Kashmir

Kashmir An Indian princely state which has been claimed by India and Pakistan since independence in 1947, and was the subject of two Indo-Pakistan Wars. Initially, its Hindu Maharaja, Sir Hari Singh, had hoped to lead it to independence. Faced with insurgent Muslim border tribesmen, however, he declared his accession to India and called for military aid from the Indian army. Since the majority of the population was Muslim, Pakistan challenged the Maharaja's decision. After sporadic fighting, the first Indo-Pakistan War was ended in 1949, when a UN commission established a demarcation line allocating Azad Kashmir to Pakistan and the remainder of the state to India. The Maharaja abdicated in 1951 in favour of his son, but the state assembly declared the state a republic, and in January 1957 it was formally integrated within the Union of India as the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In the Indo-Chinese War of 1962, substantial areas in the north-east were conceded to China. Renewed fighting in 1965 ended again in deadlock.

Kashmir continued to be claimed in its entirety by both countries. Throughout the 1980s there were continued riots and protests to demand greater autonomy, as Jammu and Kashmir was subject to direct rule from the Union government in New Delhi. These uprisings, which claimed around 20,000 lives in 1990–6, led to a promise of autonomy status by India's newly elected United Front government in 1996. From 1997, India and Pakistan took up negotiations again, but these yielded little results. India refused foreign help in settling the conflict, while Pakistan continued to support Muslim guerrilla forces operating in the Indian part. After the September 11 attacks, Pakistan's position became more difficult. Its support for the US against the Taliban limited Pakistan's leader, General Musharraf, in his ability to aggravate Islamic fundamentalist opinion yet further and rein in the secret service and radical Islamic factions in Kashmir. This brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a further military confronation, as over a million soldiers faced each other in May 2002. A war between the two nuclear powers, however, presented a huge risk not only to international security but also to the War on Terrorism, in which Pakistan was a crucial ally of the US.