Kashmir

A princely state with loose edges

Kashmir in its modern form dates from 1846. After the First Sikh War, the treaties of Lahore and Amritsar made Gulab Singh, the Dogra ruler of Jammu, maharaja of a large Himalayan kingdom “to the eastward of the River Indus and westward of the River Ravi.”^[1] For Britain the state was part of a buffer between its Indian empire and the Russian and Chinese empires to the north.^[1]

Its outer edges were never fully fixed. In the far north the maharaja’s authority reached the Karakoram Range, but the boundary beyond it was never marked on the ground, and there were similar doubts along Aksai Chin in the east.^[1] In 1889 Britain made Gilgit, always understood to be part of Kashmir, a special agency under a British agent.^[1]

1947: accession and the first war

When Britain left in 1947, the rulers of princely states could choose to join India or Pakistan.^[5] Kashmir had a clear Muslim majority, but its Hindu maharaja, Hari Singh, delayed his decision in the hope of staying independent.^[5][6] After a revolt among his Muslim subjects in the west and an advance by Pashtun fighters from Pakistan, he signed an Instrument of Accession to India in October 1947.^[5] Pakistan, which saw the state as a natural extension of itself, and India, which meant to confirm the accession, both sent forces.^[5]

India took the dispute to the UN Security Council. In resolution 47 of 21 April 1948 the Council noted that both countries wanted the question of accession decided by “a free and impartial plebiscite”. It recommended that Pakistan secure the withdrawal of fighters who had entered the state, that India then reduce its own forces, and that a vote follow.^[7]

A UN-brokered ceasefire took effect in January 1949.^[5] The Karachi Agreement of 27 July 1949 fixed a ceasefire line, watched by UN military observers.^[4] The line left the Vale of Kashmir, home to the largest Muslim population and more than half the region’s people, on the Indian-administered side. Pakistan was left with thinly populated, mountainous territory.^[5]

“Noting with satisfaction that both India and Pakistan desire that the question of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan should be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite…”^[7]

China’s corner

China never accepted the British-negotiated boundary agreements in northeastern Kashmir.^[5] In the 1950s Chinese forces built a military road across the Aksai Chin plateau, finished in 1956–57, to link Xinjiang with western Tibet.^[5] India’s discovery of the road led to clashes and then to the Sino-Indian war of October 1962. China has held about 38,000 km² of Aksai Chin since.^[2] India claims it as part of Ladakh.^[2]

On 2 March 1963 China and Pakistan signed an agreement on the boundary between Xinjiang and the areas “the defense of which is under actual control of Pakistan”.^[8] It runs about 325 miles (523 km) from the Afghanistan tripoint to the Karakoram Pass. Because of the dispute with India, it is provisional: Article VI provides for renegotiation once the Kashmir question is settled.^[8]

The frontier between India and China in Ladakh is still unresolved.^[5] In June 2020 Indian and Chinese soldiers fought with fists, clubs and stones in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh. India said it lost 20 soldiers, and China later said four of its soldiers died.^[9]

A ceasefire line that became the Line of Control

India and Pakistan fought again in 1965, and signed an agreement at Tashkent in January 1966 to seek a peaceful end to the dispute.^[5] A ceasefire on 17 December 1971 ended a third war, which began in East Pakistan and ended with the creation of Bangladesh.^[4] In the Simla Agreement of 2 July 1972 both sides agreed to respect the resulting Line of Control. With minor changes it follows the 1949 line.^[3][4]

India’s position since then is that the UN observers’ mandate lapsed with the 1949 ceasefire line; Pakistan does not accept that, and the observers remain.^[4] Neither country recognises the Line of Control as an international boundary.^[1] India continues to claim the whole region.^[6] At its northern end, both countries claim the Siachen Glacier, 75 km long, which India values because it separates Pakistan from China.^[10]

In 1999 fighters crossed from the Pakistani side into the Kargil area of Ladakh. The Kargil War that followed, from May to July, killed several hundred combatants on each side.^[5] After a ceasefire in 2004, a bus service began between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad in 2005, and cross-line trade started in 2008.^[5]

“In Jammu and Kashmir, the line of control resulting from the cease-fire of December 17, 1971 shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognized position of either side.”^[3]

Since 2019

On 14 February 2019 a suicide bomber linked to a militant separatist group killed 40 members of India’s Central Reserve Police Force. Days later Indian jets crossed the Line of Control for the first time in five decades, and Pakistan shot down Indian aircraft and captured a pilot.^[5]

On 5 August 2019 India’s president signed a decree ending the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the constitution.^[11] Parliament then split the state into two union territories under the central government’s control: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.^[12][5] On 11 December 2023 five Supreme Court judges upheld the change, and elections for a new Jammu and Kashmir assembly followed in 2024.^[12][5]

In April 2025 gunmen opened fire on tourists near Pahalgam, killing more than two dozen civilians. India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, and Pakistan threatened to suspend all bilateral agreements, including the Simla Agreement.^[5] On 7 May India struck sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan struck back on 10 May, and a ceasefire took effect later that day.^[5]