Days after the Pahalgam attack, in which 26 civilians were killed on April 22 in Indian-administered Kashmir, Pakistan, Pakistan, and India continue to use war rhetoric. They have also exchanged fire across the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border in Kashmir.
Since then, senior members of Pakistan’s government and military officials have held multiple news conferences in which they have claimed to have “credible information” that an Indian military response is imminent.
The two largest countries in South Asia, which have a combined population of more than 1.6 billion people, or about one-fifth of the world’s population, have previously been in the dark about potential war.
At the heart of their longstanding animosity lies the status of the picturesque valley of Kashmir, over which India and Pakistan have fought three of their four previous wars. Both nations have a controlling share of Kashmir, with China claiming another portion of it, but they continue to assert it in full even though they were granted British sovereignty in 1947.
So what is the Kashmir conflict all about, and why do India and Pakistan continue to fight over it nearly eight decades after independence?
What caused the most recent tensions?
India has implied it believes Pakistan may have indirectly supported the Pahalgam attack – a claim Pakistan strongly denies. Both nations have engaged in diplomatic tit-for-tat diplomatic retaliations against one another, including recalling diplomatic staff members and canceling visas for their respective citizens.
India has suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty, a water use and distribution agreement with Pakistan. Seven months after Pakistan lost the decisive defeat in the conflict that caused Bangladesh’s creation, Pakistan has again threatened to leave the Simla Agreement. The Simla Agreement has since formed the bedrock of India-Pakistan relations. It establishes the LoC’s policies and outlines a commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes.
On Wednesday, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to urge both countries to work together to “de-escalate tensions and maintain peace and security in South Asia”.
Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh was also called on Thursday by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to denounce the attack. “I offered my strong support. Hegseth wrote on X that “we stand with India and its great people.”
What lies at the heart of the Kashmir conflict?
The region, which is located in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, covers 222, 200 square kilometers (85, 800 miles) and has 13 million residents in Jammu and Kashmir, which is administered by Pakistan.
The population is overwhelmingly Muslim. India controls the southern and southern regions of the country, including the Kashmir Valley and its largest city, Srinagar, as well as Jammu and Ladakh, while Pakistan controls the northern and western regions, which are Azad Kashmir, Gilgit, and Baltistan.
The end of British colonial rule and the partition of British India in August 1947 led to the creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India.
Princely states like Jammu and Kashmir had the option to accession to either nation at the time. With a nearly 75 percent Muslim population, many in Pakistan believed the region would naturally join that country. Even though a majority of Muslims in what remained as India remained so long after partition, where Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundations of a secular state, Pakistan was established as a nation under Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
The maharaja of Kashmir initially sought independence from both countries but later chose to join India after Pakistan invaded, triggering the first war from 1947 to 1948. Following that, the Simla Agreement established the ceasefire line as the LoC.
Despite this, both countries continue to assert claims to the entire region, including, in the case of India, to China-administered Aksai Chin on the eastern side.
What led to the first Indo-Pakistani conflict in 1947?
The ruling Hindu maharaja of Kashmir was Hari Singh, whose forefathers took control of the region as part of an agreement with the British in 1846.
Singh  initially vowed to keep Kashmir’s independence from both India and Pakistan at the time of partition.
But by then, a rebellion against his rule by pro-Pakistani residents in a part of Kashmir had broken out. Armed groups from Pakistan resisted invasion and attempted to annex the area with the support of the newly formed nation’s government.
Sheikh Abdullah, the most prominent Kashmiri leader at the time, opposed the Pakistani-backed attack. India requested military assistance in an appeal.
Nehru’s government intervened against Pakistan – but on the condition that the maharaja sign an Instrument of Accession merging Jammu and Kashmir with India. Jammu and Kashmir formally joined India in October 1947, granting New Delhi control of Jammu and Ladakh’s Kashmir Valley.
India accused Pakistan of being the aggressor in the conflict – a charge Pakistan denied – and took the matter to the United Nations in January 1948. A significant resolution was passed that stated that a free and impartial plebiscite should be used to decide whether Jammu and Kashmir should join India or Pakistan. Nearly 80 years later, no plebiscite has been held – a source of grievance for Kashmiris.
In 1949, the two nations established a ceasefire line under an agreement signed in Karachi, Pakistan’s then-capital, which saw the end of the first conflict over Kashmir. The new line divided Kashmir between Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts.
How did the situation change following the 1949 agreement?
By 1953, Sheikh Abdullah had founded the Jammu Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) and won state elections in Indian-administered Kashmir.
However, Indian authorities detained him because of his growing desire to secede from India. In 1956, Jammu and Kashmir was declared an “integral” part of India.
India and Pakistan started a war with the region in September 1965, less than two decades after independence.
Pakistan hoped to aid the Kashmiri cause and incite a local uprising, but the war ended in a stalemate, with both sides agreeing to a UN-supervised ceasefire.
How was Kashmir acquired by China?
The Aksai Chin region in the northeast of the region sits at an elevation of 5, 000 metres (16, 400 feet), and through history, was a hard-to-reach, barely inhabited territory that in the 19th and early 20th centuries sat at the border of British India and China.
Hari Singh, a Kashmiri, inherited the kingdom as a result of the British-Kings deal in 1846. Until the 1930s, at least, Chinese maps too recognised Kashmir as being south of the Ardagh-Johnson Line that marked the northeastern boundary of Kashmir.
Aksai Chin was included in New Delhi’s territory after Singh’s accession to India in 1947. But by the early 1950s, China – now under communist rule – built a massive 1, 200km (745-mile) long highway connecting Tibet and Xinjiang, and running through Aksai Chin.
India was unaware that the desolate area had not yet been a top security concern. In 1954, Nehru called for the border to be formalised according to the Ardagh-Johnson Line – in effect, recognising Aksai Chin as a part of India.
However, China insisted that Aksai Chin belonged to the British and that it belonged under an alternate map. Most importantly, though, China already had boots on the ground in Aksai Chin because of the highway.
In some parts of Kashmir, Pakistan and China disagreed on who held what power. But by the early 1960s, they reached an agreement: China gave up grazing grounds that Pakistan had sought, and in return, Pakistan ceded a thin slice of northern Kashmir to China.
Since Kashmir belonged to it, the Instrument of Accession of 1947 says this deal was unlawful.
Back to India and Pakistan: What happened next?
Following a popular uprising by Bengali nationalists opposed to Pakistan’s rule, another war broke out in December 1971, this time over what was then known as East Pakistan. The war led to the creation of Bangladesh. More than 90 000 Pakistani soldiers were taken prisoner of war by India.
The Simla Agreement converted the ceasefire line into the LoC, a de facto but not internationally recognised border, yet again leaving Kashmir’s status in question.
However, in the 1970s, Abdullah abandoned his demand for a plebiscite and the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination in the wake of India’s decisive victory in 1971 and as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s advancing political influence.
In 1975, he signed an accord with Gandhi, recognising India-administered Kashmir’s accession to India while retaining semi-autonomous status under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. He became the region’s chief minister later.
What led to a renewed drive for Kashmiri independence in the 1980s?
As tensions between Abdullah’s ruling Indian National Congress and India’s ruling Indian National Congress grew, so did anger among Kashmiris in India-controlled Kashmir, who claimed that the region’s socioeconomic conditions had not improved.
Separatist groups like the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front, founded by Maqbool Bhat, rose.
In the face of growing armed group support, India’s claims of democracy in Kashmir faltered. A tipping point was the 1987 election to the state legislature, which saw Abdullah’s son, Farooq Abdullah, come to power, but which was widely viewed as heavily rigged to keep out popular, anti-India politicians.
Separatist groups, which New Delhi claimed were supported and trained by Pakistan’s military intelligence, were systematically under attack by Indian authorities. Pakistan, for its part, has consistently maintained it provides only moral and diplomatic support, backing the Kashmiris ‘ “right to self-determination”.
In Kargil, Indian and Pakistani forces fought for supremacy over strategic positions along the LoC in the year 1999. India eventually regained the lost territory, and the pre-conflict status quo was restored. Kargil is a part of Ladakh, and this was the third conflict involving Kashmir.
How have tensions over Kashmir escalated since then?
There were nofewer direct conflicts in the years that followed, with numerous ceasefire agreements being signed. However, India significantly ramped up its military presence in the valley.
Following the assassination of popular separatist figure Burhan Wani, a 2016 tense was rekindled. His death led to a rise in violence in the valley and more frequent exchanges of fire along the LoC.
Indian forces, who blamed Pakistan-backed armed groups, were the target of major attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, including those that occurred in Pathankot and Uri in 2016.
The most serious escalation came in February 2019 when a convoy of Indian paramilitary personnel was attacked in Pulwama, killing 40 soldiers and bringing the two nations to the brink of war.
In a unilateral abrogation of Article 370, the Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status six months later. Pakistan condemned the move as a violation of the Simla Agreement.
In the valley, the decision caused a lot of protests. India deployed 500, 000 to 800, 000 soldiers, placed the region under lockdown, shut down internet services and detained thousands of people.
India claims that Pakistan is to blame for Kashmir’s ongoing crisis. It accuses Pakistan of hosting, financing and training the Pakistan-based armed groups that have claimed responsibility for multiple attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir over the decades. India, the US, and other countries accuse some of these organizations of attacking other regions of India, such as in the 2008 attack on Mumbai, the country’s financial hub, where at least 166 people died in three days.
Pakistan continues to deny that it fuels violence in India-controlled Kashmir and instead points to widespread resentment among locals, accusing India of imposing harsh and undemocratic rule in the region. Islamabad claims that it only morally and diplomatically backs separatism in Kashmir.
