India, Pakistan and the Kashmir issue

Tons have already been written about the alienation between India and Pakistan. In a nutshell: The British left in a rush and did not plan things out. Partition led to a mass migration (about 10 million people) and more than a million deaths. You can imagine the amount of bad blood that left.

On top of that, Kashmir’s Raja signed his state over to India. It was a majority muslim state and the British had originally given it to Pakistan. The Kashmiri’s and Pakistan was expecting it to be part of Pakistan, and it was a last minute suprise that the Raja handed it over to Nehru. This point has had a lot on discussion, but the consensus seems to be that Nehru was sleeping with Lord Mountbatten’s wife and heavily influenced the new map of the subcontinent. Other Muslim states were also given over to India or annexed by force later on.

Regardless, the Indian army occupied 2/3 of Kashmir and the Pakistan army got the other third. While all else is forgotten or can be forgiven, we’ve been at each other’s throats for the last 56 57 years about Kashmir. There are virulent claims from both sides, with both vowing that Kashmir is theirs.

It makes for good political ratings on both sides, and so things have remained. We’ve had a few UN resolutions passed regarding Kashmir, and Pakistan has been demanding a plesbicite there for the last 56 years in the UN, but no go.

There needs to be a strong third party involved else things will never move forward. It’s a bit like the palestine-israel issue where both sides can hardly bear to talk to each other. As things stand now, since there is already a defacto border (the line of control) they should just declare that the border. That leaves the Kashmiri’s in a bind, as their state remains divided, but it has been divided for the last 57 years anyways. Neither country is ever going to hand over its bit of Kashmir to the other. If relations are normalized, then Kashmir could have an open border for Kashmiris. Anything would be better than the current situation, with over 700,000 Indian army troops in Occupied Kashmir. On the Pakistan side it’s mostly mountains, also the army presence is a lot smaller. Still, they keep on shelling each other (it’s practically a game for them) and end up killing a few civilians every now and then. there is a ceasefire is place currently.

On both sides, there are strong vested interests in not normalizing relations. The Pakistan army would have no purpose left, and it doesn’t want that. The BJP, India’s ruling party, also bases it’s politics mainly on hate, nationalism and the patriotism trump card. Here in Pakistan, when we do have a democratic govt. they are busy denouncing the previous govt. and looting to actually get around to governing.