Being a person of Indian origin myself, I had not known much about India and Pakistan’s conflicts or the reasons why they partitioned in 1947.
In 1947, after 200 years of rule, Britain left the Indian subcontinent and divided the area into two countries: India and Pakistan. Kashmir was one of the independent states in the region and was given the option of which country to choose.
Kashmir initially chose to remain independent, but threats of war caused it to sign an agreement, Article 370, with India that same year exchanging certain freedoms for protection.
India and Pakistan have not experienced great relations since then. The Kashmir region has been a main focal point of historical and current conflicts between both countries.
Kashmir has been in lockdown since August 2019 when the Indian government lifted Article 370, thereby eliminating Kashmir’s status as an independent region. Article 370 allowed Kashmir certain rights, including “its own constitution, a separate flag and freedom to make laws.” This article also prevented Indians who did not live in Kashmir from purchasing land. To enforce this, India sent troops into the region, arrested political figures, and began limiting telecommunications — including an internet ban that has just begun to ease.
India and Pakistan have had a long and complex history of violence and conflicts. The tension between both countries has not been dying down — instead they are experiencing more conflict.
What caused the partition between India and Pakistan in the first place?
Before the partition, the British had ruled most of the the Indian subcontinent for 200 years. Their rule ended in August of 1947 after the British divided the region they ruled into two countries based on religion, which are now known as India and Pakistan. Pakistan would turn into a Muslim majority, and India would turn into a Hindu majority. Kashmir was one of the many territories that were not under British rule, and were able to choose which country to join. Kashmir wanted to remain independent and did not join either country.
“[Pakistan and India were] designed around religious communities, and the other religious communities who lived in that region were forced out and moved back to India, and the ones who lived in India moved to Pakistan,” said Satwinder Bains, director of the South Asian Studies Institute, the principal of UFV India, and the university advisor for Canada-India relations at UFV.
The partition made “divisions of land, people, people’s assets, and their homes,” according to Bains. When the divide began, people who lived in both of the newly divided countries started attacking and killing each other in what The New Yorker described as a “terrifying outbreak of sectarian violence.” Bains said that people who lived together for millennia, whether they were neighbours, friends, or family suddenly became enemies because of the divide between the two countries. The past they shared with each other faded away and hatred filled its place in their hearts and minds.
The main problem with the partition was that it was mishandled. “If the handing over of power by the British had been done through proper channels and through a way that managed the transfer of people, perhaps it would not have been millions of people dying,” Bains said.
The conflict after the partition
After the partition, the independent region of Kashmir was highly argued over, and is still greatly argued over. The region lies north of Pakistan and India, and both countries wanted to acquire it.
“Kashmir was free to choose [to be a part of] India or Pakistan, but the ruler could not decide and war started,” said Akhtar Malik, a Muslim instructor in computer information systems at UFV.
The first war between India and Pakistan occurred from October 1947 to January 1949. Hari Singh, the ruler of Kashmir at the time, wanted Kashmir to remain independent, but an attack from Pakistan pushed Singh to join India in October 1947. The first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, sent troops to Kashmir for protection, and in return Kashmir agreed to join India, signing over control of his “defence, communications, and foreign affairs to the Indian government.”
The second war started in August 1965 when 26,000 to 33,000 Pakistani soldiers dressed as Kashmiri locals and entered Kashmir. As the war heated up, Indian troops crossed the international border in Lahore. The war ended by Sept. 22, 1965 once it reached a stalemate.
By 1971, India and Pakistan were at their third war; this time it was not over Kashmir but East Pakistan. The war started after Pakistan’s air force launched a preemptive attack to weaken northwest India’s airfields. India followed with a coordinated land, air, and sea assault on East Pakistan. The war ended when Pakistan’s army surrendered.
After a few decades, it was clear India did not really want to protect Kashmir’s autonomy as it started oppressing the Muslim population. India and Pakistan could not and still cannot agree upon which country should get Kashmir or if Kashmir should be independent.
“Both countries have already fought two of the three wars on this issue, and both cannot afford to go to another war in this nuclear age,” said Akhtar. India and Pakistan are two nuclear-powered neighbours.
When India lifted Article 370 in August 2019, they decided they were going to integrate Kashmir into their country, therefore removing its preferred status as an independent region.
Kashmir feels their freedom has been taken away by the Indian parliament. The Muslims in Kashmir, who are a minority, feel the threat of the Hindus who are a majority in India. Minority-majority clashes are constant, from clashes between Hindus and Sikhs, and Sikhs and Muslims, Bains said.
The Indian government has been accused of trying to erase Kashmir’s history and politics by eliminating culturally specific holidays and abolishing Article 370, which allowed the region to have its own flag, constitution, and law-making ability. The Indian government has also been arresting Kashmiri politicians since August 2019. During this time, the Indian government has been trying to stifle possible protests from the people of Kashmir by cutting their phone, internet service, and cable networks.
Changing dynamics between India and Pakistan in recent years
Bains believes that if you talk to people who are travelling between both of the countries, perhaps to go to religious events or to trade with Pakistan as a neighbour, good things are said. Indians who have travelled to Pakistan or Pakistanis who have travelled to India have been treated well and welcomed into the other country.
At the end of 2019, the Kartarpur Corridor was opened for Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s 550th birthday, which was very important for Sikhs in India. The opening of the corridor showed how welcoming the Pakistanis were to the Indians who were coming to see Sikh heritage sites.
Bains thinks that, on average, day-to-day individual interactions seem to be okay between the people of India and Pakistan. In terms of economics, politics of defence, and land, however, it is very complicated.
Currently, both countries spend high amounts on defence. India’s spending is at 2.04 per cent of its GDP, and while Pakistan spends less on defence than India, its spending amounts to 4 per cent of its GDP.
If the money spent on defence was spent on education or health, Bains believes India and Pakistan would thrive. Akhtar agrees: “Both countries have great potential and resources if they spend more on education and welfare instead of weapons.”
The fear of nuclear war is rising between both countries. If Pakistan has the nuclear capabilities they claim they have, they would be an equal power to India, which would not be good for the people in either country or around the world.
The land between the India and Pakistan border states is underdeveloped due to ongoing conflicts, and no businesses want to operate there. From what Bains hears, there are skirmishes all the time, and they may not be heard about because newspapers are not going to report that every day. Businesses want to feel safe and not feel that they might be involved in some sort of conflict. Businesses and people fear the conflicts that have been occurring between India and Pakistan.
“Kashmir is not going to get resolved overnight. It is going to be a 30- or 40-year battle. It has already been a 60- or 70-year-old wound that will not heal, so I do not feel it will be resolved in the short-term.”
Bains believes neither one is fanning the flames of conflict per se on a day-to-day basis. If Pakistan attacks, India is going to attack as well, and they are always at this kind of dance that is going on between both countries. She said that if “the average person believes what they read, India has more might. It is a much more powerful country, it has more money, it has more people, and it has more clout.”
Religion’s role in the partition
Before the partition, Bains believes religions were not in stubborn dispute or disagreement with each other. “People used to live as brothers and sisters in the Indian subcontinent, and there were no conflicts in the regions now known as Pakistan or India,” she said.
When India was divided into states, they were divided on “linguistic lines and not religious lines,” said Bains. Bains believes “dividing India based on language was an easy and safe route for the government, and it prevented religious riots from occurring. But when the British divided India and Pakistan based on religious lines, neighbours and friends who lived together their whole lives became enemies.
Although the riots were initiated by the people, perhaps the government’s choice to divide the states along religious lines was misguided.
She said it has been a very silent era, and only now in the last 10 years have stories of partition come out. She believes that there has been conflict between India and Pakistan because the divisions between the two countries happened on religious lines.
Are there solutions for this conflict?
Bains thinks that for India and Pakistan the bright light on the horizon is a young population. India needs to focus on the youth and give them better education and some more jobs. There are not many jobs in India anymore for the youth, so they are struggling. They see no future in India. Most of the youth are trying to get out of India and into other countries to have a chance at a better future and education.
Bains thinks that the conflict will not be solved diplomatically, but rather it will take time to fix. She believes it is more about getting to the people, lifting the underclass, and raising the standard of living. The Indian economy needs to be lifted for India to be able to solve these problems.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is doubly conflicted because it has a conflictual border with Afghanistan as well as India, so it is feeling the stress from both sides. Bains thinks the only way change will happen between India and Pakistan is if they see each other as good neighbours.
India and Pakistan could be very good trade partners if they choose to put their conflicts behind them and come to a decision about Kashmir. Getting to a decision about Kashmir is a slower change and it would not happen overnight. Other countries should be trying to get India and Pakistan to talk about Kashmir and better their situation. It is an old problem that needs to be discussed and resolved.
The international community’s response
Canada is currently seen as a peace broker in the world, and Canadians see themselves as playing an important role in that. There have not been a lot of overtures from the Canadian government on the Kashmir conflict. Bains feels that Canada could do more diplomatically to respond to the conflict.
In August 2019, Global News reported that Kashmiri Canadians believed the Canadian government was not doing enough to help Kashmir. Kashmiri Canadians were trying to reach out to the Canadian government “to condemn ethnic and religious discrimination in India.”
Bains said, “I haven’t seen Canada making news releases or making statements from the prime minister [very] often.” Bains believes there may be other much more complicated conflicts occuring in the world that Canada is paying attention to.
Bains feels there is always a way for the international community to intervene in conflicts. Every time there is conflict in the world, the countries and organizations who are the brokers of peace, such as the UN, come forward and call for peace and a ceasing of the war.
Information coming out of Kashmir is limited because of the restrictions on the internet by the Indian government, so as a global community it is difficult to respond. What do we respond to? “[We] actually have no access to what is happening in the country,” said Bains.
It is also possible that the Canadian government might be helping with the India and Pakistan conflict behind doors away from the public and world’s eyes.
“India is not looking for other countries to meddle in their business. India may very well say this is an internal domestic problem and [they] are dealing with it,” said Bains.
Unfortunately, because it is difficult to obtain information about what’s going on in Kashmir, the international community can only speculate about the currently, ongoing situation until people in the region are able to freely share their experiences.
Why we, as Canadians, should care about the conflicts that are taking place in Kashmir
We, as Canadians, pride ourselves on being peacekeepers on the world stage, while also having the privilege of living in a developed country. It is a moral obligation to help those who are in conflict or underprivileged.
But Bains thinks India is a major economic power that Canada wants to have trade and build relationships with. India is one of the top 10 countries that Canada trades with, so it is in Canada’s best economic interest if India is not conflicted. This may impact how Canada is responding to the conflicts between India and Kashmir.
“For us as Canadians, we also have a large Indian diaspora, a huge number of people, of Indian heritage or people who are from Indian origin who live in Canada, so Canadians are not separate from this conflict. The diaspora is also very politically engaged, both in communities as well as the federal government and provincial governments,” Bains said.
She thinks it behooves Canada to know that we as Canadians still have a really important connection with Pakistan and India. It is a natural desire for Canadians to want to help. We should care and we do care.
