India–Pakistan War: A Protracted Conflict

India was under British rule for several centuries. Moreover, it was the most important among the colonies. It was called the jewel in the crown. Nevertheless, India gradually moved towards independence. The country's most active struggle began in the 20th century. On the one hand, it was promoted by the movements within India, led by the leading parties, and the weakening of Britain as a colonial state on the other. This is how, after World War II, London began to talk about India's independence. In India, there were different peoples with different religions. The intolerance between Muslims and Hindus was especially distinguished. It culminated in August 1946, when a week-long riot occurred in Calcutta. Four thousand people died on both sides. It was clear that British India needed to be divided, so that there would be no recurrence of such catastrophes. In March 1947, a new governor, Viceroy Louis Mountbatten, arrived in India with a mission from the British government to prepare India for independence. He negotiated with Hindu and Muslim representatives. But the situation was aggravated by the fact that half of the Indian lands belonged to local princes. There were about 600 such princely states in India. In parallel, in London, a commission led by Cyril Radcliffe worked to divide India into Hindu and Muslim parts. They identified the most Muslim provinces. Two other provinces were equally divided into Muslim and Hindu parts. At the same time, the princely states were asked to choose whether they would be a part of a Hindu or Muslim state on their own. On 14 August 1947, a Muslim state was proclaimed, which took the name Pakistan. The next day, a Hindu state was proclaimed, which took the name India. With the proclamation of the two states, large-scale resettlement had begun on both sides. In the first few days alone, the number of refugees exceeded 14 million and became the largest migration in the history of the 20th century. All of this has contributed to increasing poverty and hatred between Hindus and Muslims. A wave of mayhem broke out again in India, and the Sikhs were persecuted in Punjab. Immediately after India's independence, Shah Muhammad Mahabat Khan, the governor of Junagadh, declared his territory annexed to Pakistan. However, its holdings were held between the ocean and India. India quickly cut off the state's access to the railway and radio communications and blocked it from land and sea. In February 1948, it sent troops and annexed the native state. A similar situation developed in Hyderabad, where the local ruler Mir Osman Ali Khan proclaimed the independence of his domain. His lands were also besieged by India. In September 1948, the Indian army invaded by air and artillery. After several days of fighting, resulting in the death of 30,000 civilians, India annexed Hyderabad. However, the most difficult situation was the province of Kashmir. Here, the local ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, hesitated for a long time who he should join. The Maharaja himself was a Hindu, but the majority of his population was Muslim. The situation was aggravated by the large number of Sikh and Hindu refugees from Punjab, who brought news of the mayhem from which they had fled. As early as June 1947, small-scale clashes erupted, culminating in mass mayhem, in which more than 20,000 Muslims were killed. In western Kashmir, Muslims led by Sardar Ibrahim Khan took power in Punj. They declared their government of Kashmir parallel to the Maharaja government, calling themselves Asad Kashmir. In October of the same year, Pashtun tribes invaded Kashmir for the purpose of looting. They captured the summer capital of Srinagar, and Hari Singh fled south. He asked India to bring troops into Kashmir and accused Pakistan of allowing the Pashtuns to march through its territory to attack Kashmir. In response, Muslims under the command of Colonel Khan Muhammad Khan began to assemble in Punj and rebel against the Maharaja. In time, the Pakistani army joined them, and command was assumed by Pakistani General Akbar Khan, who made history under the pseudonym General Tariq. India brought its troops into Kashmir. They defeated the Pashtun tribes, drove them out of Kashmir, and then began fighting against the Pakistani army. So the war began. At the start of the war, the Pakistani army made great strides and launched an offensive in November. In northern Kashmir, in the newly annexed province of Gilgit, the Muslim battalion had carried out a coup and annexed those lands to Pakistan. In the west, Pakistani forces were able to capture the towns of Jhangir and Mirpur. The capture of the latter was marked by ethnic cleansing and the killing of about 20,000 Hindu civilians. However, the Pakistanis were soon defeated in the Nowshira campaign, and the offensive was halted. In the north, Pakistani forces were trapped at the Siege of Skardu, which Indian forces defended for eight months. In the spring of 1948, the Indian army had already launched its offensive. They liberated a number of lost lands and laid siege to Poonch, the center of the Muslim uprising in Kashmir. By the end of 1948, it was clear that the war was at an impasse, and neither side was more successful. Negotiations began, and on 1 January 1949, a ceasefire was agreed upon. However, both sides were dissatisfied with the results of the war and prepared for a rematch. Thus, it had been officially agreed that a plebiscite should be held in Kashmir to decide which territories belonged to Muslims and which to Hindus. Despite this, a plebiscite was never held. India and Pakistan still consider Kashmir their territory. China has joined the conflict in Kashmir. In 1962, it seized a strip of frontier land, Aksai Chin, in Kashmir, claiming that the land had been unfairly taken by the British from the Qing Empire. Pakistan had responded by recognizing those territories as Chinese, thus wishing to harm India. Ever since, China has been Pakistan's main ally. A new conflict between India and Pakistan occurred in the Tar Desert. The boundary here was not clear, and no one cared about these lands until in 1964, oil was found in the Ran of Kutch desert region. India immediately deployed its border troops here, and Pakistan began to prepare an attack. In April 1965, the Pakistani army, using tanks and artillery, launched what went down in history as Operation Desert Hawk. India was unprepared for war in the region, so retreated and officially transferred some of the land to Pakistan. Confident of victory, Pakistan launched a Gibraltar operation to seize Kashmir in August of that year. It was a covert operation to infiltrate Pakistani commandos into Kashmir for the purpose of sabotage. More than 20,000 soldiers crossed the mountain passes. They pretended to be Kashmiri rebels fighting for the annexation of Kashmir to Pakistan. India had to withdraw troops from the confrontation line, which were able to defeat Pakistani saboteurs a month later. After this, Pakistan officially declared the second war against India. Pakistani forces planned to occupy the town of Anur, which would open the way for them through the mountains to Kashmir, so they dispatched considerable forces there and launched Operation Grand Slam to capture the city. However, after a month of fighting, the Pakistani troops were unable to move forward. In addition, India gathered troops on the border with Pakistan and launched an offensive on Lahore, which lasted during September 1965. The Indian army was unable to capture the city, although it occupied some Pakistani lands. The Pakistani army decided to flank the Indians and invaded the Tar Desert, where it also failed to reach its objectives and enter the rear of the Indian army. This led to the signing of a truce on 20 September and the return of countries to their previous positions. The new war between India and Pakistan came because of the internal conflict in Pakistan. Pakistan was divided into the western, comprising four main provinces, and the eastern, which represented one province of the same name, historic Bengal. However, one eastern region had a larger population than all the provinces combined. The bulk of the population were Bengalis, who had been harassed by the Pakistani authorities. In 1970, the Bengali party, the Awami League, won the elections in Pakistan. Its leader was supposed to lead the Pakistani government, but Pakistani President Yahya Khan refused to recognize the Awami League's victory. In late 1970, the situation was exacerbated by Bola Cyclone, which caused the death of more than 300,000 people and left several million more homeless. The Pakistani government was slow to help the victims, and this only increased tensions. In March 1971, demonstrations began in Dhaka, and in response, Pakistan declared military operations searchlight to suppress protests. Government forces under the command of General Amir Abdullah Khan Niyazi entered eastern Pakistan. This was accompanied by ethnic cleansing, which resulted in the death of 300,000 Bengalis. In response, the Bengalis, with the participation of India, formed combat units and started a guerrilla war. The Bengal government fled to on the border with India, where, under the protection of Indian troops, it declares Bangladeshi independence. It was clear that everything led to war between India and Pakistan. Therefore, preparations began on both sides. The war began on 3 December with an attack by Pakistani aircraft on Indian airports. The plan to destroy all the Indian Air Force in one attack failed, and India soon began bombing Pakistan. The Indian Army also sent about 250,000 soldiers to assist the Bengalis. The Indian Navy blockaded east Pakistan from the sea, isolating the Pakistani forces. Unable to confront the superior forces, under the attacks of the allied forces of India and Bengal, Pakistani soldiers retreated to Dhaka, where they were surrounded. To relieve the pressure of the Indians in Bengal, the Pakistani Army launched an offensive in Rajasthan, but the Indian soldiers were already there. The offensive suffered a devastating defeat in its first battles. The 23rd Battalion of the Punjab Regiment was particularly famous here, and in the Battle of Langawala, it managed to defeat a Pakistani group of 3,000 soldiers and destroyed more than a hundred armored vehicles. The total casualties of the Pakistani Army reached 12,000 soldiers dead, and over 600 tanks destroyed. These are the largest casualties in a single battle since World War II. On 16 December, the Pakistani troops in Dhaka capitulated. 90,000 soldiers were captured in India. It was a disaster for Pakistan. The offensive in Rajasthan became meaningless, and the fighting ceased. Pakistani President Yahya Khan resigned, and the new head of state, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, began negotiations with India. On 2 July 1972, a peace agreement was signed in Simla, whereby Pakistan recognized the sovereignty of Bangladesh, in exchange for which, India returned Pakistani captives. In the Third Indo-Pakistani War, India won the final victory. When the Baloch Uprising broke out in Pakistan in 1973, India again began to support the insurgency against Pakistan. Although the rebellion lasted five years, Pakistani General Rahimuddin Khan was able to defeat the rebels, partly by force and partly by negotiation. In 1974, it became known about the operation to test nuclear weapons in India, after which India officially became a nuclear country. In response, Pakistan began its development of nuclear weapons, and 25 years later, conducted the first nuclear tests. In 1987, the regular local elections in Kashmir were accused of fraud. Because of them, the Muslim population of Kashmir has started a new uprising. India brought troops into the region, which in turn caused another conflict between Pakistan and India. Both countries have mobilized and pulled almost a million soldiers to the borders, but negotiations have resolved the conflict. Early elections were held in Kashmir in 1989. As a result, India has abolished parliamentary government in Kashmir, and all power has been transferred to a governor, who would be appointed in Delhi. The confrontation again began in 1999, when Pakistani special forces under the guise of Kashmiri rebels tried to capture Kargil, but this was the beginning of a new war. As the city is located among the Himalayan mountains, the fighting was carried out by the commandos of the special forces, which went through mountaineering training. This war became the highest in human history, and the Indians were able to defeat Pakistani forces again. In 2001, radical Islamists launched an attack on the Indian parliament, killing six guards. In response, India and Pakistan again mobilized and began pushing troops to the borders. The following year, the situation was aggravated by a series of Muslim mayhem in Gujarat, but the conflict did not escalate into war. In 2008, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai killed almost 200 people, and history repeated itself. The conflict between India and Pakistan persists to this day. Kashmir remains a controversial territory. Mayhem, terrorist acts, and rebellions are still common today. And the threat of war between these states does not disappear.