Source:didyou know
Kashmir was inhabited by the Brahmins when Buddhism was introduced by missionaries of Asoka in 274BeforeC. Shams-ud-Din in 1346, whose dynasty ruled until 1586 when the Mughul (Persian for Mongol) emperor Akbar conquered Kashmir to firmly establish Muslim influence. Akbar tolerated local regions and married a Hindu princess. The grandson of Akbar would built the Taj Mahal many years later.
In 1752 Afghanistan leader Ahmed Shah Durrani defeated the Mughals and annexed Kashmir. Disputes between Muslims and Brahmin Hindus flared up, a situation that persisted and today is the prime cause of conflict in Kashmir.
1947, Muhatmah Ghandi led the Indian continent to independence from the British in a remarkable display of perseverance. But it came at great cost. While Gandhi was leading a largely Hindu movement, Mohammed Ali Jinnah was fronting a Muslim one. Jinnah advocated the division of India into two separate states, Muslim and Hindu. When the British left, the Muslim League created the separate states of Pakistan (from the West Pakistan province in India) and Bangladesh. During the time of partition of India in 1947, Jammu & Kashmir was one of some 560 Princely States, which were not part of the territories under British rule but owed suzerainty to the British Crown.
Jammu & Kashmir was a divided state, with friction between the Muslims and the Hindi. The Maharajah, fearing tribal warfare, then agreed to join India through an Instrument of Accession on 26th October 1947. Since, this Instrument of Accession has remained an issue of dispute between India and Pakistan.
In 1957 the State of Jammu & Kashmir was incorporated into the Indian Union under a new Constitution. In 1965, heavy fighting broke out again, with India capturing the valley between the Dras and Suru rivers. They returned the area per agreement with Pakistan, but recaptured it when civil war broke out in East Pakistan in 1971.
The risks of war in Kashmir are frightening. Apart from the severe economic cost on all parties involved, India and Pakistan are tied in a race of nuclear capabilities. With China as neighbour and still in dispute over land matters with India, and Pakistan having seceded a part of Kashmir to China earlier, the lives of millions of people hang in the balance.
When the subcontinent was divided in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi proclaimed that Kashmir stood out of the circle of holocaust as a "shining example" of "secularism". Today, both the Indian and Pakistan governments toss words such as "ethnic cleansing" at each other, yet both India and Pakistan still reject independence for Kashmir. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have pointed out human rights abuses on both sides.
