Kashmir

Kashmir is a Himalayan region of some twenty million people, most of them Muslim, that was a princely state under a Hindu ruler when British India was divided in 1947. He joined it to India as fighters from Pakistan approached his capital. The war that followed left India with about two thirds, including the Kashmir valley, and Pakistan with the rest; China later took a slice. Both countries claim the whole. In the Indian-held valley an armed revolt that began in 1989 has cost tens of thousands of lives. In 2019 India abolished the region's autonomy and governs it from Delhi.

The wider conflict and each side's full account: India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Where it stands · September 2026

In September 2026 India was ordered to uphold the water treaty with Pakistan and to curb a dam in Kashmir. On 28 September the Jammu and Kashmir assembly passed a resolution seeking urgent restoration of full statehood. Members of the governing party walked out during the vote. The resolution and the ruling on the dam and treaty set the terms in which the two sides now press their claims.

What the dispute is about

Title. India rests on the ruler's signature of 1947. Pakistan rests on the principle of partition, that Muslim-majority areas went to Pakistan, and on United Nations resolutions calling for a vote.

The vote. The resolutions set an order: Pakistan withdraws its forces, India reduces its own, then a plebiscite. The first step was never taken, and the rest never followed.

Who speaks for Kashmiris. India says their elected representatives do. Pakistan says they are silenced. Many in the valley want neither country, an option no resolution ever offered.

How each side explains it

India's account

Jammu and Kashmir joined India by the same legal instrument as five hundred other princely states. Pakistan answered with an invasion in 1947 and has never vacated the territory it seized, which is why no plebiscite could be held. Since 1989 it has armed and sent the men who drove the valley's Hindus from their homes and killed thousands of Kashmiri Muslims as well. Ending the special status in 2019 gave Kashmiris the same rights as other Indians. Elections have been held, tourists have returned, and the only question left is when Pakistan leaves the part it occupies.

In our coverage

India's account: Pakistan sponsors militancy; Kashmir is integral; treaty obsolete →21 headlines
Covered by:Times of India · The Hindu · WION · NDTV · Hindustan Times · Republic TV

Pakistan's account

A Muslim-majority state was handed to India by an unrepresentative ruler fleeing his own people. The United Nations promised Kashmiris a free vote, India's first prime minister promised it too, and India has refused it for seventy-five years because it knows the result. It holds the valley with one of the densest military deployments on earth, with detention without trial, pellet guns and graves without names. In 2019 it tore up even its own constitution's guarantees and opened the land to settlers. Pakistan gives Kashmiris moral and diplomatic support, as it is bound to.

What each account leaves out

India's leaves out its own leaders' promises of a plebiscite; the 1987 election, which Indian officials have since admitted was manipulated; and that it removed the region's autonomy and statehood while its politicians were under arrest and its telephones and internet were cut for months.

Pakistan's leaves out that the first condition of the vote it demands was its own withdrawal, which it never made; that it sent fighters across the line in 1947, 1965 and 1999 and armed the groups that killed Kashmiri civilians; and that in its own part of Kashmir candidates must swear loyalty to joining Pakistan, and this year protesters were shot and the internet shut for a hundred days.

The valley's leaves out that nearly all its Hindus fled under threat in 1990 and have not been able to return, and that Jammu and Ladakh, the other parts of the old state, do not share its wish.

The ledger

India

Wanted: Kashmir settled as Indian.
Did: ended its autonomy, held it by force and then by elections.
Gained: control, and a world that has largely stopped asking.
Paid: a permanent garrison, and a valley that votes and does not consent.

Pakistan

Wanted: the valley, or at least the question kept open.
Gained: it remains open.
Paid: four wars, and the armed groups it raised for Kashmir turned on Pakistan itself.

Kashmiris

Wanted

Words in dispute

Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.

Indian-administered / Indian-occupied / integral part of India
Azad (free) Kashmir / Pakistan-occupied Kashmir
militants / freedom fighters / terrorists
abrogation / annexation, of 2019
plebiscite
normalcy

Events per week

Per-week distribution of events. Click a bar to see that week's top events.

Click a week bar to select. Light blue = active week.

Week of Sep 28, 2026(13)

J&K assembly passes resolution seeking urgent restoration of full statehood amid BJP walkout

3 sourcesSep 28, 2026

Omar Abdullah: If guns decide statehood, Pakistan will decide

1 sourcesSep 28, 2026

Pakistan rejects India's 'internal matter' claim on Kashmir at UN

1 sourcesOct 3, 2026

Kashmir varsity removes associate professor after students protest over ‘be my date’ remarks

1 sourcesOct 3, 2026

Two Definitions Of Poverty In Jammu And Kashmir Fuel A Row Over Job Quotas

1 sourcesOct 2, 2026

'Killed' in Kashmir, alive in Rawalpindi — Pakistan shows ex-soldier India claims it killed as rebel

1 sourcesOct 2, 2026

Pakistan condemns India at UN council over occupied Kashmir, minority rights

1 sourcesOct 1, 2026

Pakistan army presents man it says India wrongly identified as militant killed in Kashmir

1 sourcesOct 1, 2026

No change in Kashmir policy, US assures Islamabad

1 sourcesSep 30, 2026

Medical students protest in Jammu and Kashmir after professor ‘objects to burqas in labour room’