When the British left the divided India, they left behind a rift in between people on a scale never seen before. The largest human migration event caused by an arbitrarily drawn line and religious fervor. The partition caused such extensive scars on both the nations that they started a conflict which still eats away at them till date. Post colonial moves on both sides have been aimed at increasing their national security through either offense or defense. In the unstable state of affairs which occurred due to these reasons, it is the civilian population of Kashmir which has suffered the most.
Post 1971, dealings between India and Pakistan has seen a series of small skirmishes culminating in the occasional larger conflict. These small conflicts might be nothing out of the ordinary for the west, as the idea that the global south is separated from themselves is quite widespread (Schouten, 2009). Thus, while the conflict continues loudly yet unheard, the ground zero of the issue, Kashmir, continues to fall apart for its inhabitants. Women of Kashmir, who had already faced the horrors of partition, face violence of the same vein once more. The Kashmiri Pandits have had to immigrate in large number ever since the scale of the conflict has increased. On the other hand, the Muslim inhabitants still living there have had to continue to live in a potential and partly active war zone, while dealing with the restrictions placed upon them by the army. In both cases the number of women and children killed is ubiquitously used as a yardstick to enforce the severity of the situation, thus reducing them to a statistic of victimhood (Sheperd, 2009).
The Pakistani side of Kashmir (“Azad Kashmir”, a brilliant yet blatant piece of propaganda) is portrayed to be the free land of its people, which is then reinforced through religious sentiments. Between the two of them, despite multiple military and diplomatic efforts, the common disputed land remains under contention. There have been multiple western interventions in the conflict ever since the first war in 1947, but have not been able to show any long-term positive effects. The two countries keep on dancing around each other while western intervention does not really amount to anything in regards to peace. From the first 1947-48 war which ended with UN mediation to the later war of 1971 which caused the Security Council to call for a ban which affected weapon imports on both sides, causing both countries to look for alternative partners. Western influence does continue to have an effect in the cold war which still continues, but it is not held in any place of significance and is treated as a secondary issue from the western perspective.
What really set off the current string of tension can be traced back to the 2008 Mumbai attacks. After it was revealed by the only surviving terrorist that the attack was perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Taliba, a militant Islamist organization from Pakistan, the weight of retaliation fell into India’s hands which reignited the slowly simmering conflict. To speak of the people involved unwillingly into the war, it is them that had to suffer for someone else’s fight. The people who continue the resistance continue their fight to stand free in their land, those who escape simply seek survival, but for most of us, nothing really changes. The people fighting on the border continue to murder over an arbitrary line, while the bureaucracy keeps on using each win and loss for its own agenda. A large number of reasons thus culminate into a complex and nuanced war which will continue for the foreseeable future despite it being over a seemingly redundant issue.
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