The Indo-Pakistan conflict: The Begining
The blur:
wiki says: "The Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict primarily between India and Pakistan, having started just after the partition of India in 1947. ... India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir, including the Indo-Pakistani Wars of 1947 and 1965, as well as the Kargil War of 1999."
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The background
Population of the State as per the census of 1941 was just over 4 millions. The population of Jammu Province was 19,81,432, Kashmir Province 17,28,705 and Frontier districts of Ladakh and Gilgit was 3,11,478 respectively. Before partition, Muslims in Jammu Province were in slight majority but after partition with the wave of panic migration the Jammu came to be dominated by Hindus. In Kashmir Sunni Muslims were in majority, Ladakh was peopled mostly by Budhists and Gilgit mostly by Muslims from Shia and Ismaili sects. In both, Jammu and the Valley of Kashmir there was also fair sprinkling of Sikhs. But the State as a whole was marked by great deal of cultural heterogeneity.
(Before partition the total area of the State was 84,471 sqm miles. Internally the total length from East to West was about 250 miles and from North to South was 275 miles. It was bounded on the North by the Chinese Sinkiang on the East by Tibet, Punjab on the South and North-West Frontier Province of India on the West. Only a very narrow tract of Afgan territory separated it from the Soviet Union. Its location gave the State a strategic importance which further increased after 15th August, 1947 when it came to share its borders with newly born dominions of India and Pakistan.)
Physio graphically State formed four natural divsions (i) semi-mountainous region situated between Punjab and mountainous territory (ii) mountainous tract comprising area lying south to Pir Panchal which separates provinces of Jammu and Kashmir (iii) Kashmir valley and (iv) Indus Valley enclosed by the Karakoram mountains on the north and the Central range of Himalayas on the south. Ladakh area is one ofthe highest inhabited regions in the world.
The economy of the State depended largely on agriculture and to some extent on trade. Though agriculture was the backbone of the State economy it suffered due to shortage of water supply, poor communication etc. The total cultivable area was hardly 7% whereas about 80% population was depended on agriculture. The chief crops grown were rice, wheat, maize, barley, pulses and oil seeds etc. Rice being the staple food of Kashmiris was grown through length of the Valley. It was grown in Jammu Province also especially in plains as sufficient water is required for it. Wheat being the staple food of Jammu people was cultivated throughout the Province. Saffron of Kashmir is very famous for its bouquet, condiment and pigment. It is cultivated in Kishtwar and in the neighbourhood of Pampur near Srinagar. Kashmir is known to the outer world for its fruits. The chief fruits being Apple, Pear, Plumb, Peach, Cherry, Mulberry, Raspberry, Gooseberry, Almond and Walnuts etc.
The beginning
The partition of the Indian sub-continent along religious lines led to the formation of India and Pakistan. However, there remained the problem of over 650 states, run by princes, existing within the two newly independent countries.In theory, these princely states had the option of deciding which country to join, or of remaining independent. In practice, the restive population of each province proved decisive.
The people had been fighting for freedom from British rule, and with their struggle about to bear fruit they were not willing to let the princes fill the vacuum.
Although many princes wanted to be "independent" (which would have meant hereditary monarchies and no hope for democracy) they had to succumb to their people's protests which turned violent in many provinces.
Because of its location, Kashmir could choose to join either India or Pakistan. Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Kashmir, was Hindu while most of his subjects were Muslim. Unable to decide which nation Kashmir should join, Hari Singh chose to remain neutral.
But his hopes of remaining independent were dashed in October 1947, as Pakistan sent in Muslim tribesmen who were knocking at the gates of the capital Srinagar.
Hari Singh appealed to the Indian government for military assistance and fled to India. He signed the Instrument of Accession, ceding Kashmir to India on October 26.
Indian and Pakistani forces thus fought their first war over Kashmir in 1947-48. India referred the dispute to the United Nations on 1 January. In a resolution dated August 13, 1948, the UN asked Pakistan to remove its troops, after which India was also to withdraw the bulk of its forces.
Once this happened, a "free and fair" plebiscite was to be held to allow the Kashmiri people to decide their future.
Pakistan ignored the UN mandate and continued fighting, holding on to the portion of Kashmir under its control.
Kashmir was formally incorporated into the Indian Union. It was granted a special status under Article 370 of India's constitution, which ensures, among other things, that non-Kashmiri Indians cannot buy property there.
Fighting broke out again ,but a ceasefire was established that September.
A third war, resulting in the formation of the independent nation of Bangladesh (formerly known as East Pakistan). A war had broken out in East Pakistan in March 1971, and soon India was faced with a million refugees.
India declared war on December 3, 1971 after Pakistani Air Force planes struck Indian airfields in the Western sector.
Two weeks later, the Indian army marched into Dhaka and the Pakistanis surrendered. In the Western sector the Indians managed to blockade the port city of Karachi and were 50 km into Pakistani territory when a ceasefire was reached.
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Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
status quo till 1980
The balance of influence had decisively tilted in Pakistan's favour by the late 1980s, with people's sympathy no longer with the Indian union as it had been in 1947-48 and 1965.
Mrs Gandhi's attempts to install puppet governments in state capitals, manipulating the democratic process in the state legislatures, deeply angered the Kashmiris.
The status quo was largely maintained until 1989 when pro-independence and pro-Pakistan guerrillas struck in the Indian Kashmir valley. They established a reign of terror and drove out almost all the Hindus from the valley before the Indian army moved in to flush them out. Meanwhile Indian and Pakistani troops regularly exchanged fire at the border.
Nuclear tests till 1998
India and Pakistan both tested nuclear devices in May 1998, and then in April 1999 test-fired missiles in efforts to perfect delivery systems for their nuclear weapons. Pakistan tested its Ghauri II missile four days after India's testing of its long-range (1,250 km) Agni II.
Although Pakistan claims that its missiles are an indigenous effort, in July 1999 Indian customs agents seized components shipped from North Korea which they claim were destined for Pakistan's missile programme.
Pakistan's later intermediate-range Ghauri III missile has a range of about 3,000 km.
When the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, set out to Lahore by bus on February 20, 1999, inaugurating the four times a week Delhi-Lahore-Delhi bus service, the world felt that such a genuine effort at friendly neighbourhood relations would lower the tension along the Line of Control in Kashmir.
But, all hopes of diplomacy disappeared once the cross-LOC firing in Kargil began during the mid-1990s. The death toll , including both soldiers and civilians, was more than 30,000.
In the first week of August 1998 Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged artillery fire, described by locals as heavier than that of the 1948 and 1965 wars put together. An estimated 50,000 rounds of ammunition were expended and a large number of soldiers and civilians killed.
In the summer of 1999 hostility in Kargil went far beyond the now familiar annual exhange of artillery fire.
When India began patrolling the Kargil heights that summer, it found to its horror that many key posts vacated in the winter were occupied by infiltrators. A patrol was ambushed in the first week of May 1999. India belatedly realised the magnitude of the occupation - which was around 10 km deep and spanned almost 100 km of the LOC - and sent MiG fighters into action on May 26.
India contended that the infiltrators were trained and armed by Pakistan, and based in "Azad Kashmir" with the full knowledge of the Pakistani government - and that Afghan and other foreign mercenaries accompanied them.
Pakistan insisted that those involved were freedom fighters from Kashmir and that it was giving only moral support.
India ordered the jets not to stray into Pakistani territory; but those that did were shot down.
The conflict ended only after Bill Clinton, the US President, and Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's Prime minister, met in Washington on July 4, 1999.
Meanwhile, the Indian Army had made significant advances, capturing vital territory on July 4. Despite the apparent efforts to mediate, the US maintained that it was not interfering in what India still claims to be a bilateral issue.
Pakistan withdrew its forces later that month. However, skirmishing continued, and in August India shot down a Pakistani reconnaissance plane, killing 16.
The official number of Indian troops lost in Kargil was around 500, with almost double that number of "infiltrators" killed. Nevertheless, India did not declare war against Pakistan - instead, Mr Vajpayee ambigously announced a "war-like situation".
Yet this, by all accounts of soldiers and top Indian army officers involved, was a war in which India lost men engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Pakistani soldiers in the heights of Kargil - a war that could be compared with the one of 1948-49, which was limited to Kashmir, with the other border regions remaining peaceful.
Thus in 1999, in a war limited to one sector, India suffered casualities within its own territory. Despite much pressure from the military and the public, the government decided not to cross the LOC. Pakistan too suffered criticism at home for limiting its war to artillery fire across the LOC and shooting down Indian aircraft.
The fear of a full-scale war (with nuclear capability adding a deadly dimension), coupled with precarious economies and the knowledge of what international sanctions could do to them, may have prevailed in both countries.
wiki says: "The Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict primarily between India and Pakistan, having started just after the partition of India in 1947. ... India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir, including the Indo-Pakistani Wars of 1947 and 1965, as well as the Kargil War of 1999."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The background
Population of the State as per the census of 1941 was just over 4 millions. The population of Jammu Province was 19,81,432, Kashmir Province 17,28,705 and Frontier districts of Ladakh and Gilgit was 3,11,478 respectively. Before partition, Muslims in Jammu Province were in slight majority but after partition with the wave of panic migration the Jammu came to be dominated by Hindus. In Kashmir Sunni Muslims were in majority, Ladakh was peopled mostly by Budhists and Gilgit mostly by Muslims from Shia and Ismaili sects. In both, Jammu and the Valley of Kashmir there was also fair sprinkling of Sikhs. But the State as a whole was marked by great deal of cultural heterogeneity.
(Before partition the total area of the State was 84,471 sqm miles. Internally the total length from East to West was about 250 miles and from North to South was 275 miles. It was bounded on the North by the Chinese Sinkiang on the East by Tibet, Punjab on the South and North-West Frontier Province of India on the West. Only a very narrow tract of Afgan territory separated it from the Soviet Union. Its location gave the State a strategic importance which further increased after 15th August, 1947 when it came to share its borders with newly born dominions of India and Pakistan.)
Physio graphically State formed four natural divsions (i) semi-mountainous region situated between Punjab and mountainous territory (ii) mountainous tract comprising area lying south to Pir Panchal which separates provinces of Jammu and Kashmir (iii) Kashmir valley and (iv) Indus Valley enclosed by the Karakoram mountains on the north and the Central range of Himalayas on the south. Ladakh area is one ofthe highest inhabited regions in the world.
The beginning
16th March, 1846
The State of Jammu and Kashmir as a district unit appeared on the map in the wake of the treaty of Amritsar, signed on the 16th March, 1846 between Maharaja Gulab Singh, the Purchaser on the one side and the British Indian Government on the other.
wiki says:: " Treaty of Amritsar, 1846, a treaty formalizing the arrangements in the Treaty of Lahore between the British East India Company and Maharaja Gulab Singh Dogra after the First Anglo-Sikh War."
Who was this raja?
Wiki says :: " Gulab Singh (1792–1857) was the founder of royal Dogra dynasty and first Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, the second largest princely state in British India, which was created after the defeat of the Sikhs in the First Anglo-Sikh War. The Treaty of Amritsar (1846), formalised the sale by the British to Gulab Singh for 7,500,000 Nanakshahee Rupees of all the lands in Kashmir that were ceded to them by the Sikhs by the Treaty of Lahore. "
1947 August
Maharaja Hari Singh
Although many princes wanted to be "independent" (which would have meant hereditary monarchies and no hope for democracy) they had to succumb to their people's protests which turned violent in many provinces.
Because of its location, Kashmir could choose to join either India or Pakistan. Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Kashmir, was Hindu while most of his subjects were Muslim. Unable to decide which nation Kashmir should join, Hari Singh chose to remain neutral.
October 1947
Hari Singh appealed to the Indian government for military assistance and fled to India. He signed the Instrument of Accession, ceding Kashmir to India on October 26.
Instrument of Accession
THE FIRST ENCOUNTER (1947-48)
Indian and Pakistani forces thus fought their first war over Kashmir in 1947-48. India referred the dispute to the United Nations on 1 January. In a resolution dated August 13, 1948, the UN asked Pakistan to remove its troops, after which India was also to withdraw the bulk of its forces.
Once this happened, a "free and fair" plebiscite was to be held to allow the Kashmiri people to decide their future.
An emergency government was formed on October 30, 1948 with Sheikh Abdullah as the Prime Minister.
shiek abdullah
January 1949
On January 1, 1949, a ceasefire was agreed, with 65 per cent of the territory under Indian control and the remainder with Pakistan.The ceasefire was intended to be temporary but the Line of Control remains the de facto border between the two countries.
1957
THE SECOND ENCOUNTER 1965
January 1, 1966
Indian Prime Minister, Lal Bhadur Shastri, and Pakistani President, M Ayub Khan, signed the Tashkent agreement .They resolved to try to end the dispute, but the death of Mr Shastri and the rise of Gen Yahya Khan in Pakistan resulted in stalemate.
Gen yahia khan
Ayub Khan
1971(March 26) The Birth of Bangladesh
India declared war on December 3, 1971 after Pakistani Air Force planes struck Indian airfields in the Western sector.
Two weeks later, the Indian army marched into Dhaka and the Pakistanis surrendered. In the Western sector the Indians managed to blockade the port city of Karachi and were 50 km into Pakistani territory when a ceasefire was reached.
1972 -78
In 1972 Indira Gandhi, the Indian prime minister, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, her Pakistani opposite number (and father of Benazir Bhutto, a later Pakistani premier), signed the Simla Agreement, which reiterated the promises made in Tashkent.
The two sides once again agreed to resolve the issue peacefully, as domestic issues dominated.
Both India and Pakistan had other important domestic problems which kept Kashmir on the back-burner. In 1975 Indira Gandhi declared a state of national emergency, but she was defeated in the 1978 general elections.
Both India and Pakistan had other important domestic problems which kept Kashmir on the back-burner. In 1975 Indira Gandhi declared a state of national emergency, but she was defeated in the 1978 general elections.
On 1978 March Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged on charges of assassination of Nawab Muhammed Ahamed. Pakistan reverted to military dictatorship under Gen Zia ul Haq.
Gen Zia ul Haq
news reports says:: "On March 16, 1978 he came out with yet another move when he told the newsmen at Peshawar that he was not making any promises which he could not fulfil. He said that priorities had now been rearranged as Islamisation, accountability and then elections."
The balance of influence had decisively tilted in Pakistan's favour by the late 1980s, with people's sympathy no longer with the Indian union as it had been in 1947-48 and 1965.
Mrs Gandhi's attempts to install puppet governments in state capitals, manipulating the democratic process in the state legislatures, deeply angered the Kashmiris.
The status quo was largely maintained until 1989 when pro-independence and pro-Pakistan guerrillas struck in the Indian Kashmir valley. They established a reign of terror and drove out almost all the Hindus from the valley before the Indian army moved in to flush them out. Meanwhile Indian and Pakistani troops regularly exchanged fire at the border.
The Second Half
Nuclear tests till 1998
India and Pakistan both tested nuclear devices in May 1998, and then in April 1999 test-fired missiles in efforts to perfect delivery systems for their nuclear weapons. Pakistan tested its Ghauri II missile four days after India's testing of its long-range (1,250 km) Agni II.
Although Pakistan claims that its missiles are an indigenous effort, in July 1999 Indian customs agents seized components shipped from North Korea which they claim were destined for Pakistan's missile programme.
Pakistan's later intermediate-range Ghauri III missile has a range of about 3,000 km.
When the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, set out to Lahore by bus on February 20, 1999, inaugurating the four times a week Delhi-Lahore-Delhi bus service, the world felt that such a genuine effort at friendly neighbourhood relations would lower the tension along the Line of Control in Kashmir.
But, all hopes of diplomacy disappeared once the cross-LOC firing in Kargil began during the mid-1990s. The death toll , including both soldiers and civilians, was more than 30,000.
THE KARGIL WAR 1999
In the first week of August 1998 Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged artillery fire, described by locals as heavier than that of the 1948 and 1965 wars put together. An estimated 50,000 rounds of ammunition were expended and a large number of soldiers and civilians killed.
In the summer of 1999 hostility in Kargil went far beyond the now familiar annual exhange of artillery fire.
When India began patrolling the Kargil heights that summer, it found to its horror that many key posts vacated in the winter were occupied by infiltrators. A patrol was ambushed in the first week of May 1999. India belatedly realised the magnitude of the occupation - which was around 10 km deep and spanned almost 100 km of the LOC - and sent MiG fighters into action on May 26.
India contended that the infiltrators were trained and armed by Pakistan, and based in "Azad Kashmir" with the full knowledge of the Pakistani government - and that Afghan and other foreign mercenaries accompanied them.
Pakistan insisted that those involved were freedom fighters from Kashmir and that it was giving only moral support.
India ordered the jets not to stray into Pakistani territory; but those that did were shot down.
The conflict ended only after Bill Clinton, the US President, and Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's Prime minister, met in Washington on July 4, 1999.
Meanwhile, the Indian Army had made significant advances, capturing vital territory on July 4. Despite the apparent efforts to mediate, the US maintained that it was not interfering in what India still claims to be a bilateral issue.
Pakistan withdrew its forces later that month. However, skirmishing continued, and in August India shot down a Pakistani reconnaissance plane, killing 16.
The official number of Indian troops lost in Kargil was around 500, with almost double that number of "infiltrators" killed. Nevertheless, India did not declare war against Pakistan - instead, Mr Vajpayee ambigously announced a "war-like situation".
Yet this, by all accounts of soldiers and top Indian army officers involved, was a war in which India lost men engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Pakistani soldiers in the heights of Kargil - a war that could be compared with the one of 1948-49, which was limited to Kashmir, with the other border regions remaining peaceful.
Thus in 1999, in a war limited to one sector, India suffered casualities within its own territory. Despite much pressure from the military and the public, the government decided not to cross the LOC. Pakistan too suffered criticism at home for limiting its war to artillery fire across the LOC and shooting down Indian aircraft.
The fear of a full-scale war (with nuclear capability adding a deadly dimension), coupled with precarious economies and the knowledge of what international sanctions could do to them, may have prevailed in both countries.
And......Today they they are playing with China.
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