Kashmir has been the most important issue in India's internal security scenario. Possession of the State of Kashmir has been an issue of dispute since 1947 starting with India and Pakistan. After tw...
The Republic of India is located in South Asia. India is home to one of the world´s largest populations and is known to be one of the oldest civilizations. These two factors have contributed for the development of rich cultural heritage and diversity, making it a big tourist attraction. However, this diversity has caused serious problems among the people, especially with the different religious views and beliefs.
Lawrence Auster wrote an eye-opening blog excerpt titled India and Pakistan: Why the Mass Killing Occurred. The content of this excerpt explore the fundamental issues of identity and religion that led to the violence in 1947. The author makes his point by utilizing current event such as the train massacre in 2002, in which 50 Hindu women and children were burned alive. The blog is for an audience with some prior knowledge on the topic and continues to expand upon that knowledge. The blog is a secondary source because it introduces its own unique ideas regarding the issue and was written after the time of the event. It was very helpful to my research because it simplifies the wordy information often found on scholarly sites and condenses it into something comprehensible and relatable to the reader.
In his book “India and Pakistan – Continued Conflict and Cooperation?”, Wolpert gives his latest analysis by briefly tracing the history of the conflict and by emphasizing on the issue of Kashmir for which, after more than six decades, there is no solution in sight. He also mentions the various national and international initiatives to solve this conflict and explains why these initiatives have always failed. The most realistic and pragmatic solution to the problem, according to Wolpert, is for Pakistan and India to agree on the current Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir as International border, because he believes that no attempt to hand over