The Kashmir conflict, one of the most complex and enduring territorial disputes in modern history, continues to shape the geopolitical landscape of South Asia. At the heart of this seven-decade-long issue is a broken promise: the unimplemented plebiscite that was meant to allow the people of Jammu and Kashmir to decide their future. Following the partition of British India in 1947, Jammu and Kashmir, a princely state with a Muslim majority but ruled by a Hindu monarch, became a point of contention between the newly formed India and Pakistan.
In October 1947, faced with an invasion by tribal fighters from Pakistan, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, signed an Instrument of Accession to India in exchange for military assistance. This led to the first Indo-Pak war. As the conflict escalated, India brought the matter to the United Nations, which in 1948 called for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the region. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed resolutions stipulating that the future of Kashmir would be determined by a plebiscite in which the people of the region would........