Many Kashmiris believed this was crucial to protecting the demography of the Muslim-majority state and its way of life. Under article 370, the state was given a separate constitution, a flag, and autonomy over all matters except for foreign affairs and defence.Īn additional provision, article 35a, prevented people from outside the state buying land in the territory. Kashmir’s special status, given in exchange for joining the Indian union, had been in place since. But since then it has eroded some of that autonomy and repeatedly intervened to rig elections and dismiss and jail democratically elected leaders. In its 1950 constitution, India granted Kashmir a large measure of independence. In 1948, the UN security council called for a referendum in Kashmir to determine which country the region would join or whether it would become an independent state. Kashmir asked Delhi for assistance, signing a treaty of accession in exchange for the intervention of Indian troops, who fought the Pakistanis to the modern-day line of control. The ruler of Kashmir dithered over which to join until tribal fighters entered from Pakistan intent on taking the region for Islamabad. Artillery, mortar and small arms fire are still frequently exchanged.Īfter the partition of colonial India in 1947, small, semi-autonomous ‘princely states’ across the subcontinent were being folded into India or Pakistan. India and Pakistan have gone to war a further two times over Kashmir, most recently in 1999. The region in the foothills of the Himalayas has been under dispute since India and Pakistan came into being in 1947.īoth claim it in full, but each controls a section of the territory, separated by one of the world's most heavily militarised borders: the ‘line of control’ based on a ceasefire border established after a 1947-48 war.
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