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.