The Kashmir: An Unresolved Dispute Between India and Pakistan

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 - Full Professor of Political Geography, Patna University, Patna, Bihar, India

2 - Research Scholar, Department of Geography, Patna University, Patna, Bihar, India

Abstract


Jammu & Kashmir, since its creation as a Princely State on March 16, 1846, as a result of the Amritsar Treaty between the East India Company (later the British Government) and the Maharaja Gulab Singh, has always been a victim of its geography, on account of its location on the threshold of the major powers, both in the past and the present. The State has been subject to consistent pull and push from within (as the State is comprised of the three mutually exclusive geo-ethnic regions with hardened cleavages) and outside. It has never been a stable polity, rather a ramshackle State. Earlier it was a source of rivalries between the Russian, British, and the Chinese, but there is no history of their direct involvement in armed conflicts whatsoever. But, since the withdrawal of the British, following the creation of the two Dominions, India and Pakistan, Jammu & Kashmir has been the bone of contention between the two as they fought three wars on Kashmir in 1948, 1965, and 1999. One-third of Jammu & Kashmir is under Pakistan’s occupation since the cease-fire went into action on January 1, 1949.  The Kashmir dispute is an international dispute, and it is more than 62 years old. The Kashmir conflict, however, apparently appears to an outcome of a ‘communo-legal’ dispute, with Pakistan advocating for a communal solution to the conflict, while India sticking to legal aspect of the accession as per the Indian Independence Act 1947. The entire South Asian geopolitics is focused on the Kashmir, and the peace in the region necessarily depends on the successful resolution to the dispute.  The present paper is an attempt at tracing out the true genesis of the Kashmir dispute since 1948, and evaluating the various proposals, drawn up in successive years, to resolve the conflict.

Keywords