According to legend, Kashmir was formed when the great Rishi (sage) Kashyap drained a vast lake that came to be known as Kashyapamar.
The history of Kashmir is intertwined with that of the Indian subcontinent. An account of the early history of Kashmir is found in the Nilmata Purana (compiled 500–600 AD). Kalhana, often regarded as India’s first historian, wrote ‘Rajatarangini’ (River of Kings). It included 8000 Sanskrit verses that chronicled the history of Kashmir's dynasties from mythical times to the 12th century, with rational and critical analyses of events between the 11th and 12th centuries. It relies upon traditional sources like Nilmata Purana, inscriptions, coins, monuments, and his personal observations borne out of political experiences of his family. Kalhana’s ‘Rajatarangini’ has itself been used as a source for subsequent historical accounts including in Persian.
Buddhism was introduced in Kashmir by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC when Kashmir became a part of the Mauryan Empire. Mahayana Buddhism was brought to Kashmir by Emperor Kanishka. Kashmir, thus, became a prominent centre of both Hinduism and Buddhism at different periods of history. In the 9th century, Shaivism rose to prominence in Kashmir. Muslim rule lasted nearly five centuries, ending when Kashmir was annexed to the Sikh kingdom of the Punjab in 1819 and then to the Dogra kingdom of Jammu in 1846. At the conclusion of the First Sikh War, Raja Gulab Singh, the Dogra ruler of Jammu, became Maharaja of an extensive Himalayan kingdom by the treaties of Lahore and Amritsar.
What is the “Kashmir Issue?”
With the end of British rule in the Indian subcontinent in 1947, India and Pakistan were created as the successor states to British India. British Paramountcy over the 562 Indian princely states ended and the Indian Independence Act 1947, left it to states to choose whether to join India or Pakistan or to remain independent.
Accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India
Jammu and Kashmir, ruled by the Hindu Maharaja Hari Singh, decided to stay independent. But, in violation of a Standstill Agreement that the Maharaja had signed with both India and Pakistan, Pashtun tribals, widely accepted to be at the behest of the Pakistani government, invaded Kashmir in October 1947. C. Christine Fair commented that this was the beginning of Pakistan using irregular forces and "asymmetric warfare" to ensure plausible deniability, which has continued ever since.
Unable to face the attacks, the Maharaja made an urgent plea to Delhi for military assistance. The Governor General Lord Mountbatten insisted that the Maharaja needed to accede to India before Indian troops could be sent. In his book, War and Diplomacy in Kashmir, 1947-48, Amb C Dasgupta, used declassified British archival documents, to explain these developments. The Maharaja signed an instrument of accession on 26 October 1947, which was accepted by the Governor General the next day.
The Indian troops were thereafter airlifted in the early hours of 27 October. They secured the Srinagar airport. The city of Srinagar was patrolled by Hindu, Sikh and Muslim volunteers together with the National Conference, which also worked with the Indian Army to secure the city.While the Government of India accepted the accession, it added that it would be submitted to a "reference to the people" after the state is cleared of the invaders.
Why did the question of Plebiscite in Kashmir come up?
In January 1948 India moved the UN seeking vacation of Pakistani aggression on what was now Indian territory. Following the setting up of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), the Security Council passed Resolution 47 of 21 April 1948. This resolution required interalia that Pakistan immediately “secure the withdrawal from the state of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the state for the purpose of fighting” and conditions be created for a free and impartial plebiscite to decide the future of the state. The UNCIP made three visits to the subcontinent between 1948 and 1949. It reported to the Security Council in August 1948 that "the presence of troops of Pakistan" inside Kashmir represented a "material change" in the situation. It proposed a two-part process: in the first part, Pakistan was to withdraw its forces as well as other Pakistani nationals from the state; in the second part, "when the Commission shall have notified the Government of India" that Pakistani withdrawal has been completed, India was to withdraw the bulk of its forces. India was allowed retention of a smaller number of forces. After the withdrawals were completed, a plebiscite would be held.
Faced with Pakistan’s failure to withdraw its forces, J&K National Conference, the largest political party in the state, led by Sheikh Abdullah, recommended convening the constituent assembly in a resolution passed on 27 October 1950. On 15 February 1954 the assembly members who were present cast a unanimous vote ratifying the state's accession to India. Part II of the Constitution of J&K, which came into force on 26 January 1957, states 'The State of Jammu and Kashmir is and shall be an integral part of the Union of India', and that “The territory of the State shall comprise all the territories which on the fifteenth day of August, 1947, were under the sovereignty or suzerainty of the Ruler of the State.”
Pakistan has never withdrawn its forces and nationals from Kashmir and has made every effort to change the state’s demography in the years that followed. In 1955, it joined the western countries in the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO). Declassified British papers are said to indicate that Britain and the US had let their Cold War calculations influence their policy in the UN. With the endorsement of the elected Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir, India fulfilled its promise to refer to the people, the matter of the state’s accession to India.
