Kashmir and the Brits

The recent events in Kashmir have prompted me to search what caused them in the first place. The problem between India and Pakistan regarding Kashmir originates a territorial dispute resulting from the 1947 partition of India. That decision was made by the British government, with Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, playing a key role in implementing the plan. The Muslim representatives supported it, while India’s Gandhi and Nehru did not. 

As Mountbatten rushed the independence timeline, he also made lots of critical errors that haunt both countries to this very day, including keeping partition maps secret, failing to resolve the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, and failing to plan for resource sharing. As the British government faced pressure to end its colonial rule in India and was woefully unable to quell growing communal tensions, it decided that partition was the only solution. 

The mess began with Lord Louis Mountbatten, as the appointed Viceroy, who rushed the process, bringing forward the date of independence by ten months, to August 1947. He then implemented a plan to divide the country into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. 

A British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe was tasked with drawing the borders of the new states in a similar short time frame. 

He drew lines based on religious demographics, but did a terrible job in areas with mixed populations like Punjab and Bengal, leading to a complex and controversial division. Borders were drawn without local input, splitting villages and rivers.That process was developed around some key mistakes that are still lingering today with the disputed partition of Kashmir. 

First, the partition maps were kept secret by the protagonists, leading to uncertainty and misunderstandings about the new borders. Then, the fate of Jammu and Kashmir, a princely state with a Muslim majority but ruled by a Hindu prince, was left unresolved, contributing to the ongoing tensions that are still unresolved today. To make things worse, there was a lack of planning for how resources and assets would be divided between the two new nations. 

Finally, the accelerated timeline and the short time frame given Radcliffe to draw the borders led to a rushed and chaotic partition process, leading to immense suffering, including a million people killed in religious riots, 15 million displaced, and the creation of deep-seated animosity between India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan became independent on mid August, 1947 while Kashmir conflict began immediately, leading to wars in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999. 

Great Britain has a knack for taking over territories takeovers and causing havoc in that process, from the Indian subcontinent to Palestine among many others. The question we could all ask today, why aren’t the Brits mopping up the messes they create as the move on? Brits just shut up and hope no one remembers this, as as they’re inventing new ways to colonize the best parts of Italy, France, Portugal and Spain as only them know how to!