HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Most Indians and Pakistanis cant agree where Kashmir is on a map. But ask them who started the war, and they will have an answer.
For over 50 years, India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir; a lush mountainous region nestled in the Himalayas. By Indian estimates, Asia's most bitter conflict has claimed 40,000 lives, while Pakistan says the number is closer to 80,000. Human Rights groups, says that more than 4,000 civilians have "disappeared" since the Line of Control was established by the UN in 1949. Harassment continues in the countryside, and many Kashmiris believe that killings in "encounters" with the army or police are in fact deaths after torture in custody. Yet the West remains mostly ignorant of this bloody conflict, and its potential to escalate into a full-scale nuclear war. Unlike the Middle East, the war in Kashmir does not make headlines around the world. As peace talks between India and Pakistan continue and a historic road opens between their respective portions of Kashmir, dodging artillery fire and escaping rape or torture remains the daily reality of living in any region of Kashmir. The fact that no Kashmiris are currently at the peace table with India and Pakistan compounds the skepticism toward any improvement in the lives of civilians.
It all started when a parcel of land was split into two, and the people were divided by their religion...
The Himalayan region of Kashmir came into dispute in 1947 when the British partitioned its colonial property into the separate nations of Pakistan and India. At the time, Kashmir was the only state with a Muslim majority population and Hindu leadership. When the Kashmiri Maharaja chose secular India, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan declared the decision invalid. Thus began the downward spiral that sparked two bloody wars and resulted in a UN sanctioned cease-fire line two years later, called the Line of Control (LOC). The UN called for the Kashmiri people to decide on their future through a plebiscite, but years of violence and a relentless diplomatic tug of war have made it impossible for it to take place.
And at a certain point, the divisions went deep, and to deadly proportions.
After the 1947 partition, a growing economic distress, rigged elections, and political extremism from both India and Pakistan shook the foundation of Kashmir. In 1989, a large group of Kashmiri people launched an insurgency, demanding independence from Indian rule. The alternatives to Indian rule were an independent Kashmiri nation, or alignment with Pakistan. Experts debate the exact motives of India and Pakistan in this hot dispute, but they all agree that extremists tainted the efforts of nonviolent separatists. Thousands of young men were slaughtered. Women were raped. People were driven from their homes. Today, India still accuses Pakistan of supporting the insurgency and the guerilla movement in Kashmir. Pakistan denies this claim and blames India for human rights abuses and of hiding the conflict from the international community. The people of Kashmir fear both sides and daily life has become a war of survival. Islamic extremists are charged with performing acts of terrorism, namely, forcing nearly 250,000 Kashmiri Hindus to refugee camps in the southern reaches of the state. The Indian Army is accused of arresting men extra judicially and locking them away indefinitely in underground interrogation centers, with no record or notice for family members.
Now, after death and destruction, can we put it all back together again?
Nuclear testing conducted by India and Pakistan in 1998 placed Kashmir on the map as the trigger for the world’s first nuclear war. Today, the conflict in Kashmir has been dubbed by the international press as “The Highest Battlefield on Earth,” where hundreds of thousands of Indian and Pakistani soldiers fight at deathly heights in the Himalayas. But the Kashmiri civilian population continues to quietly suffer in the valley below. This unvoiced anguish has also significantly affected the estimated 5,000 US-based Kashmiris and is the heart of a deep divide among millions of Indians and Pakistanis living around the world (1.8 million in the US alone). They are a community divided by religious allegiances and filled with deep-rooted anger, and often, hate. Though more alike than different, Kashmiri Muslims and Kashmiri Hindus living in America are at arms with each other because there is little information available to support dialogue. Many members of the community have given up hope for peace. Already, the hatred has begun to trickle down into the minds of the next generation.
