Jammu & Kashmir: A Fact-Based Historical and Legal Clarification

Following the Westminster Hall debate on Kashmir: Self-Determination on 10 December 2025, it is essential to return to a factual and well-documented understanding of Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh—one grounded in recorded history, contemporaneous official documents, and the legal frameworks that govern the region.

1. Jammu & Kashmir Before Partition: Internal Stability and Absence of Communal Violence

In the period leading up to the partition of British India in 1947, while Punjab witnessed widespread communal violence, the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir remained largely peaceful. Contemporary reports by British officials, including Political Agent W.F. Webb and Major General Scott, Commander of the State Forces, consistently confirmed the absence of communal disturbances during the first half of 1947.

State authorities successfully escorted nearly 100,000 Muslim refugees travelling towards Pakistan and a comparable number of Hindu and Sikh refugees travelling towards India. The state also sheltered approximately 60,000 refugees from West Punjab without any serious breakdown of law and order. Even the arrival of Hindu and Sikh refugees from Hazara in late 1946 did not provoke communal unrest.

These records clearly establish that Jammu and Kashmir was internally stable prior to external intervention.

2. Pakistan’s Covert Military Plan: Operation Gulmarg

Contrary to the narrative of a spontaneous indigenous revolt, archival evidence shows that Pakistan initiated premeditated military preparations to annex Jammu and Kashmir in 1947. In mid-1947, Major General Akbar Khan of the Pakistan Army authored a covert operational plan, later known as Operation Gulmarg, which proposed deploying Pashtun tribals who were trained, armed, and commanded by regular Pakistani Army personnel .

The plan received approval at senior political and military levels in Pakistan. Tribal contingents were recruited and staged from garrisons including Bannu, Peshawar, Kohat, Thall, and Abbottabad. The invasion commenced on 22 October 1947, with Akbar Khan leading under the alias “Tariq.”

These details are extensively documented in Akbar Khan’s own book Raiders in Kashmir, which provides an insider account of Pakistan’s planning and direct military involvement. His testimony confirms that the 1947 incursion was a state-sponsored act of aggression, not an organic uprising.

3. Economic Blockade and Political Coercion of the Maharaja

Alongside military preparations, Pakistan imposed economic and political pressure on the princely state. Despite a standstill agreement signed with Pakistan in August 1947, essential supplies and transport links were abruptly disrupted, amounting to an undeclared economic blockade.

Contemporary accounts, including those of Prime Minister Mehr Chand Mahajan, record direct political intimidation of the Maharaja by Pakistani representatives in Srinagar. On 15 October 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh even appealed to the British Prime Minister regarding Pakistan’s coercive conduct—underscoring that the crisis confronting the state was externally imposed.

4. Tribal Invasion and Collapse of State Security (22 October 1947)

On 22 October 1947, Pakistan launched Operation Gulmarg, sending armed tribal forces into Jammu and Kashmir under Pakistani Army officers. The invaders carried out mass killings, looting, forced conversions, and widespread violence in areas including Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, and Poonch. Thousands of civilians were killed or displaced.

The scale and brutality of the invasion overwhelmed the Maharaja’s limited forces, bringing the administration to the brink of collapse and placing Srinagar under imminent threat.

5. Instrument of Accession to India (26 October 1947)

Faced with imminent collapse, Maharaja Hari Singh sought military assistance from India. The Government of India made it clear that any military support required a lawful act of accession.

Accordingly, the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947, acceding Jammu and Kashmir to India on the same terms as other princely states. The accession was formally accepted by Governor-General Lord Mountbatten on 27 October 1947, after which Indian troops were airlifted to Srinagar to repel the invaders.

Both Mehr Chand Mahajan and Alan Campbell-Johnson, Mountbatten’s aide, affirm that Indian leadership neither rushed nor coerced the accession; it was a lawful and measured response to Pakistan’s aggression .

6. United Nations Resolution 47 and Pakistan’s Non-Compliance

In April 1948, the United Nations adopted Resolution 47. India did not approach the UN to question the legality of the accession—already completed on 26 October 1947—but to highlight Pakistan’s armed aggression.

The resolution required:

However, Pakistan never complied with the primary and foundational condition of the resolution—complete military withdrawal from the territories it had forcibly occupied, now known as Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK). As a result, the plebiscite framework became legally, morally, and practically impossible to implement. Resolution 47, adopted under Chapter VI, was non-binding, carrying moral but not legal force—a point acknowledged by former UN diplomat Josef Korbel.

7. Political and Constitutional Closure of Accession (1952–1956)

The accession was further affirmed through political and constitutional processes:

It is also relevant to note that Lord Mountbatten, the then Governor General of India, acknowledged four ways to ascertain the wishes of the people: referendum, plebiscite, election, or, if these were impracticable, representative public meetings (Mission with Mountbatten by Alan Campbell-Johnson, p.263). India has already exercised the latter two mechanisms: regular elections in the state and representative assemblies

8. Clarification at the UN: Lapse of the Plebiscite Offer

India’s position regarding the plebiscite was further clarified in formal statements at the United Nations, reflecting the consequences of Pakistan’s sustained non-compliance and the passage of time.

Speaking at the 763rd Meeting of the United Nations Security Council on 23 January 1957, India’s representative V.K. Krishna Menon stated:

“If an offer is made and it is not accepted at the time it is made, it cannot be held for generations over the heads of those who made it. With Pakistan’s intransigence, and passage of time, the offer lapsed and was overtaken by events.”

This position was restated by India in subsequent Security Council proceedings. At the 1088th meeting of the Security Council on 5 February 1964, India’s representative M.C. Chagla clarified:

“I wish to make it clear on behalf of my Government that under no circumstances can we agree to the holding of a plebiscite in Kashmir.”

These authoritative statements, recorded in the official proceedings of the United Nations, confirm that any conditional proposal for a plebiscite was rendered obsolete by Pakistan’s failure to meet mandatory preconditions, the prolonged illegal occupation of territory, and fundamental changes on the ground.

9. Democratic Ratification and the “Here and Now” Principle

India’s position at the United Nations further emphasized that prolonged non-compliance with agreed preconditions could not indefinitely suspend the democratic will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

In UN deliberations, it was explicitly noted that there was little purpose in continuing a purely historiographical dispute, and that the issue must be addressed in the “here and now”, with a forward-looking approach. It was stated that:

“India waited several years for Pakistan to fulfil the preconditions. When that did not happen, the people of Jammu and Kashmir then convened a Constituent Assembly in 1951, which once again reaffirmed the accession of the State to India in 1956 and finalised the Constitution for the State. The Jammu and Kashmir Constitution affirms that ‘the State is and shall be an integral part of the Union of India.’”

These proceedings underscore that, following Pakistan’s failure to meet its obligations, the people of Jammu and Kashmir exercised their democratic agency through a Constituent Assembly, conclusively reaffirming the state’s accession and constitutional status. This process aligned both with international practice and with the principle that unresolved conditional offers cannot override subsequent democratic and constitutional developments.

10. Shimla Agreement and Bilateralisation of the Dispute (1972)

The Shimla Agreement (2 July 1972) established that all disputes, including Jammu and Kashmir, shall be resolved bilaterally, without third-party mediation. This agreement, a binding international treaty, superseded previous UN resolutions and formalised the issue as a bilateral matter.

11. Geopolitical Landscape of Jammu and Kashmir

The present-day composition includes Jammu as a Hindu-majority region, Kashmir as a Muslim-majority region, and Ladakh as a Buddhist-majority region. Pakistan has illegally occupied the Mirpur-Muzaffarabad region (approximately 14,000 sq km) and Gilgit-Baltistan, which includes the Shaksgam tract ceded to China in 1963 through a controversial Sino-Pak boundary agreement. These areas have been under Pakistani occupation since the 1947 invasion, despite Maharaja Hari Singh’s accession to India on October 26, 1947. approximately 37,000 sq km of Aksai Chin following the 1962 Indo-China war has been under Chinese control. Out of a total area of 222,236 sq km, the Kashmir Valley accounts for 7.2%, Ladakh 26.6%, and Jammu 11.8% (totalling 45.6%). The Pakistan-occupied territories constitute 35.1% (86,000 sq km), while areas under China account for 16.9% (37,555 sq km) plus 2.3% (5,180 sq km) ceded by Pakistan in the Shimshal, Muztagh, and Raskam areas.

India and China have an ongoing border dispute, distinct from the issue of accession.

12. Continuing Security Threat: Terrorism and International Concerns

Since the late 1980s, Pakistan has waged a proxy war via groups such as LeT, JeM, and HM. Pakistan currently hosts:

South Asia Terrorism Portal identifies:

During the Westminster Hall debate, Barry Gardiner directly addressed this reality, stating:

“Most of the terrorist camps are based in Azad Kashmir… one of the things that his Government could do is press the Government of Pakistan to close those terrorist camps. We know where they are: the South Asia Terrorism Portal records 42 identified terrorist training camps located in Pakistan, and 21 located in Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.”

This mirrors long-standing Indian concerns and further confirms Pakistan’s continued use of PoJK for terrorist infrastructure. India’s Operation Sindoor also targeted and dismantled several cross-border terror infrastructures.

Conclusion

A factual understanding of Jammu & Kashmir must begin with the documented Pakistan-sponsored invasion of 1947 and the lawful accession that followed. UN proceedings, democratic processes within J&K, and the Shimla Agreement have all confirmed the finality and legitimacy of Jammu & Kashmir’s status within India.

Today, the principal challenge to peace remains terrorism inflicted in the region. As highlighted in Westminster Hall, terrorist camps operating from Pakistan and PoJK continue to fuel violence. Any constructive dialogue must begin with Pakistan dismantling terror infrastructure and ending its unlawful occupation of Indian territory.