India and Pakistan are on the precipice of a doable navy confrontation, practically two weeks after a lethal terrorist assault on the Indian-controlled facet of the troubled Kashmir area set off aggressive statements between the archrival nations.

India has steered that Pakistan was linked to the April 22 assault that killed 26 individuals, a declare that Pakistan has repeatedly denied.

Kashmir, a scenic valley within the Himalayas, is wedged between India and Pakistan, nuclear-armed international locations which have struggled for management over the area for nearly 80 years. Kashmiris have hardly ever had a say in their very own destiny.

Here’s a historical past of the dispute.

1947

Fraught Beginnings

Competition over Kashmir started practically as quickly as India and Pakistan have been fashioned.

In 1947, Britain divided India, its former colony, into two international locations. One was Pakistan, with a Muslim majority. The opposite, made up largely of Hindus, stored the identify India. However Kashmir’s destiny was left undecided.

Inside months, each India and Pakistan had laid declare to the territory. A navy confrontation ensued. The Hindu ruler of Kashmir, who had at first refused to abdicate his sovereignty, agreed to make the area a part of India in alternate for a safety assure, after militias from Pakistan moved into components of his territory.

What adopted was the primary struggle that India and Pakistan would battle over Kashmir.

Years later, in 1961, the former ruler of Kashmir passed away in Bombay. In an obituary, The New York Instances summarized his resolution to cede the territory to India in phrases that might show true for many years to come back. His actions, the article stated, had contributed to “a unbroken bitter dispute between India and Pakistan.”

1949

A Tenuous Stop-Fireplace

In January 1949, the primary struggle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir concluded after the United Nations intervened to dealer a cease-fire.

Underneath the phrases of the cease-fire, a line was drawn dividing the territory. India would occupy about two-thirds of the world, and Pakistan the opposite third.

The dividing line was imagined to be non permanent, pending a extra everlasting political settlement.

1965

Conflict Breaks Out Once more

Tensions have been already excessive between India and Pakistan in the summertime of 1965. There had been a skirmish between their forces along the border earlier within the yr, in an space south of Kashmir.

When Pakistan performed a covert offensive throughout Kashmir’s cease-fire line in August, the preventing rapidly escalated right into a full-scale struggle. The conflict was short-lived — solely about three weeks lengthy — however bloody.

In January 1966, India and Pakistan signed an agreement to settle future disputes by means of peaceable means.

However the peace wouldn’t final.

1972

An Official Division

After a regional struggle in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India determined to revisit the unsolved challenge of Kashmir.

In December 1972, the international locations introduced that they’d resolved the impasse over Kashmir’s cease-fire line. However little modified apart from the designation. The non permanent cease-fire line from 1949 grew to become an official “line of management.” Every nation retained the part of Kashmir that it had already held for greater than 20 years.

Whereas the settlement did little to alter the established order in Kashmir, it got here with an aspiration to enhance the risky relationship between India and Pakistan.

Reporting on the deal from New Delhi, a Times correspondent wrote of the 2 international locations: “Official sources right here indicated that they have been glad with the settlement, which they stated had been reached ‘in an environment of goodwill and mutual understanding.’”

Throughout a interval of explicit political turmoil — aggravated in 1987 by disputes over native elections that many thought have been rigged — some Kashmiris turned to militancy, which Pakistan would finally stoke and help.

Over the following decade or so, state police in Kashmir recorded tens of thousands of bombings, shootouts, abductions and rocket assaults.

That violence started to average across the 2000s, however the years of intense insurgency had additional eroded the delicate relationship between Pakistan and India.

1999

Peace Talks Come Up Quick

As a brand new millennium neared, India and Pakistan appeared poised to determine a extra everlasting peace.

In a gesture of goodwill, Pakistan’s prime minister hosted his Indian counterpart for a weekend of jocular diplomacy in February 1999. No Indian prime minister had visited Pakistan in a decade.

The summit — between the leaders of adversaries that every now had nuclear arms — produced signed paperwork affirming their mutual dedication to normalizing relations.

“We should deliver peace to our individuals,” Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, stated at a information convention, as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India smiled at his facet. “We should deliver prosperity to our individuals. We owe this to ourselves and to future generations.”

Three months later, their international locations have been at struggle. Once more, Kashmir was the purpose of discord.

Preventing broke out after infiltrators from Pakistan seized positions inside the Indian-administered a part of Kashmir. India claimed that the infiltrators have been Pakistani troopers, which Western analysts would additionally come to imagine. Pakistan denied that its forces have been concerned, insisting that impartial freedom fighters have been behind the operation.

The struggle ended when Mr. Sharif referred to as for the infiltrators to withdraw (he maintained all alongside that they weren’t Pakistani forces and that Pakistan didn’t management them). A couple of months later, Mr. Sharif was deposed in a navy coup led by a Pakistani basic who, it was later decided, had directed the military incursion that began the struggle.

After the struggle in 1999, Kashmir remained one of many world’s most militarized zones. Close to-constant unrest within the territory introduced India and Pakistan to the brink of struggle a number of instances within the years that adopted.

The final main flare-up was in 2019, when a bombing in Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian soldiers. Indian warplanes performed airstrikes in Pakistan in retaliation, however the battle de-escalated earlier than turning into an all-out struggle.

A extra lasting transfer got here later that yr, when the Indian authorities stripped Kashmir of a cherished status.

For all of Kashmir’s trendy historical past — since its Hindu ruler acceded to India — the territory had loved a level of autonomy. Its relative independence was enshrined in India’s Structure. However in August 2019, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, rolled again Kashmir’s privileged standing.

The crackdown got here with a fast succession of draconian measures: Hundreds of Indian troops surged into the territory. Web connections have been severed. Cellphone strains have been lower. Mr. Modi’s authorities started immediately administering the territory from New Delhi, and it imprisoned 1000’s of Kashmiris, together with political leaders who had lengthy sided with India within the face of separatist militancy.

The federal government’s heavy-handed method surprised observers world wide. However the outcomes, so far as India was involved, justified the means. A brand new period of peace appeared to ensue. Acts of terrorism declined. Tourism flourished.

It was an phantasm.

2025

A Terrorist Assault

On April 22, militants shot and killed 26 individuals, largely vacationers from totally different components of India, close to Pahalgam, Kashmir. Seventeen others have been wounded.

It was one of many worst assaults on Indian civilians in a long time.

Nearly instantly afterward, Indian officers steered that Pakistan had been concerned. Mr. Modi, the prime minister, vowed extreme punishment for the perpetrators and people giving them secure haven, although he didn’t explicitly point out Pakistan.

Pakistan swiftly denied involvement and stated it was “able to cooperate” with any worldwide inquiry into the terrorist assault. However India was not placated. Since then, its leaders have gave the impression to be building a case for military confrontation.