When India was granted independence by the British in 1947, there were some 567(sometimes stated as 562 or 565) independent states headed by Indian Maharajas. They were independent only in name though as they were totally dependent on the British for their defense and did not have any standing armies. A British resident was present in each of these states and the Maharajas had to follow the instructions of the resident.
When the British gave independence to India they refused to merge the independent states with their Indian territories and insisted that the concerned state has to decide whether to accede to India or to Pakistan.
A ministry for the integration of the Indian states has been set up which was headed by the strongman Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Patel coerced most of the Maharajas into signing an accession with India. There were however. A few maharajas refused initially for the accession but had to fall in line when Patel threatened them. These included the Maharaja of Jodhpur, the Maharaja of Udaipur and the Maharaja of Travancore. Finally 3 states remained, and they were 1) Jammu and Kashmir, 2) Hyderabad and 3) Junagarh in Gujarat.
When India gained Independence, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir was Hari Singh. He had an ambition of making Jammu and Kashmir into an independent country by not joining either India or Pakistan. Hari Singh then requested for a standstill agreement with both Pakistan and India. Pakistan agreed and signed a standstill agreement with Jammu and Kashmir. India however wanted to negotiate on the issue and invited Hari Singh for talks. This scared Pakistan. As Hari Singh was Hindu they felt that India might persuade him to accede to India. They now panicked and armed a band of 5000 Pashtoon tribals and sent them into Jammu and Kashmir to occupy it. The tribals were clandestinely supported by the Pakistani army. As they were tribals the raiders were very undisciplined and instead of taking over Jammu and Kashmir as per the plan of Pakistan they started indulging in looting and arson.
Jammu and Kashmir, like all other Indian states at that time did not have any army worth the name. Its police were no match for the raiders. The tribals advanced deep into Jammu and Kashmir and were knocking at the gates of Srinagar. The Maharaja now grew desperate and appealed to India for help asking the Indian army to defend Jammu and Kashmir. But now India insisted unless an accession treaty is signed it cannot send in its army into J&K as that would be against international conventions. The Maharaja had no choice and had to sign the instrument of accession but insisted on some conditions which were enshrined in article 370 of the India constitution.
Article 370 of the Indian constitution: This specifies that except for Defence, Foreign Affairs, Finance and Communications,(matters specified in the instrument of accession) the Indian Parliament needs the State Government's concurrence for applying all other laws. Thus the state's residents lived under a separate set of laws, including those related to citizenship, ownership of property, and fundamental rights, as compared to other Indians.
The Indian army then went into Jammu and Kashmir and fought with the raiders. However, before the raiders abetted by the Pakistani army could be pushed back, the Indian government appealed to the United Nations which ordered an immediate ceasefire.
By the time of ceasefire 57% of the area of J&K was in control of the raiders. Later Pakistan ceded 20% of that area to China and retained the remaining 37%. China built the Karakorum highway on the area ceded to it by Pakistan. India now has just 43% of the area of Jammu and Kashmir. As per the UN resolution, the Pakistani army has to immediately withdraw from J&K and thereafter the India army too has to be withdrawn and a plebiscite si to be held in J&K to assess its mood of accession. As the Pakistani army never withdrew from J&K, the Indian army too did not withdraw and the plebiscite never took place till now.
Unless both the armies withdraw from J&K and a plebiscite is conducted there, normalcy is unlikely to return to the valley and the Kashmir problem would persist forever.
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