Kashmir between India Pakistan: The Unfinished Agenda

Abstract

India and Pakistan has fought four wars over Kashmir and has
held rounds of talks without resolving the 72-year-old issue. The Indian
government’s revocation of the special status of Kashmir sets the stage for new
clashes in the disputed region. Using documentary sources, surveys, and other
writings, this study analyses the genesis of the conflict in Kashmir, bringing
in historical facets together with discursive elements of the contemporary
political crisis in Kashmir. The study found that the Kashmir dispute has
multiple causes the major one being the religious difference, a conflict between
India, a predominately Hindu state, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In
the early phase, the conflict was between religion and secularism, embodied
in Pakistan and India, respectively both needing Muslim majority Kashmir to
prove their basic political ideology right. Currently, the conflict has assumed
purely the religious colour: India aiming at integrating Kashmir into the Hindu
polity and Pakistan claiming Kashmir for its having a Muslim majority. Thus,
the unfinished agenda of partition continues.