Origin of the Kashmir Dispute

The Kashmir dispute began in 1947 immediately after the creation of new independent states of India and Pakistan. Pakistan allowed armed Islamic invaders to attack the princely state from its soil. Pakistan was claiming Kashmir on the ground that it had Muslim-majority. The King of the princely state, Raja HariSingh decided to accede to India. India accepted the accession and protected the Kashmir from the aggression. Pakistan objected to this and the resulting Indo-Pakistani war of 1947-48 divided the state, reflecting the status of forces on the ground. Since then, Pakistan has controlled “Azad” (Free) Kashmir and the adjacent Northern Areas, while India remained in control of two-thirds of the former princely state. The Karachi Agreement, signed by India and Pakistan in July 1949, formally established this cease-fire line (CFL) in Kashmir, which was supervised by a modest number of UN observers. In 1971, hostilities again broke out between India and Pakistan over the fate of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). In July 1972, India and Pakistan signed the Simla Agreement to end the third Indo-Pakistani war. Simla defined a Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir which, with minor deviations, followed the same path as the Karachi Agreement’s CFL. The Simla Agreement also called on both sides to respect the LoC “without prejudice to the recognized position of either side,” prohibited either side from unilaterally altering the LoC, and bound both countries “to refrain from threat or the use of force in violation of this Line.” The LoC is 720 kilometers long, running in a non-linear way over rugged terrain near Jammu in the southwest up to glacial heights of the Himalayas near China’s Sinkiang province in the northeast.

The total area of the former princely state of Kashmir is 86,023 square miles, or about the size of the Korean Peninsula, Kansas or Great Britain. The territory is divided by a loc established in 1972 following the 1971 conflict between India and Pakistan. The Line of Control (LoC) replaced the former cease-fire line of 1949. India administers 53,665 square miles and Pakistan 32,358 square miles. The loc stretches approximately 450 miles from grid reference NW 605 550, at the termination of the international border thirty five miles west of Jammu, to NJ 980 420 in the Karakoram Range sixty-five miles southeast of Mount K2 and twelve miles north of the Shyok River.1 There is no definition of the LoC from that point northward toward Chinese territory. The terrain varies from flatland, hills and semi-tropical growth in the south, through increasingly steeper areas and the temperate vegetation of the Pir Panjal Range (with occupied military positions up to 14,000 feet) until, north of the Jhelum River, the higher ranges begin. The west-east section of the Line lies along and across mountain ridges, some over 18,000 feet, where any kind of movement is difficult and dangerous.

Muslim Rule in Kashmir

In the beginning of 14th century, when Raja Sahadev was ruling, a ferocious Mongol, Dulucha, invaded the valley through its northern side Zojila Pass, with an army of 60,000 men. Dulucha carried sword and fire, destroyed towns and villages and slaughtered thousands. His savage attack practically ended the Hindu rule in Kashmir. After the King, Shams-ud-Din Shah Mir Swati was the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir and the founder of the Shah Miri dynasty named after him. He came from Swat, the then (Tribal) territory on the borders of Afghanistan and played a notable role in subsequentive political history of the valley. Shahmir became the ruler of Kashmir and reigned for three years.He was the first ruler of Swati dynasty, which had established in 1339. Shah Mir was succeeded by his eldest son Jamshid, but he was deposed by his brother Ali Sher probably within few months, who ascended the throne under the name of Alauddin. Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin who was popularly known as Baadshah (the King) (r.1423-1474), is said to be relatively more tolerant of all religions. Most of the Muslim rulers of Kashmir were intolerant of other religions. Sultãn Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir (AD 1389-1413) is often considered the worst of these. Historians have recorded many of his atrocities. The Tarikh-i-Firishta records that Sikandar persecuted the Hindus and issued orders proscribing the residence of any other than Muslims in Kashmir. He also ordered the breaking of all "golden and silver images". The Tarikh-i-Firishta further states: "Many of the Brahmins, rather than abandon their religion or their country, poisoned themselves; some emigrated from their native homes, while a few escaped. After the emigration of the Brahmins, Sikandar ordered all the temples in Kashmir to be thrown down. Having broken all the images in Kashmir, (Sikandar) acquired the title of ‘Destroyer of Idols’." In 1588, Akbar invaded Kashmir establishing the Mughal rule.

Kashmir - History

Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range.Contemporarily, Kashmir denotes a larger area that includes the Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir (Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh), the Pakistani administered Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir, and the Chinese-administered regions of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract. The United Nations, and other local entities, use the designation Jammu and Kashmir to geographically denote said area.

 

According to the Mahabharata,the Kambojas ruled Kashmir during the epic period with a Republican system of government. Kashmir was an important center of Hinduism and Buddhism. In 1349, Shah Mir became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir and inaugurated the Salatin-i-Kashmir or Swati dynasty. For the next five centuries, Muslim monarchs ruled Kashmir, including the Mughals, who ruled from 1526 until 1751, then the Afghan Durrani Empire that ruled from 1747 until 1820.That year, the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh, annexed Kashmir. In 1846, upon the purchase of the region from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, the Dogras under Gulab Singh became the new rulers. Dogra Rule, under the paramountcy (or tutelage) of the British Crown, lasted until 1947.

Adi Shankara visited the pre-existing Sarvajñapeetha (Sharada Peeth) in Kashmir in late 8th century CE or early 9th Century CE. The Madhaviya Shankaravijayam states this temple had four doors for scholars from the four cardinal directions. The southern door (representing South India) had never been opened, indicating that no scholar from South India had entered the Sarvajna Pitha. Adi Shankara opened the southern door by defeating in debate all the scholars there in all the various scholastic disciplines such as Mimamsa, Vedanta and other branches of Hindu philosophy; he ascended the throne of Transcendent wisdom of that temple.

Abhinavagupta (approx. 950 - 1020 AD) was born in the valley of Kashmir. He was one of India's greatest philosophers, mystics and aestheticians. He was also considered an important musician, poet, dramatist, exeget, theologian, and logician - a polymathic personality who exercised strong influences on Indian culture. In his long life he completed over 35 works, the largest and most famous of which is Tantraloka, an encyclopedic treatise on all the philosophical and practical aspects of Trika and Kaula (known today as Kashmir Shaivism). Another one of his very important contributions was in the field of philosophy of aesthetics with his famous Abhinavabharati commentary of Natyasastra of Bharata Muni.

 

Muslim invaders, including Mughals and the Afghans, ruled the Kashmir for four centuries till early 19th Century.

After the death of Ranjit Deo, the Raja of Jammu, in 1780, the kingdom of Jammu was captured by the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh of Lahore. In 1819, Ranjit Deo's grandnephew, Gulab Singh took control of the Kashmir valley for the Sikh kingdom of Ranjit Singh. In 1920, Gulab Singh became the governor of the Jammu. Soon, with the help of his officer, Zorawar Singh, Gulab Singh captured Ladakh and Baltistan, regions to the east and north-east of Jammu. Until 1846, these regions were part of the Sikh power.

The Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu (as it was then called) was constituted between 1820 and 1858. It combined regions: to the east, Ladakh was ethnically and culturally Tibetan and its inhabitants practised Buddhism; to the south, Jammu had a mixed population of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs; in the heavily populated central Kashmir valley, the population was overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, however, there was also a small but influential Hindu minority, the Kashmiri brahmins or pandits; to the northeast, sparsely populated Baltistan had a population ethnically related to Ladakh, but which practised Shi'a Islam; to the north, also sparsely populated, Gilgit Agency, was an area of diverse, mostly Shi'a groups; and, to the west, Punch was Muslim, but of different ethnicity than the Kashmir valley.

Ranbir Singh's grandson Hari Singh, who had ascended the throne of Kashmir in 1925, was the reigning monarch in 1947 at the conclusion of British rule of the subcontinent and the subsequent partition of the British Indian Empire into the newly independent Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. He was one of the rulers of princely states.

South Asia Or Indian Subcontinent

The lithosphere is the rigid outermost shell of a rocky planet. The lithosphere is broken up into what are called tectonic plates. In the case of Earth, there are currently seven to eight major (depending on how they are defined) and many minor plates. The India or Indian Plate is a tectonic plate that was originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwanaland from which it split off, eventually becoming a major plate. About 50 to 55 million years ago, it fused with the adjacent Australian Plate. It is today part of the major Indo-Australian Plate, and includes the subcontinent of India and a portion of the basin under the Indian Ocean. A subcontinent is a large, relatively self-contained landmass forming a subdivision of a continent. A continent is one of several large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria. Conventionally, "Continents are understood to be large, continuous, discrete masses of land, ideally separated by expanses of water. A subcontinent is a large, relatively self-contained landmass forming a subdivision of a continent. The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent and other terms, is a region of the Asian (and, in turn, the Eurasian) continent on the Indian tectonic plate south of the Himalayas, forming a land mass which extends southward into the Indian Ocean. The terms "Indian subcontinent" and "South Asia" are used interchangeably. Due to political sensitivities, some prefer to use the terms "South Asian Subcontinent", the "Indo-Pak Subcontinent", "the Subcontinent", or simply "South Asia" over the term "Indian subcontinent". Geographically, the Indian subcontinent is a peninsular region in south-central Asia, rather resembling a diamond which is delineated by the Himalayas on the north, the Hindu Kush in the west, and the Arakanese in the east, and which extends southward into the Indian Ocean with the Arabian Sea to the southwest and the Bay of Bengal to the southeast. Peninsula is a large mass of land projecting into a body of water.

By dictionary entries, the term subcontinent signifies "having a certain geographical or political independence" from the rest of the continent, or "a vast and more or less self-contained subdivision of a continent. The region largely comprises a peninsula of Eurasia south of the Himalayas and constitutes a geoculturally distinct region within Asia. In the Indian subcontinent the nations of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka as well as parts of Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and some disputed territory currently controlled by China are located. It is also known as the "Indian Subcontinent" and, primarily in Pakistan, as the "Indo-Pak Subcontinent". Being the only region in the world that is commonly described as a subcontinent, "The Subcontinent" is also a very common characterization and often the preferred term, especially in Pakistan.

Indian subcontinent is based on the fact that this region rests on a tectonic plate of its own, separate from the rest of Asia. TThe colder regions of China and Mongolia are separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Himalaya mountain range, which also acts as a cultural and geographical barrier between it and the rest of Asia. Politically, the term ("Indian Subcontinent" or "The Subcontinent") is useful in helping refer to the countries of the region as a group. The latter term ("The Subcontinent"), together with "South Asia", can be useful when discussing issues that affect the common history, culture, etc. of the countries. Citizens of Subcontinental countries besides India can sometimes be offended by the use of "India" or "Indian" in relation to them or their nationality, and often history and culture.

Why Kashmir Blog?

Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. [Indian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian (and, in turn, the Eurasian) continent on the Indian tectonic plate south of the Himalayas, forming a land mass which extends southward into the Indian Ocean]. India, Pakistan and China are currently holding a portion of the Kashmir. Pakistan and India are claiming the entire region. Western powers are very much interested in the region because of its strategic location.

Claims by Pakistan, China and India over Kashmir is continuing from 1947. World wide it is considered as a nuclear flash point as all the three claimants possess nuclear arsenal.

Peace in Kashmir has become elusive from the time of Indian Independence. India has fought 4 wars with Pakistan over Kashmir. There is an active collaboration of Pakistan and China against India. All major geopolitical players are exploiting the Kashmir problem to their convenience. From security and prosperity point of view, Kashmir is an important issue for India. All Indians should have increased awareness about the happenings related to Kashmir. This is the purpose of this blog.