Kashmir conflict Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Kashmir conflict - Essay Example Muslim Pashtun tribesmen from Pakistan took to regularly raiding into Kashmir. The Maharaja was ill equipped to respond and India refused to intervene until Kashmir agreed to annexation. The Maharaja â€Å"eventually decided to accede to India, signing over key powers to the Indian government – in return for military aid and a promised referendum.†5 When Indian troops entered the Kashmir, Pakistan invaded to ‘defend’ Kashmiri autonomy. The result was the first India-Pakistan War, fought in and over the Kashmir. It ended on New Year’s Day, 1949 when the United Nations brokered a cease-fire agreement and dispatched a peacekeeping force to the region.6 Map 1: Kashmir Remarkably, this cease-fire was tenuously maintained through fifteen years of â€Å"unending artillery duels and annual clashes on the world’s highest glacier.†7 However, in 1965 war broke out again. India accused Pakistan of infiltrating local insurgents into the Indian contr olled region and fermenting rebellion. In response India crossed the cease-fire line and occupied key defensive positions. Eventually another cease-fire saw them return to their original positions. In 1971, while a devastating civil war raged in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) Indian troops entered that country. That ignited the third India-Pakistan War. Although that war was not fought in the Kashmir directly one of its results was the â€Å"Simla agreement that turned the Line of control [cease-fire line] into their unofficial temporary border.†8 Since 1972 India and Pakistan have not fought another war although the border conflicts have persisted. Also, as noted earlier, the potential for catastrophic conflict increased significantly in... The province of Kashmir is located in India, on the border between India and Pakistan. It is the only state in India with a Muslim majority (67.2 percent). Consequently, it has been a point of hostility, endemic guerrilla warfare, and occasional conventional military clashes. Additionally, for the last few years the threat of nuclear conflagration has hung ominously over the province. Then events over the last decade, the current situation, will be examined. Finally, prospects for the future, specifically prospects for the resolution of the dispute will be considered. With an autonomous Kashmir a non-starter and India and Pakistan both firmly committed to controlling Kashmir rather than its partition, it is difficult to see that the dispute is any closer to a resolution today than it was a decade ago when Fathers described it as 'stumbling toward resolution'. On the positive side this dispute has simmered and occasionally flared up throughout the decade since both India and Pakistan revealed that they had nuclear capabilities without ever becoming an out and out declared war, let alone a nuclear exchange and it seems reasonable to assert that the conflict will continue to smolder without becoming grounds for a nuclear confrontation.