Getting serious over India/Pakistan,shooting (1 Viewer)

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The Indian subcontinent was partitioned into Hindu-dominated but nominally secular India and the newly created Muslim state of Pakistan after India's independence from Great Britain in 1947. The name Pakistan was formulated from: P for Punjab, A for the Afghanis of the north-west frontier, K for Kashmir, S for Sind and Tan denoting Baluchistan. The word also means land of the pure in Urdu.
The partitioning of the Subcontinent, however, led to severe rioting and population movement as Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus found themselves on the wrong side of the partitioned provinces of Punjab and Bengal.
Severe rioting and population movement ensued and an estimated half a million people were killed in communal violence. About a million people were left homeless. Since the partitioning, the territory of Jammu and Kashmir have remained in dispute, with Pakistan and India both holding sectors.

In the days of the British Empire, the states of Jammu and Kashmir were two of more than 560 autonomous princely states owing allegiance to Britain. At independence, all the rulers were advised to join one of the two new dominions, India or Pakistan, bearing in mind their state's geographical position and the religion of their inhabitants. Therein lay the roots of the India/Pakistan conflict. By August 1947, the date of partition, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir had still not decided which dominion to join. Then in October 1947 just two months after the partition armed tribesmen from Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province invaded Kashmir. Besieged both by a revolt in his state and by the invasion, the Maharaja requested armed assistance from the government of India. In return he acceded to India, handing over powers of defense, communication and foreign affairs. It is the precise timing of the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir signing of the instrument of accession and the Indian army moved into the state that is questioned, with Pakistan arguing that the Maharaja acceded to India under duress. Both India and Pakistan did however agree that the accession would be confirmed at a later date, by a referendum, once hostilities had ceased.
In May 1948, the regular Pakistani army was called upon to protect Pakistan's borders. Fighting continued throughout the year between Pakistani irregular troops and the Indian army.
The war ended on 1 January 1949 when a ceasefire was arranged by the United Nations, which recommended that both India and Pakistan should adhere to their commitment to hold a referendum in the state. A ceasefire line was established where the two sides stopped fighting and a UN peacekeeping force established. The referendum, however, has never been held.

In 1954 Jammu and Kashmir's accession to India was ratified by the state's constituent assembly. In 1957, it approved its own constitution, modeled along the Indian constitution. Since that time India has regarded that part of the state which it controls as an integral part of the Indian union.
To the west of the ceasefire line, Pakistan controls roughly one third of the state. A small region, which the Pakistanis call Azad (Free) Jammu and Kashmir, and the Indians call Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, is semi-autonomous. The larger area, which includes the former kingdoms of Hunza and Nagar, called the northern areas, is directly administered by Pakistan.

In 1962-3, following the 1962 Sino-Indian war, India and Pakistan held talks under the auspices of Britain and the US in an attempt to resolve their differences over Kashmir, but without success.

Over 70 years later, Pakistanis still believe that Jammu and Kashmir should have become part of Pakistan because the majority of the state's population, concentrated in the valley of Kashmir, is Muslim.
India, says the state of Jammu and Kashmir belong to India because by the October 1947 instrument of accession the Maharaja had agreed to join India.
 

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