Territorial disputes have been the impetus for almost every war and conflict in the human experience. Adding the ever-volatile issues of religion and politics to the matter only serves to exacerbate an already tense situation. This is the state of affairs in Kashmir, which has already brought Pakistan and India to full-fledged war three times in their brief history. The acquisition of nuclear capabilities and delivery mechanisms for these weapons of mass destruction has turned this from a localized disagreement into a matter of international concern. Over the past fifty-plus years the situation in Kashmir has only worsened. With each new round of violence, whether internal or cross-border, each side in the conflict retrenches even deeper into its long-held political and strategic positions. The fact that Pakistan is now under military rule and India’s ruling party seems to be moving toward the right to solidify its base only bodes ill for the situation. No Pakistani or Indian leader could hope to maintain power after conceding even an inch on the issue. Ayub Khan learned this the hard way in the early 1960s. While the world waits for a resolution to the issue, the violence and tension in Kashmir have reached a historical zenith.

            The long history between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority of the Indian subcontinent stretches back several centuries into the reign of the Mughal emperors. This Muslim empire ruled India for several centuries, sometimes by peace, sometimes by coercion. While some rulers “chose to eliminate the distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims…[and] recognized the benefits of integration, [others were] reviled by Hindus for the suffering…imposed on people of the Hindu faith”[i]. While people of both religions had lived in India peacefully before the Mughals’ arrival, the new rulers were not natives of the subcontinent and brought with them a great deal of change. Many Hindus converted to Islam in order to gain favor with the new leadership. Some Mughal emperors even tolerated occasional pogroms against Hindus and it was these memories of strife that sowed the seeds of tension between people of the two faiths. The British eventually replaced the Mughals in the mid-18^th century and in living together under the rule of a different race, Muslims and Hindus were brought closer than ever before. However the religious pride and identities of each group would not allow this unity to last after the British reign ended.

Before Indian independence was achieved, it had been agreed after much debate that a separate state would be created for the Muslim minority on the subcontinent. The nation of Pakistan was created in regions that were predominantly Muslim while India would comprise areas that were majority Hindu. This partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 was an exceptionally violent affair. As millions of Hindus and Muslims migrated from one area to the other, seemingly small tiffs burst into widespread conflagrations and religiously motivated violence as centuries of built-up animosity was released during these painful days. Ultimately peace was restored as India and Pakistan were established as separate countries.

The issue of Kashmir was left unresolved. Though the region had a Muslim majority, its ruler was Hindu and decided to side with India. While he wavered over this decision, Kashmir faced an incursion from the Pakistani side of the border as well as an internal uprising. The fighting dragged from 1947 to 1948 and a ceasefire was declared at the beginning of 1949. Ultimately Kashmir ratified accession to India, though Pakistan disputes the legitimacy of this as it called (and still does) for the people of Kashmir to decide their own fate through a referendum. This has never occurred and casts a shadow of doubt across India’s claim to legitimate control of the territory.

            The two nations lived in relative peace for the next decade as each went about establishing infrastructure and other basics of a new society. The nations even went so far as to sign the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960[ii], which established irrigation protocols for the Punjab region that existed on either side of the Indo-Pak border. However this was a high point of diplomacy between the two nations during this era. As tension between China and India grew after the 1959 occupation of Tibet, “an entente between Pakistan and China evolved in inverse ratio to Sino-Indian hostility, which climaxed in a border war in 1962”[iii]. This led to a degradation of the tranquility between Pakistan and India. The 1965 war between the two “started as a series of border flare-ups along undemarcated territory at the Rann of Kutch in the southeast in April and soon after along the cease-fire line in Kashmir”[iv]. The latter conflict is where the crux of the war was fought as “Pakistan had planned to organise a ‘Kashmir Revolt Day’ on August 9, 1965…[and] in September Pakistani and Indian troops crossed the partition line between the two countries and launched air assaults on each other's cities”[v]. The eventual ceasefire left things unchanged in Kashmir but had dire consequences for Pakistan’s political scene. The turmoil and strife caused by the war led to rampant protesting and rioting in both East and West Pakistan. Ultimately martial law was declared in 1969 as Gen. Yahya Khan replaced Ayub Khan as president.

The problems of civil unrest in East Pakistan were much more acute than those in West Pakistan. The former felt it was being treated as second-class at the behest of the latter. Calls for independence and self-rule began to ring from the East and the Pakistani Army moved to quell the insurgence. However the brutal tactics they used led to “an immense flood of East Pakistani refugees, between 8 and 10 million… across the border into the Indian state of West Bengal”[vi]. The Indian government resolved to aid the East Pakistanis, in what was partially motivated by moral conviction and also political practicality. The Pakistani Army could not hold off the Indians and the East Pakistani separatists so far from supplies and ultimately surrendered with remarkably little resistance, resulting in the creation of the state now known as Bangladesh. The war ended with India and Pakistan signing the Simla Accord, which

committed both sides to working through outstanding issues bilaterally…In relation to Jammu and Kashmir, the two countries agreed that the ceasefire line, which was renamed the Line of Control, would be respected by both sides ‘without prejudice to the recognized positions of either side.’ [vii]

India has since claimed that the Simla Accord closed the issue of territory disputes in Kashmir, as per the last sentence of the above quote. The situation on the ground is clearly different as a simple sentence is not enough to answer the persistent question.

            Following 1971, there was another period of rapprochement as “the 1980s had seen some diplomatic discussions aimed at resolving outstanding difference, between India and Pakistan”[viii]. In addition, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 turned Pakistan’s attention to the east, as there was belief that the fall of Afghanistan would be the opening gambit of the USSR’s attempt to secure a warm-water port in Pakistan. As a Cold War-tinged conflict, the US wanted to aid any side opposing the USSR. Mujahideen, or holy warriors, poured into Pakistan from all over the Muslim world in order to help their Afghani compatriots. The CIA began training them with the help of Pakistan’s military secret service, the ISI.

The US overlooked one consideration when instructing these soldiers, which was their religious fanaticism. The extreme brand of Islam that has engendered many terrorist groups was born in the CIA-funded madrassahs in the border provinces of Pakistan and on the Afghan battlefield during the conflict with the Soviets. The remarkable fervor that these mujahideen brought to the conflict was much more complex than it first appeared. In the US’s Cold War mentality, it believed anything that was against the Soviets could be used to harm the enemy. However the “holy warriors” believed in a brand of Islam that called for a return to its roots and necessarily was opposed not only to atheistic communism, but also to what was seen as the indulgent morality and pomposity of the West. With the wounds of colonialism still healing, many of the mujahideen saw any outside influence as an enemy. The fact that the USSR was the antagonist at that moment did not mean that the US could not become another. This eventually became the case after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the US’s heavy-handedness in the Middle East. The reversal of Islamic fundamentalist sentiment against America has been termed “blowback” and is perhaps the most insidious problem created by the US’s shortsighted Cold War foreign policy. The effects of blowback are not localized or concentrated on the US either. The mujahideen took the training they received and have set up organizations all across the globe. From the Philippines to Chechnya to Kashmir and beyond, US-trained Islamic fundamentalists have become a new scourge.

Throughout the decade the fighting in Afghanistan worsened and the constant warfare and devastation that this brought about has persisted to the present. However the issue of Kashmir stayed relatively calm as Pakistan and India even made several attempts to solve the issue through negotiations and diplomatic channels. All this changed with the insurrection that erupted in Kashmir that continues to this day. Since 1990 the area has been

the hub of a revolt by Muslim separatist militants who, India says, are trained and armed in Pakistan. Pakistan denies this accusation, saying it only offers political and diplomatic support to what it calls a legitimate struggle for self-determination by the mostly Muslim people of Kashmir.[ix]

The rebellion had its roots in the outrage of Kashmiri Muslim political parties who disputed the results of a 1987 election they believed Delhi had rigged against them: “80

percent of Kashmiris turned out to vote in elections contested by nationalist parties that might have accepted autonomy rather than full independence. But New Delhi stuffed the ballot boxes for pro-government parties”[x]. The nationalist groups began militarizing and were assisted by the influx of mujahideen from the Afghan conflict. The Soviet withdrawal in 1988-9 freed the resisting soldiers to turn to new ventures. Many returned to their homelands and began agitating for change, usually using violent methods. Others turned to the situation in Kashmir and saw instant similarities between this and the fight they had just been involved in: a non-Muslim occupation force subjugating their Muslim brethren. The accuracy or validity of this view can be discounted as Kashmiris enjoyed a great degree of autonomy for years while living under Indian rule. The influx of outsiders agitating for armed resistance and calls for a jihad, however uncalled for or improperly used, swept aside the views of Kashmiri leaders hoping to use more peaceful methods. This problem was exacerbated by the ISI, “which indoctrinates reactionary young men with the misguided belief that the Kashmiri struggle is an Islamic struggle”[xi]. This misuse of religion has been typical of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism across the globe.

The violence that has marred Kashmir over the past 13 years began with the famous Rubaiya kidnapping episode[xii], where the daughter of a moderate Muslim leader was abducted and held with the demand that the Indian government release a list of prisoners. This pattern of hostage taking and release has only been scaled up, culminating in the 1999 hijacking of an Indian airliner and the release of many imprisoned militants. The Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) initially led the insurrection but in recent years their activity has waned, as “by the mid-1990s, the JKLF had eschewed violence as a political strategy for fear of being destroyed on the battlefield”[xiii]. New groups have been more forceful in carrying the mantle of Kashmiri separatism. The two that have led the surge of violence since 1999 are Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba. The former “emerged when a…member of another militant group, Maulana Masood Azhar, was set free by…Indian authorities…after the [aforementioned] hijack of an Indian Airlines plane”[xiv]. This group is also held responsible for the attack on the Kashmir assembly in October 2001 as well. Lashkar-e-Taiba came to prominence with the invasion of the Kargil region of Kashmir in 1999, which marked “the first time in nearly 30 years…that [India] launched air strikes against Pakistani-backed forces that had infiltrated into the mountains in Indian-administered Kashmir”[xv]. This group has also pursued a strategy of striking army posts in the region, making them particularly nefarious in the eyes of Indians.

Lashkar-e-Taiba’s attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001 thrust Kashmir into the international spotlight once again. The audacious move in India’s capital raised the stakes in the conflict as India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of arming and providing a base for the groups in Kashmir, especially Lashkar-e-Taiba. Soon after the attack, “India deployed more than a million troops…along the…Line of Control. As India threatened war, Pakistan declared its readiness to retaliate”[xvi]. This flaring up of tensions brought the two nations as close to war as they have been since 1971. The internal situation in each country is far from stable. India is currently run by what could be termed a “Hindu-fundamentalist” party in the form of the BJP. After seeing its power erode over the past few years “the BJP now relies more heavily on its core support base among fundamentalist and militant Hindus - some of the most strident advocates of a tough line on Kashmir”[xvii]. Pakistan has its own internal problems, as Musharraf’s formerly secure military rule seems to be weakening in light of his alliance with the US against the Taliban. There are elements of the army and ISI that see this about-face as a betrayal of an ally. What further complicates the situation in Pakistan is the lack of democracy, essentially reneged by Musharraf’s recent referendum to keep himself in power for at least five more years. In pushing this down the people’s throats he

alienated the one sector of Pakistani society--the secular middle class--that might have backed his efforts to cut the ties between Kashmiri militants and the Pakistani state…By betraying them, Musharraf leaves himself with no liberal political base, and that may eventually force him to look to the fundamentalists and their Kashmiri jihad for support.[xviii]

Clearly the current political situation in both countries makes it hard for either side to back down on the Kashmir issue. While this has never been a viable option, the path of diplomacy was open to India and Pakistan in the past. However with animosity riding high because of Kashmir and the religious strife in the Indian state of Gujarat, the countries are as far apart on the issues as they have ever been.

International efforts on the part of the US, Russia, and the UN managed to bring about a cooling of tensions, but both Indian and Pakistani forces remain heavily concentrated in the border regions. A conventional war between the two countries would be bad enough, but the fact that both nations declared their nuclear capabilities with tests in 1998 and each side has missiles that can deliver these warheads in a matter of minutes to the other’s major population centers, makes the situation as precarious as the Cuban Missile Crisis. While Indo-Pak tension has always been a source of concern, the nuclear circumstances have changed the paradigm for how the international community now treats flare-ups between the two adversaries. The fact that India has a huge conventional advantage over Pakistan makes the nuclear bomb the latter’s equalizer and deterrent in case of war. There are estimates that in the case of full nuclear exchange at least 12 million people on either side would die and millions more would be injured or exposed to lethal levels of radiation[xix]. Though nuclear weapons reduce the chance of widespread hostilities, “they could also create permissive conditions for more low-level conflict - a situation that political science scholars refer to as the ‘stability-instability paradox’”[xx]. Thus while the nuclear bomb precludes the possibility of a large-scale war, it may also enable the constant violence that makes Kashmir one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Ultimately the issue of Kashmir boils down to the one group whose voice has been almost always ignored: the Kashmiri people. The area “hasn't always been a bloodbath. In fact, for most of India's history [the] nationalist movement was moderate and peaceful”[xxi] and the people lived in relative peace and diversity, as Kashmir had a 60-40 Muslim-Hindu ratio at partition and for much of its history. Even though the referendum that was to allow them to decide their own fate never took place, afterward they were allowed a measure of autonomy while staying a part of India. Much of that has been lost in the past decade and a half. As the Kashmiri insurgents began to destabilize the Indian rule in the area, the army moved in. Many areas of Kashmir are now under occupation and “abuses by the Indian Army and police have stoked Kashmiri anger”[xxii]. Also while India allows the international media to publicize the acts of violence perpetrated by separatist groups, there are allegations that of the “between 30,000 and 70,000 deaths in Kashmir in the past dozen years…an overwhelming majority of those deaths can be laid at the door of the Indian security forces”[xxiii]. At times human rights groups, like Amnesty, and even the UN, have been blocked from entering parts of Kashmir by the security forces. India and Pakistan struggle over the land and conduct their exchanges of geopolitical gamesmanship, while “stuck in the middle, Kashmiris have either stolidly borne up, joined the separatist militants, or been forced to find a decent life far away from family”[xxiv]. The people of Kashmir have been robbed of their right of self-determination over the past half-century and now cannot live in their own homes without fear of violence, either from the mujahideen or the Indian army.

The recent elections in Jammu and Kashmir were meant to return to the Kashmiris a voice in their rule. Widespread violence leading up to the election and the boycott by separatist parties were meant to derail the elections. The assassination of the state’s law minister just five days before the election[xxv] looked like it would accomplish this. However the elections occurred as scheduled with 44% of the population turning out and the results were not business-as-usual. The vote emphatically displaced the “ineffectual National Conference, which has dominated Kashmir politics, mostly for the worse, for 50 years under the leadership of the Abdullah family”[xxvi]. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) will lead a new coalition that includes Congress, India’s main national opposition party.  The PDP's main “strength stems from its support among Muslims in the Kashmir Valley, which lies at the centre of the troubles. It sympathises with the separatist groups…though it does not call for independence from India”[xxvii]. The first order of business will be to regain the trust of the Kashmiri people, many of whom remain skeptical as to what a change in leadership means for them. There is widespread belief that Delhi will always keep a hand in Kashmir’s affairs, especially with the upswing in violence over the past year, and words can only do so much to heal the suffering of well over a decade. Indications from Delhi seem to point to devolution of some control back into the hands of the Kashmiri Assembly, but it is unlikely that this will discourage the separatist insurrection unless the PDP and its charismatic leader, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, can convince them (and Pakistan) to stem the violence. Pakistan and India quarrel over the land and the people living there pay the highest price.

Any mention of cooperation in Kashmir seems to be laughed down, especially at this juncture where India and Pakistan have ejected each other’s ministers from diplomatic outposts and cut off all ties at several points throughout the past year. However the framework for the resolution of such conflicts does exist in South Asia itself. Sri Lanka has seen a great deal of bloodshed in dealing with the Tamil Tigers over the better part of the past two decades, yet the cycle of violence seems to be coming to an end[xxviii] as the two sides have been negotiating the terms of a peace for most of 2002. While people said this conflict would never be solved, it is impossible to see what the future holds. India and Pakistan have managed to at least hold some talks on Kashmir since 1947 and the hope is that these can resume at some point in the near future. The existence of organizations like SAARC that can provide a forum and tie the economic interests of the nations closer together could lead to a political rapprochement as well.

The conflict over Kashmir can be summarized by the situation at Siachen Glacier. Known as the highest battlefield in the world, this peak receives over 10 meters of snow per year, blizzards of up to 300 kilometers per hour, and the temperature can reach 40 below Celsius[xxix]. Indian and Pakistani forces have outposts all over the mountain, some at altitudes above 22,000 feet. At a cost of roughly $1 million per day, each side shells the other regularly with little effect. Immensely more casualties are caused by the elements and accidents than any weapon, yet each side has maintained a presence there for over 18 years[xxx]. Many international experts believe that the Glacier offers no strategic or tactical advantage in case of a war. However the issue is not one of tactics or strategy or logic; it is one of pride. The belief that the gain of even a single extra inch in Kashmir might help the cause for their side drives India and Pakistan to pursue a battle in the heavens. The conflict in Kashmir combines history, religion, and nationalism – three forces that make it the most dangerous place on earth.


[i] “India and the Mughal Empire to 1707”. < http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h23-mug.html> 12-2-01.

[ii] “Pakistan: Ayub Khan’s Foreign Policy and the 1965 War with India”. <http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+pk0031)> 12-2-01.

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Ibid

[v] “The 1965 Indo-Pak War”. <http://www.mastindia.com/ipw.html> 12-3-02.

[vi] “The War for Bangladeshi Independence”. <http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgibin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field (DOCID+bd0027)> 12-2-02.

[vii] “India-Pakistan: Troubled Relations: The 1971 War”. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/ south_asia/2002/india_pakistan/timeline/1971.stm>. 11-30-02.

[viii] “India-Pakistan: Troubled Relations: Diplomatic Push”. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_ depth/south_asia/2002/india_pakistan/timeline/1996.stm>. 11-30-02.

[ix] Shuja, Sharif. “The Conflict in Kashmir”. Contemporary Review v281, n1641 (Oct, 2002): 220.

[x] Beinart, Peter. “TRB From Washington: Understate”. New Republic. (July 1, 2002): 6.

[xi] Shamsie, Kamila. “Flames Clinging to a Torched Village". New Statesman. v131, n4590 (June 3, 2002): 25.

[xii] “Ten Years of Conflict in Kashmir”. <http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/dec/08blood1.htm>. 12-3-02.

[xiii] Ganguly, Sumit. “Back to Brinksmanship: How India and Pakistan Arrived at a Nuclear Standoff”. American Prospect v13, n12 (July 1, 2002): 18.

[xiv] “Who are the Kashmir Militants?” <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1719612.stm> 12-2-02.

[xv] “India-Pakistan: Troubled Relations: Kargil Conflict”. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/ south_asia/2002/india_pakistan/timeline/1999.stm>. 11-30-02.

[xvi] Shuja 220.

[xvii] Shuja 226.

[xviii] Beinart.

[xix] “US Warns of Doomsday Scenario”. <http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/05/31/ kashmir.attack.toll/index.html>. 12-2-02.

[xx] Ganguly 19.

[xxi] Beinart.

[xxii] Hammer, Joshua. “Death in a Proxy War”. Newsweek. (Jan 21, 2002): 29.

[xxiii] Shamsie 24.

[xxiv] Spaeth, Anthony. “No Place for Kids”. Time International v159, n20 (May 27, 2002): 30.

[xxv] “A Terrible Beginning”. Economist. (Sept 14, 2002): page N/A.

[xxvi] “A New Broom”. Economist (US) v365, n8297 (Nov 2, 2002): page N/A.

[xxvii] Ibid

[xxviii] “Q&A: Sri Lanka Peace Talks”. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2405347.stm>. 12-2-02.

[xxix] Misra, Ashutosh. Siachen Glacier Flashpoint: A Study of Indian Pakistani Relations. Durham, UK. (Durham Middle East Papers, 2000): 4.

[xxx] Ibid