India-Pakistan conflict

Further information: Timeline of the Kashmir conflict

Early history
See also: History of Kashmir and Jammu and Kashmir (princely state)
According to the mid-12th century text Rajatarangini the Kashmir Valley was
formerly a lake. Hindu mythology relates that the lake was drained by the sage
Kashyapa, by cutting a gap in the hills at Baramulla (Varaha-mula), and invited
Brahmans to settle there. This remains the local tradition and Kashyapa is
connected with the draining of the lake in traditional histories. The chief town or
collection of dwellings in the valley is called Kashyapa-pura, which has been
identified as Kaspapyros in Hecataeus (Apud Stephanus of Byzantium) and the
Kaspatyros of Herodotus (3.102, 4.44).[35] Kashmir is also believed to be the
country indicated by Ptolemy's Kaspeiria.[36]

The Pashtun Durrani Empire ruled Kashmir in the 18th century until its 1819
conquest by the Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh. The Raja of Jammu Gulab Singh, who was a
vassal of the Sikh Empire and an influential noble in the Sikh court, sent expeditions
to various border kingdoms and ended up encircling Kashmir by 1840. Following the
First Anglo-Sikh War (18451846), Kashmir was ceded under the Treaty of Lahore to
the East India Company, which transferred it to Gulab Singh through the Treaty of
Amritsar, in return for the payment of indemnity owed by the Sikh empire. Gulab
Singh took the title of the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. From then until the 1947
Partition of India, Kashmir was ruled by the Maharajas of the princely state of
Kashmir and Jammu. According to the 1941 census, the state's population was 77
percent Muslim, 20 percent Hindu and 3 percent others (Sikhs and Buddhists).[37]
Despite its Muslim majority, the princely rule was an overwhelmingly Hindu state.
[38]

Partition and invasion

British rule in India ended in 1947 with the creation of new states: the Dominion of
Pakistan and the Union of India, as the successor states to British India. The British
Paramountcy over the 562 Indian princely states ended. According to the Indian
Independence Act 1947, "the suzerainty of His Majesty over the Indian States
lapses, and with it, all treaties and agreements in force at the date of the passing of
this Act between His Majesty and the rulers of Indian States".[39] States were
thereafter left to choose whether to join India or Pakistan or to remain independent.
Jammu and Kashmir, the largest of the princely states, had a predominantly Muslim
population ruled by the Hindu Maharaja Hari Singh. He decided to stay independent

because he expected that the State's Muslims would be unhappy with accession to
India, and the Hindus and Sikhs would become vulnerable if he joined Pakistan.[40]
[41] On 11 August, the Maharaja dismissed his prime minister Ram Chandra Kak,
who had advocated independence. Observers and scholars interpret this action as a
tilt towards accession to India.[42][41] Pakistanis decided to preempt this possibility
by wresting Kashmir by force if necessary.[43]

Pakistan made various efforts to persuade the Maharaja of Kashmir to join Pakistan.
In July 1947, Mohammad Ali Jinnah is believed to have written to the Maharaja
promising "every sort of favourable treatment," followed by lobbying of the State's
Prime Minister by leaders of Jinnah's Muslim League party. Faced with the
Maharaja's indecision, the Muslim League agents clandestinely worked in Poonch to
encourage the local Muslims to revolt. The authorities in Pakistani Punjab waged a
`private war' by obstructing supplies of fuel and essential commodities to the State.
Later in September, Muslim League officials in the Northwest Frontier Province,
including the Chief Minister Abdul Qayyum Khan, assisted and possibly organized a
large-scale invasion of Kashmir by Pathan tribesmen.[44]:61 Several sources
indicate that the plans were finalised on 12 September by the Prime Minister
Liaquat Ali Khan, based on proposals prepared by Colonel Akbar Khan and Sardar
Shaukat Hayat Khan. One plan called for organising an armed insurgency in the
western districts of the state and the other for organising a Pushtoon tribal invasion.
Both were set in motion.[45][46]

The Jammu division of the state got caught up in the Partition violence. Large
numbers of Hindus and Sikhs from Rawalpindi and Sialkot started arriving in March
1947, bringing "harrowing stories of Muslim atrocities." This provoked counterviolence on Jammu Muslims, which had "many parallels with that in Sialkot."
According to scholar Ilyas Chattha, the "Kashmiri Muslims were to pay a heavy price
in SeptemberOctober 1947 for the earlier violence of West Punjab." However,
Chattha also states that the "Hindu Dogra state of Jammu and Kashmir" ordered the
massacre of Muslims in the Jammu division with political motivations to ethnically
cleanse the Muslim population and to ensure a non-Muslim majority in the Jammu
region of the state.[47][48]

The violence in the eastern districts of Jammu that started in September, developed
into a widespread `massacre' of Muslims around 20 October, organised by the
Hindu Dogra troops of the State and perpetrated by the local Hindus, including
members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and the Hindus and Sikhs displaced
from the neighbouring areas of West Pakistan. The Maharaja himself was implicated
in some instances. A team of British observers commissioned by India and Pakistan

identified 70,000 Muslims killed, whereas the Azad Kashmir Government claimed
that 200,000 Muslims were killed. About 400,000 Muslims fled to West Pakistan,
some of whom made their way to the western districts of Poonch and Mirpur, which
were undergoing rebellion. Many of these Muslims believed that the Maharaja
ordered the killings in Jammu. According to Christopher Snedden, these Jammu
Muslims joined the uprising in Poonch and the western districts, and instigated the
formation of the Azad Kashmir government.[49]

The rebel forces in the western districts of Jammu organized under the leadership of
Sardar Ibrahim, a Muslim Conference leader. They took control of most of the
western parts of the State by 22 October. On 24 October, they formed a provisional
Azad Kashmir (free Kashmir) government based in Palandri.[50]