History of the Kashmir conflict

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In the north west of India, at the border to Pakistan and China there is a political complicated region called Kashmir. The conflict began when India won their independence from Britain in 1947 and the Maharadja of Kashmir decided to affiliate to India instead of being a part of the Islam state Pakistan. The Maharadja Hari Singh was a hindu while a majority of the Kashmiris are muslims. Pakistan as a muslim state claims their right to Kashmir because of this fact. There have been two major wars between India and Pakistan concerning this conflict, the first in 1947-1948, the second in 1965. Since the two nations are in control of nuclear weapons it could be very dangerous with another big war in these days.

There is a demarcation line, called Line of Control, which was established after the first war in the region. This is a very difficult battle area because it is a mountainous line on the height of 5000 meters. The conditions are so extreme there are more victims of the cold. The highest battlefield is at the Siachen glacier at 6000 metres altitude, the highest battlefield in the world actually.

Currently the Line of Control is supervised by the UN Military Observer Group to try to make the countries pertain to the ceasefire, which was established in 1971.

Religion as a cause
Most areas in Kashmir are Muslim-dominated and Pakistan uses that as the main reason to make Kashmir a part of their state. Right now Kashmir is the only Indian state with a majority of Muslims.

Separatist groups
There are several groups, which are fighting for its opinion besides Islamabad and Delhi. Most of them are peaceful, but there are armed groups on both sides. The largest is the pro-Pakistani Hizbul Mujahideen. Since the Muslim rebellion in 1989 the armed separatists have grown in quantity from hundred to thousands. India accuses Pakistan for supporting armed separatists and that’s why they refuse to negotiate. There is one pro-independence group who speaks for the independence of Kashmir, The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. This solution has been called …

… “The third option”
This is a solution that has been rejected by both India and Pakistan. The supporters of this option mean that this conflict isn’t an issue of choose between two countries. Since Kashmir has been occupied they have the right to be independence. Kashmir was never a part of neither India nor Pakistan.

Human Rights in Kashmir
At the homepage of Human Rights Watch you can read about many sad human fates concerning the conflict in Kashmir. As always in these kinds of conflicts people are really angry at each other. When there are religious matters, there will always be some extremists who put the issue to a harder point than before. In Kashmir the Muslim groups are the most prominent. These extremist crimes make way for counter militant militias – in this case on India’s side – which uses as dreadful methods as the religious extremists.

The Human Rights Watch and Amnesty are mostly criticizing India’s government, because of the military forces inhuman behavior against the people of Kashmir. Amnesty don’t pay much attention to the Muslim groups, maybe this is because Amnesty devote their work to governments who break international human rights. Of course it is not acceptable to authorize torture as India’s government, neither it is acceptable to take hostages like the Muslim groups.

To me, the situation seems to be quite the same as in Palestine. Israel and India want to be in control of an area, while there are people of different religious and ethnic kind who live in the area. Of course there will be disturbances against superior authorities when the people feel that they don’t have much in common with their the gove...