India-administered Kashmir is the most northern portion of the Indian subcontinent. “Kashmir” derives etymologically from the Sanskrit Kashmira i.e. land desiccated from water. There are alternative derivations in which Kashmir either means kashyapa-mir (Kashyapa’s Lake) or kashyapa-meru (Kashyapa’s Mountain). It is scarcely surprising that this etymological confusion belies a much deeper historical bifurcation of a contested region. Until the mid-19th century, the term “Kashmir” referred only to the Kashmir Valley but today (geographically) all of modern Kashmir encapsulates the India-administered territories (Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh) the Pakistan territories (Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan) and the Chinese-held Aksai Chin, Trans-Karakoram Tract. I had the opportunity during 2024 to be part of a remote election observation exercise from Cambridge University, working closely with the NGO community in Kashmir’s first post-autonomy elections
The modern region of what we loosely call “Kashmir” is a living conundrum of a post-colonial imbroglio. India calls the territory under Pakistan control, “Pakistan-occupied Kashmir” while Pakistan denotes the other as “Indian-occupied Kashmir”. In 1987 the Indian administration, fearful of Pakistan, was accused of meddling in Kashmir’s elections to block pro-independence candidates. In response, a coalition of popular parties at that time boycotted the elections. Several leaders fled to Pakistan, where they marshalled an armed revolt against India. It spawned waves of violence and political militancy from the 1990s onwards.
There are vast areas of disputed territory and some shared territory under Indian and Pakistani control respectively. Neither India nor Pakistan have formally recognised accession by the other. Predictably, this made the election all the more significant in the minds of parties and people. India occupies the area “ceded” to China by Pakistan in the Trans-Karakoram Tract in 1963, and Pakistan claims........