The Kashmir Dilemma (Rashmee Roshan Lall, May 12, 2025, Persuasion)
In 1947, Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state with a Hindu king, wanted to be independent rather than join India or Pakistan. But when Pakistan sent in tribal fighters to help persuade Kashmir to reconsider, the king asked India for help and agreed to join the Indian union. Pakistan regarded this an injustice because it was founded as a homeland for South Asia’s Muslims. India saw it as reaffirmation of its secular credentials.Within months they were at war over Kashmir—a war that was never properly resolved, with both sides merely stopping in their tracks. The line of control became the de facto border. India took the issue to the United Nations Security Council, which called for a plebiscite to let Kashmiris themselves decide which country they would rather join, but this was never held. The result has been a frozen conflict that—as we saw last week—periodically heats up (in the late 1980s, a violent separatist movement encouraged by Pakistan turned the beautiful valleys of the Indian part of Kashmir into killing fields.)
The subsequent decades saw a gradual building of tensions that brought the region to the latest round of conflict. In August 2019, following a campaign pledge by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India revoked the special constitutional status afforded to the Indian-administered part of Kashmir (around two-thirds of the territory) and enfolded it more tightly within the embrace of the federal state. Jammu and Kashmir would no longer be a state but directly administered by Delhi. It would not have its own constitution and flag, nor the ability to remain demographically distinct because of restrictions on non-residents buying property there. In order to administer Kashmir from Delhi, Modi’s government installed a huge security presence, cracked down hard on dissent, and arbitrarily cut off internet and mobile networks for months on end. This has fueled profound local discontent.
There is no dilemma: the Kashmiri are entitled to determine their own fate.