The Historical Background of The 1965 Kashmir War: 1961 - 1964

The Historical Background of the 1965 Kashmir War : 1961 - 1964
Introductory Note on Context, Purpose, and Methodology
This working paper updates a research project focused on the incompatible objectives of the adversaries
of the Second Kashmir War. The emphasis on actor goals has been compartmentalized into temporal
phases in the research design. Identification of conflict phases proceeds from the point in time at which
one of the protagonists overtly manifests a threat, unanticipated by the decision-makers of the dyadic
adversary, that compromises the fundamental objectives of the latter and allows only a short time for a
response. This unanticipated overt manifestation of a threat to basic objectives is taken as the conflict’s
critical event. With regard to this project’s evaluation and analysis of the India-Pakistan conflict of 1965,
the stipulated critical event has been identified as the crossing of the cease-fire line by Pakistani
irregulars on 5 August of that year. Although primary attention is paid to actor objectives in the
encompassing project, three intervening variables form constituent parts of the model: distance,
polarization, and capabilities. Stipulated distance measures are: the geographical context; political and
military distance, defined in terms of shared membership in regional institutions; economic distance,
defined as the pattern of intra-dyad trade; cultural distance, defined in terms of the relative similarities
with regard to the ethnic, religious, and linguistic compositions of their populations; and, historical
distance, defined in terms of the nature of the political relationship between Pakistan and India since
Partition. The text that follows provides an introduction to the 1965 Kashmir War via an application of
the concept of distance to the India-Pakistan relationship during the years prior to the war. Analyses of
polarization patterns and capabilities prior to, during, and following the war are the subject of other
working papers. In a larger theoretical perspective these working papers on the Second Kashmir War can
be situated within the systemism framework1 of conflict analysis, although with clear structural realist2
emphases when arriving at and articulating explanatory conclusions.
1
Carolyn C. James and Patrick James, “Systemism and Foreign Policy Analysis: A New Approach to the
Study of International Conflict”, in Advancing Interdisciplinary Approaches to International Relations,
eds. Steve A. Yetiv and Patrick James (Cham, CH: Palgrave, 2017), 289-321.
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40823-1
2
For a detailed analysis of structural realism, see my Structural Realism and Geopolitical Thought: An
Approach to International Political Theory Development (Chisinau, MD: Eliva Press, 2020).
19 January 2021 John D. Young Page 1
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3715933

1. Distance3
1.1 Geographical Relationship of the Dyad
The 800-mile border shared by India and Pakistan extends from the Rann of Kutch on the
Arabian Sea across an extensive desert region4 and on through the Rajasthan-Sind and
Punjab Plains to the Kashmir Region. Moving from south to north, the Gujarat, Rajasthan
and Punjab States of India adjoin the Pakistani administrative divisions of Hyderabad,
Khairpur, Behawalpur, Multan and Lahore. Moreover, at the time of the 1965 conflict,
1,150 miles of shared border separated Pakistan's eastern wing from India. Apart from
the Chittagong Hill Tracts' common frontier with Burma and the Bay of Bengal coastline,
the East Wing of Pakistan was bounded entirely by India. Beginning at the East Pakistan-
Burma-India triborder point in the Purvanchal region, the border dissected such
heterogeneous geophysical regions as the Assam Valley, the Meghalaya-Mikir Region and
the Lower Ganga (or "Gangetic") Plain until it reached the Bay of Bengal. In the Lower
Ganga Plain, the Pakistani administrative divisions of Khulna and Rajshahi flanked the
Indian State of West Bengal while on the east, the administrative division/state interface
place Dacca and Chittagong opposite Assam and the Union Territory of Tripura.
The former British Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, the principal focus of India-
Pakistan hostilities in the latter half of 1965, was situated in the strategic northwestern
corner of the subcontinent. At the time of the 1 January 1949 cease-fire, Pakistan had
gained control of approximately 32,358 square miles of the disputed territory while India
retained control of the remaining area of about 53,665 square miles. Pakistan's territorial
gains gave it the Gilgit region, almost all of Baltistan, and the westernmost areas of
3
The concept of distance has analytical applications in many disciplines within the social sciences and
the humanities. Social distance, for example, describes degrees of interaction with and acceptance of
those outside one’s own identity group. See, for example: Philip J. Ethington, “The Intellectual
Construction of “Social Distance” : Toward a Recovery of Georg Simmel’s Social Geometry”, cybergeo:
european journal of geography, Article 30, 16 September 1997 https://doi.org/10.4000/cybergeo.227
Bilateral differences in values based on questions from the World Values Survey are analyzed in: Adrien
Jaeggi et al., “Dyadic value distance: Determinants and consequences”, Economic Letters 165 (April
2018): 48-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2018.01.022 The concept is operationalized in the
present text to describe and evaluate the conflictual as well as the cooperative relations between India and
Pakistan as elements influencing the course of their interactions before, during, and after the 1965
Kashmir War.
4
This natural boundary is referred to, alternatively, as the Thar or Great Indian Desert.

Kashmir Province, Poonch and Jammu. India succeeded in holding Ladakh, most of
Kashmir Province and Jammu and approximately half of Poonch.
Map 1: Kashmir in Geopolitical Context5
5
By CIA - http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/kashmir_region_2004.jpg, Public
Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=618641

Subsequent years would reveal however that effective Indian control in Kashmir was
limited to roughly 37,000 square miles as the Chinese military operated freely in the Aksai
Chin without even being detected by India until 1958. 6 In Azad Kashmir, Pakistan
formally sanctioned the Chinese presence by signing a border agreement with the PRC in
1963 that recognized Chinese control of more than 2,000 square miles of the Baltistan and
Gilgit areas lying west of the Karakoram Pass (the endpoint of the cease-fire line).7 The
cease-fire line itself is about 480 miles in length and has served as the de facto boundary
separating the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from Azad, or Pakistan-Controlled,
Kashmir since Indo-Pakistani agreement as to its demarcation was reached in 1949.8
The geopolitical context of the India-Pakistan dyad, which placed the protagonists in a
form of reinforced juxtaposition, 9 together with the quite particular historical context in
which their common borders were delimited10 intensified the inherent political problems
attendant upon any anthropogeographic boundary. The geographical relationship of India
and Pakistan, quite apart from its obvious contiguity, was therefore founded on a criterion
which went to the heart of the respective ideological underpinnings of the two States.
1.2: Political and Military Distance
The Political and military dimensions of dyadic distance, conceptualized in terms of
6
Margaret W. Fisher, et al., Himalayan Battleground : Sino-Indian Rivalry in Ladakh (London: Pall
Mall, 1963), 86. In 1962, the PRC consolidated its hold on some 16,000 square miles in eastern Ladakh
by military force.
7
Various estimates of the surface areas involved in the Sino-Pakistani border agreement have been given
in public accounts. See, for example: Russell Brines, The Indo-Pakistani Conflict (London: Pall Mall,
1968), 182-183; William J. Barnds, India, Pakistan, and the Great Powers (New York: Praeger, 1972),
189; S.M. Burke, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy 1947-1972 : An Historical Analysis (London: Oxford, 1973),
290-292; United States Department of the Army, U.S. Army Area Handbook for India (Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 39.
8
Michael Brecher, The Struggle for Kashmir (Toronto, ON: Ryerson, 1953), 99.
9
Over 900 miles of Indian Union territory separated the two Wings of Pakistan.
10
The Radcliffe Award demarcating the 1947 partition lines was made amidst competing claims from
both camps, based primarily on the principle of ‘contiguous majorities’ and left neither party satisfied.
See: B. L. Sukhwal, India: A Political Geography (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1971), 216; and, Sir Cyril
Radcliffe, Report of the Punjab Boundary Commission (1947), cited in C. H. Phillips, The Evolution of
India and Pakistan: 1858 to 1947: Select Documents (London: Oxford, 1962), 680-681.

shared membership in regional or military alliances, may be treated in summary fashion as

it is manifestly clear that no contiguity existed in these spheres. On those occasions when
some degree of rapprochement seemed possible, either through the duress of one actor 11
or by intra-dyadic initiatives,12 the ultimate realization on both sides that fundamental
differences separated them led irrevocably to negotiation deadlock. Thus, while both
countries had made overtures that would have prompted less hostile relations13 their
respective perceptions of the international system and the differing extents to which they
were dependent upon third-party economic support resulted in the formulation of two
distinct codes of international behavior. India posited a policy of 'nonalignment' which
derived from a desire to prevent the reoccurrence of Western domination in any form over
Asian and African peoples. 14 Pakistan, given a weaker economic base from which to
pursue developmental policies and its perceived need for increased military capacity,15
aligned its international commitments in keeping with Cold War alliance configurations in
the post-Independence period by participating in the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
(SEATO) and the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and by concluding a bilateral
Agreement of Cooperation with the United States. 16
By the time of the 1965 Kashmir war, however, both protagonists had undertaken
reappraisals of their approaches to foreign policy in the wake of the Sino-Indian Border
War. Each in its own fashion sought to adapt to the realities of a multipolar world by
reassessing its position in relation to the United States, the Soviet Union and the People's
Republic of China, on the one hand, and with the neighboring States of Asia, on the
11
See, for example, discussion of the Harriman-Sandys efforts of November 1962 in S. M. Burke,
Pakistan’s Foreign Policy 1947-1972: An Historical Analysis (London: Oxford, 1973), 279-284; and,
Brines, The Indo-Pakistani Conflict, 131-140.
12
See discussions of Indian offers of a ‘No-War Declaration’ to Pakistan in Brines, The Indo-Pakistani
Conflict, 216-222; and in Burke, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy, 48-53.
13
Burke, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy, notes at 53-56 the occasions on which Pakistan had offered various
proposals for Indo-Pakistani joint defence of the subcontinent. He suggests that these offers were made
“almost as regularly” as the Indian invitation to sign a no-war declaration.
14
Concise explanations of the bases of nonalignment as a foreign policy approach are offered by:
Michael Brecher, Nehru: A Political Biography (London: Oxford, 1961), 212-216; and by, Norman D.
Palmer, South Asia and United States Policy (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), 271-276.
15
These reasons for Pakistan’s ties with the Western nations in general and the United States in particular
are given by Burke, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy, 168. Burke had been a career diplomat with Pakistan’s
foreign service prior to assuming a teaching post in the United States.
16
Summaries of the terms of these defence agreements can be found in U.S. Department of the Army,
Area Handbook for Pakistan, 385 and Keesing’s Research Report: Pakistan: From 1947 to the Creation
of Bangladesh (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), 128-130.

other.17 The foreign policy reassessments of both countries bore one common trait: a
deepening suspicion as to the intents of the dyadic adversary with respect to Kashmir. At
the outset of 1965, the political and military distance separating India and Pakistan was as
great as it had ever been since 1950.
1.3 Economic Distance
Shortly after Partition, the economic system of the subcontinent changed radically
from an integrated pattern to one in which national antagonisms precluded any cohesion.
In spite of a disproportionate distribution of the subcontinent's industrial sector in India's
favor at the time of Partition, Pakistan inherited a greater share in the irrigated areas
which gave it relative self-sufficiency in agriculture. Its stable agricultural sector and high
production of such cash crops as jute and cotton was a boon to Pakistan's international
balance of payments and helped to offset its chronically weak manufacturing sector.
Nonetheless, this strength ultimately led to the decision to not follow suit in devaluing
Pakistani currency after India had depreciated the rupee in September 1949.
Notwithstanding the solid economic reasoning in support of this decision to maintain

the Pakistani rupee at the old dollar value, Indian financial circles responded with
indignation to the Pakistani move. 18 The consequences of this disagreement were
disastrous for the flow of commodities between the two countries and, in a larger sense,
for their respective economies. From a pre-devaluation situation of intense trade between
the two new States in which 80% of Pakistan's trade was with India and 30% of India's
trade was with Pakistan,19 commercial relations plummeted to such an extent that, by
1950, Pakistan's trade with India amounted to less than 1% of the former's total trade. 20
17
Cf. Palmer, South Asia, 275-276; Barnds, India, Pakistan, 183-195; Burke, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy,
275-317; Fisher et al, Sino-Indian Rivalry, 129-146; and, Vijay Sen Budhraj, Soviet Russia and the
Hindustan Subcontinent (Bombay: Somaiya Publications, 1973), 145-164.
18
G. W. Choudhury. Pakistan’s Relations with India 1947-1966 (London: Pall Mall, 1968), 147. Some
indication of the extent of Indian anger at the time may be given by citing the Reserve Bank of India’s
refusal to quote any rate for the purchase and sale of the Pakistani rupee.
19
Pakistan figure is from: Pakistan Year Book 1969, 148; Indian figure is from Choudhury, Pakistan’s
Relations with India, 148.
20
Pakistan Yearbook 1969, 148.

Subsequent disputes have, of course, only served to impede a resumption of what, in a

non-conflictual context, would be a heavy trading pattern.
The negligible role of the dyadic adversary as a trading partner during the four-year
period preceding the outbreak of hostilities in 1965 is shown in Tables 1 and 2.
Percentages of bilateral trade, it can be observed, do not exceed 2% of total trade for any
year. The chart shows an across-the-board drop in trade between the two countries in
1963 reflecting the mutual distrust engendered by the various ramifications of the Sino-
Indian conflict of 1962. It is equally clear that trade patterns were strengthening to their
pre-1962 levels prior to the fateful 1965 year. Table 3 has been added to show the virtual
cessation of bilateral trade in the wake of the 1965 conflict as well as the stability of the
pattern of pre-1962 trade between the two countries.
As counterpoint to the Table 3 data representing the trading patterns of a decade,

perhaps it would be worthwhile to briefly note the conditions and ultimate fate of the last
India-Pakistan trade agreement signed prior to the 1965 conflict period. The "Rice Barter
Agreement" of 11 January 1965 stipulated that Pakistan was to export coarse-grain
(inferior quality) joshi and kangni rice. Indian commodities destined for the Pakistani
market included a wide variety of goods ranging from coal and limestone to buffalo horns
and silbatta conch shells.21 "Protocol I of 1965", as the Agreement was alternatively
referred to, became inoperative on the 6th of September 1965 during the period in which
the most intense fighting was taking place. In the months subsequent to the signing of the
Tashkent Declaration moreover, there were still no indications that the dyadic adversaries
were disposed to resuming even token trade. 22 Indeed, there is no lack of evidence in
support of the contention that the systematic suppression of normal trading patterns
amounts to nothing less than economic warfare.
21
Government of Pakistan. National Assembly of Pakistan Debates (Karachi: National Publishing
House, 21 March 1966), 874-875.
22
Mr Shams-ud Doha, the Pakistani Minister of Food and Agriculture, reported in the National Assembly
on 2 June 1966 that no proposal to export foodstuffs to India was planned by the Government. NAP
Debates, 2 June 1966, 311.

Table 1: India’s Trade with Pakistan: 1961-196523

(year beginning 1 April of year stated: value in million rupees - conversion factor 21.000
new U.S. cents per rupee for all years)
General Imports c.i.f.24
1961 1962 1963 1964 1965
Total Trade 10900.6 11314.8 12228.5 13490.3 13940.5
Pakistan 138.6 166.5 93.5 165.8 56.5
National Exports f.o.b.25
1961 1962 1963 1964 1965
Total Trade 6551.7 6781.5 7892.8 8131.5 8055.6
Pakistan 94.4 93.8 71.7 97.0 48.8
23
Yearbook of International Trade Statistics 1965, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistical Office of the United
Nations, United Nations, New York, 1967, ST/STAT/ser. G/16, 361.
24
C.i.f. (CIF): Cost, insurance, and freight “is an expense paid by a seller to cover the costs, insurance, and freight of a buyer’s
order while it is in transit.” www.investopedia.com/terms/cif
25
F.o.b. (FOB): Free On Board origin “means the purchaser pays the shipping cost …and gains ownership of the goods as
soon as it leaves its point of origin”. www.investopedia.com/terms/fob

Table 2: Pakistan’s Trade with India : 1961-196526

(calendar years; value in million rupees (P) - conversion factor 21.000 new U.S. cents per
rupee (P) for all years)
General Imports c.i.f.
1961 1962 1963 1964 1965
Total Trade 3056.3 3514.9 4231.7 4749.3 4967.0
India 120.8 104.2 92.7 104.3 98.1
General Exports f.o.b.
1961 1962 1963 1964 1965
Total Trade 1905.0 1892.0 1983.4 2351.9 2515.2
India 113.4 189.3 139.0 158.9 137.7
26
United Nations. Yearbook of International Trade Statistics, 1965, 601.

Table 3: India-Pakistan Trade 1958-196727

India Trade with Pakistan – Exports
Year 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967
IFS Total ----- ----- ----- ----- ------ 1631 1749 1686 1606 1614
DOT Total 1214.7 1306.5 1332.5 1410.9 1412.6 1614.5 1731.6 1686.1 1607.2 1611.4
Pakistan 15 13.3 21.3 20.6 19.6 15.2 18.6 16.5 ---- -----
India Trade with Pakistan - Imports
Year 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967
IFS Total ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- 2477 2876 2912 2822 2718
DOT Total 1814.5 1863.2 2123.6 2006 2228.6 2487.9 2703.2 2818.6 2750 2691.3
Pakistan 13.2 11.4 31.9 23.5 37.2 23.6 22.2 27.4 1.8 2.8
Pakistan Trade with India – Exports
Year 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967
IFS Total ---- ----- ----- ---- ----- 462 493 528 601 645
DOT Total 297.7 316.7 390.3 394.4 390.1 464.3 493.5 530.2 599.3 599.7
India 10 10.2 27.3 23.7 40.6 27.2 33.4 28.2 0.1 0.1
Pakistan Trade with India – Imports
Year 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967
IFS Total ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- 889 998 1043 900 1101
DOT Total 393 347.8 644 638.5 732.6 885.7 994.6 1042 899.3 1098.9
India 18.7 14.3 22 24.7 21.3 19.5 22 20.1 0.7 0.2
27
Direction of Trade: A Supplement to International Financial Statistics: Annual 1958-1962.
International Monetary Fund. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Published jointly
by the IMF and the IBRD and prepared by the Statistics Bureau of the IMF (Washington, DC: IMF,
annual), 341-342, 350-351; Direction of Trade: A Supplement to International Financial Statistics:
Annual 1963-1967, 207-208, 285-286. Notes regarding Table 3 data: Both the International Financial
Statistics (IFS) and the Direction of Trade (DOT) world totals refer to the trade of the dyadic protagonists
with all countries except the People’s Republic of China, the Mongolian Republic, Cuba, North Korea,
and North Vietnam. IFS totals were not calculated separately from DOT totals for the years 1958-1962.
Value of trade is in million U.S. dollars and the conversion rate is .21. No figures are given for Indian
exports to Pakistan in 1966 and 1967 as amounts for those two years totaled less than $100,000 US.
Notwithstanding some discrepancies in the data (e.g. variance as between Pakistani imports from India
and Indian exports to Pakistan), they do provide the most reliable overview of Indo-Pakistani trade
patterns for the period covered.

1.4 Cultural Distance
Our assessment of cultural distance centers on the relative similarities and

dissimilarities of India and Pakistan with regard to the ethnic, religious and linguistic
composition of their respective populations. By any measure, religion has constituted the
principal source of disharmony between the two States. Pakistan came into being as a
result of Muslim dissatisfaction with the prospects of Hindu majority rule upon the
granting of Independence. Indeed, the creation of Pakistan stemmed from a desire for a
homeland for South Asian Muslims. By the terms of the Constitution of The Republic of
Pakistan 1962 the "legitimate rights and interests of the minorities should be
safeguarded”28 and “No law should - Prevent the members of a religious community or
denomination from professing, practicing or propagating, or from providing instruction
in”29 their religion. The 1962 Constitution also made reference in Part X, Islamic
Institutions to the 1956 Constitution that stipulated that "no law was to be enacted which
was repugnant to the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and the
Sunnah". 30 An Advisory Council of Islamic Ideology made up of Ulema, eminent
research scholars and experts in many fields of the nation's activities, was also formed.
The theocratic nature of the Pakistani Republic differs in principle from the secularism
embodied in the Indian Constitution (1950). 31
28
Chapter 2, Article 8, Section 3, “Fair Treatment of Minorities”, Constitution of The Republic of
Pakistan 1962. http://cii.gov.pk/aboutcii/history/con1962.pdf
29
Chapter 1, Article 7, “Freedom of Religion”, Constitution of The Republic of Pakistan 1962.
30
Chapter 2, “Islamic Research Institute”, “Comments” to Article 207 and passim.
31
The Preamble to The Constitution of India refers to the state as a “sovereign socialist secular
democratic republic”.
https://www.india.gov.in/my-government/constitution-india/constitution-india-full-text

In qualitative terms, the 1961 Pakistani census figures 32 show the following percentage
distribution by religious group:
Table 4: Religious Groups: Pakistan
Religious Groups Pakistan East Pakistan West Pakistan
Muslims 88.09% 80.43% 97.17%

Caste Hindu 4.90 8.63 0.48
Scheduled Caste 5.77 9.82 0.97
Christians 0.78 0.29 1.36
Buddhists 0.40 0.74 0.01
Others 0.06 0.09 0.01
For the same year, the religious communities of India were broken down in the following
percentages:33
Table 5: Religious Groups: India
Religious Groups Percent of Population
Hindu 83.50 %
Muslims 10.70
Christian 2.44
Sikh 1.79
Buddhist 0.74
Jain 0.46
Other 0.37
32
Census of Pakistan, Population 1961, Vol. 1, cited in Pakistan Year Book, 1969, 44.
33
S. R. Gandotra, Director of Census Operations, Indian Administrative Service, Census of India 1961
(Delhi: Government of India, 1964). The figures in Table 5 are from India (Delhi: Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting, 1967), cited in U.S. Army Area Handbook for India, 282. The figures are
based on the 1961 Census results.

We should include, at this point, a brief summary of the region’s demography with regard
to communal identification. Probably the most noteworthy element of communal
distribution in Jammu and Kashmir at the time of the 1965 war was the relative stability of
ethno-religious patterns over the post-Partition period in the face of recurrent armed
conflict and almost constant tension. At Partition, Muslims accounted for approximately
77% of the State’s population. Another 22% of the 4,025,000 inhabitants were composed
of Hindus (20.12%) and Sikhs (1.64%).34 The Buddist sector of Ladakh accounted for
approximately 1% of the total population. Table 6 provides an area breakdown of ethno-
religious groups in Jammu and Kashmir as at 1948.
Largely a product of successive efforts of regional empire building during the nineteenth
century by the Dogra dynasty of Jammu Province, Jammu and Kashmir does not, as we
have seen, constitute a homogeneous cultural entity. Indeed, the area's religious and
cultural heterogeneity and the manner in which the State was formed remain relevant
factors in assessing the debate concerning the State's allegiance. 35 At the time of the
outbreak of hostilities in August 1965 Indian control was limited to Jammu Province, the
eastern part of Poonch, most of the Vale of Kashmir, a small corner in the south of
Baltistan and less than half of Ladakh. It is worthy of note that the only Muslim majority
area still under Indian control at the time of hostilities was the Valley of Kashmir and
parts of Poonch and Baltistan.
34
W. Norman Brown, The United States and India, Pakistan, Bangladesh (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP,
1972), 179.
35
Compare Brecher, Struggle for Kashmir, 1; and B. L. Sukhwal, India: A Political Geography
(Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1971), 99. Sukhwal stated: “From a cultural point of view, there is no other
state at present in India which has so much racial heterogeneity as Kashmir. It is a multi-racial,
multilingual and multi-religious state.” For an analysis, circa 2006, of the religious element of the
Kashmir conflict as it impacts Indian foreign policy, see: Carolyn C. James and Ozgur Ozdamar,
“Religion as a Factor in Ethnic Conflict: Kashmir and Indian Foreign Policy”, Terrorism and Political
Violence 17, no. 3 (2005): 447-467. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546550590929219

Table 6: Distribution of Ethno-religious Groups in Jammu and Kashmir (1948)36
Area Population % Total Pop. Kashmiri Muslims Non-Kashmiri Muslims Non-Muslim Kashmiris Non-Kashmiri Hindus&Sikhs Buddhists
Kashmir 1,474,000 36.6% 1,300,000 70,000 104,000 ------- ------

Valley
Western 1,212,000 30.1 40,000 1,011,000 ----- 161,000 ------

Districts
Jammu 1,030,000 25.6 110,000 301,000 ----- 619,000 -------
Gilgit 115,000 2.9 ---- 115,000 ----- ------ -------
Baltistan 150,000 3.7 ---- 150,000 ----- ------ -------

and Western
Ladakh
Buddhist 44,000 1.1 ---- ----- ----- ------ 40,000

Ladakh
TOTAL 4,025,000 100% 1,450,000 1,647,000 104,000 780,000 40,000
Ethno- 36.1% 41.0% 2.6% 19.4% 0.9%

religious
Groups
as %
of total
population
On the basis of Indian figures37 using 1961 data it appears that there had been a certain
decline in the Muslim proportion of the population in the Indian-held part of the State.
Nevertheless, Muslims still accounted for approximately 70% of the population at the
outbreak of hostilities in 1965.38 Although estimates vary with respect to population
tallies subsequent to the 1950 cease-fire, there were approximately 700,000 people in
Pakistan-held territory and about 3.5 million in Indian-held territory in 1965.39
Linguistic differentiation between the two countries constituted a more nuanced aspect of
cultural distance. Both Pakistan and India are decidedly multilingual but each conferred
36
The Times (London), 10 & 11 August 1948: cited in Amelia Leiss and Lincoln P. Bloomfield, et al.
The Control of Local Conflict: A Design Study on Arms Control and Limited War in The Developing
Areas. Washington: The U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1967, 212.
37
Singh, India: A Regional Geography, 366. Cf. Lamb, Crisis in Kashmir, 149.
38
U.S. Army Handbook for India, 281.
39
Brown, The United States, 190; Singh, India: A Regional Geography, 366; O. H. K. Spate and A. T. A.
Learmonth, India and Pakistan: Land, People and Economy (London: Methuen, 1972), 390.

official or national status on certain languages in their respective constitutions for reasons
of practicality and in an effort to foster national cohesiveness. The Constitution of the
Second Islamic Republic of Pakistan (1962) assigned national status to Urdu and
Bengali.40 As is shown in Table 7, Bengali was spoken by over 96% of the population of
the Eastern Province while only 0.12% of the Western Province claimed it as their mother
tongue. Urdu was the mother tongue of less than 8% of the population of West Pakistan
and less than 1% of East Pakistan's citizens spoke it as their first language. Nevertheless,
its position as a language of national unity made it one of the three chief spoken languages
of West Pakistan.41
Table 7: Percentage Population Distribution by Mother Tongue in Pakistan, 1961

Census42
Pakistan East Pakistan West Pakistan
Bengali 55.48% 98.42% 0.12%

Punjabi 29.02 0.02 66.39
Pushto 3.70 0.01 8.47
Sindhi 5.51 0.01 12.59
Urdu 3.65 0.01 7.57
Baluchi 1.09 ---- 2.49
Brahui 0.41 ---- 0.93
Persian 0.03 ----- 0.07
The situation with regard to language in India was also marked by efforts to unify national
endeavor in the governmental and political spheres in the face of language and dialect
multiplicity. Although English was still used by the Indian Union government for all
official purposes, Article 351 of the Constitution commited the country “to promote the
spread of the Hindi language” and Article 343 (1) proclaimed it as the Union's official
language.43 Table 8 gives the percentage profile of the spoken languages of the county.
40
Khalid B. Sayeed, The Political System of Pakistan (Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin, 1967), 190.
41
Brown, The United States, 207.
42
Pakistan Year Book 1969, 44.
43
In Devanagari script. Official Language stipulations are set out in Part XVII of the Constitution:
https://www.india.gov.in/my-government/constitution-india/constitution-india-full-text
See also: Brown, The United States, 298-299.

Table 8 : Languages Specified in the Indian Constitution and their Speakers - based
on 1961 Census 44
Languages Percentage of First Language Users
Hindi 34.9 %
Telugu 9.9
Bengali 8.9
Marathi 8.7
Tamil 8.0
Urdu 6.0
Gujarati 5.3
Kannada 4.6
Malayalam 4.5
Oriya 4.1
Punjabi 2.9
Assamese 1.8
Kashmiri 0.5
Sanskrit ----
Two points of capital importance for an understanding of language as a factor of

cultural distance merit mention: first, English is the medium of communication of the
political elites of both dyadic adversaries; and second, Hindi and Urdu are but
differentiated literary forms of the same spoken language, Hindustani. 45 These two
factors tend to promote a lessening of the cultural distance separating the protagonists.
Moreover, the heterogeneity of the respective linguistic profiles works to shift national
efforts in both camps towards containing and minimizing the attendant fissiparous forces
within their countries and away from linguistic nationalism vis-à-vis the dyadic adversary.
44
Census of India 1961, Vol. 1, Part 11-C (ii); Language Tables (New Delhi: Office of the Registrar
General, n.d. [1964]), 2-5, cited in Richard L. Park, India’s Political System (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1967), 43.
45
Brown, The United States, 297.

Map 2: Linguistic Heterogeneity in South Asia46
The extent to which ethnicity influenced cultural distance would be extremely difficult to
assess even by those who know the subcontinent best. On balance, the multivariate racial
and ethnic composition of the two countries and the interaction of succeeding
proselytizing faiths with indigenous Weltanschauungen tended to militate against
coterminous national and ethnic identification in both India and Pakistan. Moreover, the
46
By Afrogindahood - Modified version of South Asian Language Families.jpg with the addition of
Afghanistan based on Ethnolinguistic Groups Afghanistan EN.svg, CC0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83419508

ruling elites who controlled the central governments of the two States were ethnically
similar, both being for the most part of Mediterranean Caucasoid stock. Indeed, it is
worthy of note that in both India and Pakistan these elites governed millions of people
who were racially and ethnically different from themselves. The net effect of these
cultural givens on the India-Pakistan had been to temporize the "them-us" component in
the ongoing debate between proponents of the competing ideologies. As such, ethnicity
did not constitute a factor that increased cultural distance.
In summary then and despite disclaimers in both camps it has often been remarked that
there existed, at least circa-1965, an underlying - or as Spate and Learmonth suggested,
an "overlaying"47 - cultural unity in the subcontinent. This relates to a core issue of
cultural distance in the India-Pakistan relationship at the time of the Second Kashmir
War.48 Within the Pakistan polity "the main mass of Muslims have a culture which, if
dominantly Islamic, is yet shot through with strands of 'Indianism' (to avoid the word
'Hinduism')".49 Notwithstanding this particularity – or perhaps because of it - the
operative code of Pakistan’s political leadership was articulated in terms of Islamic
identity on most policy questions involving the Indian Union. 50
To conclude this treatment of the cultural distance of the conflict protagonists, suffice
it to say that the religious component of this distance dimension played a significant role
in the evolution of the conflict in that it provided an ideological justification for Pakistani
policy when the Republic was confronted with an intransigent adversary on an issue
involving perceived injustice at the hands of that same adversary.
47
Spate and Learmonth, India and Pakistan, 150.
48
Note that this analysis does not include more recent developments concerning Kashmir, such as the
repeal of Article 370 from the Indian Constitution. See, in that regard: Kathryn Salam, “Kashmir, One
Year Later”, foreignpolicy.com (4 August 2020) https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/04/kashmir-article-
370-blackout-arrest-covid-pandemic-modi/
49
Spate and Learmonth, India and Pakistan, 150.
50
See: Sayeed, Political System of Pakistan, 172 and Burke, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy, 5 for discussions
of the ideological roots of this predisposition.

2. Historical Distance
India-Pakistan relations prior to the 1965 armed conflict were characterized by

manifestations of mutual suspicion and acrimony for almost the totality of the post-
Partition period. Exceptions to this generalization, such as the short interval following the
signing of the Indus Waters Treaty on 19 September 196051 and the relative calm
following the signing of the Rann of Kutch Agreement on 30 June 1965,52 were atypical
and unrepresentative of the deeply-felt sentiments of hostility and mistrust which
constituted basic elements of the operational codes of the respective political leaderships.
Specific objects of dispute between the dyadic adversaries - whether these were
centered on the use of canal waters, control of Jammu and Kashmir, trade and monetary
policy, treatment of minorities, the refugee problem, relations with third-parties, or
weapons development and supply, only served to envenom and reinforce the distrust that
had existed at the time of the founding of the two States. In both countries, this suspicion
was based on perceptions that tend to support the contention that the dyadic adversary
sought to undermine the political viability of one's own State.
The 1965 conflict had its roots in the pre-Partition constitutional arrangements in the
subcontinent, particularly with regard to the Indian Princely States. Following the 1857
Indian Rebellion (Sepoy Mutiny), the political status of the Princely States as subject
states of the British Crown was guaranteed by Queen Victoria's Proclamation in Council
to the Princes, Chiefs and People of India dated 1 November 1858.53 When the British
monarch announced that "all Treaties and Engagements made with them54 by or under the
authority of the Honorable East India Company are by Us accepted, and will be
scrupulously maintained; and We look for the like observance on their part", and
proclaimed that "We desire no extension of Our present territorial Possessions" and that
"We shall respect the Rights, Dignity and Honour of Native Princes as Our own", the
51
Choudhury, Pakistan’s Relations, 167-168.
52
This assessment is based on content analysis of the Pakistan Times and The Times of India for the
period in question.
53
The text can be accessed at: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/proclamation-by-the-queen-in-council-
to-the-princes-chiefs-and-people-of-india
54
The native Princes of India.

Crown assumed de jure responsibility for the foreign relations and defence of the Princely
States and granted them quasi-autonomy in matters of internal politics and administration.
While the relationship between the British Crown and the Princely States between
1858 and 1947 did not differ in essence from that between the East India Company and
the States prior to the 1857 Rebellion,55 in the sense that the Doctrine of Paramountcy
governed relations between the British imperial power and the States which were not
under its direct control, the general thrust of British policy vis-à-vis the Princes changed
perceptibly. The policy of "lapse"56 whereby the British annexed States whose rulers had
died without heirs was abolished and, as Alastair Lamb reported, "it became an axiom of
British policy that the States should continue in being".57 Notwithstanding the wide range
of constraints placed on the Princely States even with respect to specifically internal
matters,58 their very presence in pre-Partition India greatly complicated the task of Indian
nationalists in laying the groundwork for Independence. More importantly for the
purposes of this analysis, the problems attached to the integration of these States into India
and Pakistan as successor governments to the British Raj served to render more virulent
the mutual antipathy of the leaderships of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim
League.59
In 1947, the 562 Princely States of the subcontinent accounted for two-fifths of the
total land mass affected by the British withdrawal and together had a population of some
93 million60 according to the 1941 census. Their sheer territorial and demographic
magnitude, therefore, made them critical elements in the unfolding drama that
characterized independence and partition. The British Government, in its first major
statement respecting the future of the Princely States in post-Independence India, made it
known that British paramountcy would cease upon the proclamation of Independence and
that "all the rights surrendered by the States to the paramount power will return to the
States".61 The purpose of this policy declaration was not, however, to encourage the
55
Gupta, Kashmir, 31; and, Phillips, Evolution of India and Pakistan, 3.
56
U.S. Army Handbook for India, 72.
57
Lamb, Crisis in Kashmir, 5.
58
See: Gupta, Kashmir, 31-33.
59
See: Brecher, Struggle for Kashmir, 18-40; Gupta, Kashmir, 69-89; Brines, Indo-Pakistani Conflict,
18-48; Choudhury, Pakistan’s Relations with India, 65-89.
60
Choudhury, Pakistan’s Relations with India, 65; see also: Johnson, South Asia, 39.
61
Memorandum on States’ Treaties and Paramountcy, 12 May 1946, presented by the Cabinet Mission
to His Highness the Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes, Cabinet Mission, Cmd. 6835, 1946, in last

establishment of multiple successor governments in the subcontinent. The Cabinet

Mission's Memorandum on States' Treaties and Paramountcy concluded with this counsel:
"The void will have to be filled either by the States entering into a federal relationship
with the successor Government or Governments in British India, or failing this, entering
into particular political arrangement with it or them". 62
Subsequent events in the subcontinent attested to the relevance of the term "void"
used by the Cabinet Mission. The political environment in the subcontinent proved to be
much too volatile to permit the existence of several free-floating political entities. The
story of the integration of the Pakistani and Indian States has been treated in detail in a
number of outstanding accounts63 and much of what transpired in the 1946-1948 period
in relation to these parallel and oftentimes conflictual processes is pertinent to subsequent
debates on the Kashmir question. For our purposes however, only the essential points of
this crucial period need be cited. The Indian Independence Act of 18 July 1947 64
provided for the establishment of two independent Dominions, India and Pakistan. India
would consist of all the territories under British sovereignty except for those designated as
territories of Pakistan. The areas which were not under British sovereignty, the Princely
States, were theoretically independent upon the lapse of British Paramountcy that
accompanied the proclamation of Independence. Nevertheless, both the British
Government and the leaders of the Indian Congress maintained that this was essentially a
juridical technicality and that the fate of the Princely States lay with one or other of the
new Dominions. On the other hand, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim
League, held that all Indian States were "free to join either of the two Dominions or
remain independent".65
Indian reluctance to accept the principle that the Princely States were free "to choose
(their) destiny"66 was based on its commitment to "the one nation theory" which held that
the future of the subcontinent in the post-Independence period lay along secular lines
para. The text of the Memorandum is at:

http://books.e-pao.net/Status_Manipur/epShowChapter.asp?src=Memorandum_State_Treaties
62
Memorandum on States’ Treaties and Paramountcy.
63
See, in particular: Wayne W. Wilcox, Pakistan: The Consolidation of a Nation (New York: Columbia
UP, 1963); and, V. P. Menon, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States (Kolkata: Orient
Longmans, 1956).
64
Philips, Evolution of India and Pakistan, 407-411.
65
Gupta, Kashmir, 75.
66
To employ Jinnah’s words on the eve of Partition. Cited in Brecher, Struggle for Kashmir, 20.

within the framework of one central government that would promote the ideal of Muslims
and Hindus working as partners in the nation-building process. It was also a truism that
the future status of the States concerned India to a much greater extent than Pakistan in
that the vast majority were, as Mountbatten emphasized, "irretrievably linked
geographically with the Dominion of India". 67 The fact that the special status of the
Princely States was, in the minds of Congress leaders, linked to unpleasant memories of
British rule in the period leading up to Independence - in that their autonomy had
constituted an obstacle to the Indian independence movement, also provided impetus for
minimizing the legitimacy of the Princes' constitutional privileges.
Despite these reservations the Congress Party reluctantly accepted the principle of
princely sovereignty much as it had been forced to accept the principle of partition as both
were perceived as being necessary to the creation of an independent India.68 Sadar
Vallabhai Patel was assigned responsibility by the Interim Cabinet for carrying out the
integration of the States into India. Patel and his assistant, V.P. Menon, proved to be
imaginative and skillful in their negotiations with the Princes and by 31 July 1947, a little
over one month after being allocated authority for the Department of States, drafts of the
Instruments of Accession had been finalized between the contracting parties. By 15
August all but three of the Princely States had acceded to either India or Pakistan.
Generally, those States with a Hindu majority and a Hindu ruling dynasty acceded to
India while those with a Muslim majority and a Muslim dynasty acceded to Pakistan. The
three States of Jammu and Kashmir, Junagadh and Hyderabad posed special problems
because the ruling dynasty in each was not of the same religious persuasion as the
majority population of their respective State. The rulers of Hyderabad and Junagadh were
Muslim while their populations were Hindu in the majority. The elements of the
dichotomy were reversed in Jammu and Kashmir. There the ruling Dogras were Hindu
while the population of some 4,002,000 included 3,101,000 Muslims.69 The critical but
by no means the only factor that distinguished Jammu and Kashmir from Junagadh and
67
The text of Mountbatten’s 25 July 1947 Address to The Chamber of Princes is reproduced at:
https://www.jammukashmirnow.com/Encyc/2019/7/25/July-25-1947-When-Mountbatten-addressed-The-
Chamber-of-Princes-to-choose-either-of-the-2-dominions-India-or-Pakistan-there-was-NO-THIRD-
OPTION.html
68
Brecher, Struggle for Kashmir, 21.
69
1941 census figures cited in Brown, United States, 179. It is noteworthy that the population of Jammu
and Kashmir was estimated because of the Second World War, being extrapolated from the 1931 census
figures.

Hyderabad in terms of its potential as a locus of conflict was its territorial contiguity with
both India and Pakistan.
Map 3: Approximate Distribution of Population Jammu & Kashmir 194170
70
Jammu & Kashmir [cartographic material]: approximate distribution of population, 1941, Geospatial
Information Section, United Nations Digital Library, 1949.
https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3801711#record-files-collapse-header

The Indian Union government succeeded in obtaining the accession of Junagadh and
Hyderabad. Where resort to economic and military sanctions were considered to be
necessary in pursuance of this end, they were employed. What emerges from an
examination of public sources dealing with the circumstances obtaining in Junagadh and
Hyderabad at the time is that Indian policy was predicated on considerations of territorial
integrity and a desire to get on with the task of economic and social reform. Pakistani
support for the Muslim rulers of the two States proved to be inadequate in the face of
concerted Congress efforts to consolidate the Indian Union. In addition, eventual
plebiscites provided a democratic sanction to de facto outcomes in both States.71 The
dispute over the status of Jammu and Kashmir, in contrast, remained an active issue of
dyadic conflict essentially because India had given every indication that it was resolved to
not permit a plebiscite while Pakistan had been able to keep the question alive as a vital
issue both domestically and internationally.72
The ethnic and religious dichotomy as between the ruling dynasty and the population
of Jammu and Kashmir at the time of Partition suggests at first glance a certain parallelism
with the Junagadh and Hyderabad cases. The fact that the Hindu-Muslim coordinates
were inversed in Jammu and Kashmir State has constituted the basis of argumentation in
support of the Pakistani position that, through reasoning by analogy, maintains that with
respect to Kashmir, accession to one or other of the successor Dominions or indeed,
independence, was to be resolved by determining the wishes of the people. 73
The Pakistani position, however, was for all intents and purposes vitiated by the
Muslim League-inspired74 tribal invasion of the State which began in force on the 21st of
October 1947.75 Faced with the imminent collapse of his regime, the Maharaja of
Kashmir, Hari Singh, appealed to India for military support in defence of those parts of
the State which had not already been occupied by the raiders. In Delhi, it was considered
71
For an account of the Pakistani viewpoint with regard to the question of the accession of the Princely
States see: Choudhury, Pakistan’s Relations with India, 65-108. An Indian perspective is given in Gupta,
Kashmir, 69-139.
72
Cf. Brown, United States, 200.
73
Choudhury, Pakistan’s Relations with India, 69.
74
See: Gupta, Kashmir, 90-132.
75
Brecher, Struggle for Kashmir, 193.

that accession to India must precede any troop involvement in the State. Accordingly, the
Instrument of Accession (IoA) was signed on 26 October and accepted the following day
by Mountbatten in his capacity as the Indian Governor-General.76
The Indian position on the reference to the people issue as it applied to the case of
Jammu and Kashmir was that a plebiscite should be held, preferably under United Nations
auspices, once "peace and law and order"77 had been established in the State. For the first
eight years following Partition, Pakistan and India were both committed in principle to a
plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir78 as the means of resolving the dispute as to which of
the two Dominions would ultimately retain control of the State. There existed significant
differences, however, in the conditions posed as prerequisites for the holding of a
referendum. The most basic disagreement between the two countries centered on the role
to be exercised by the United Nations and the procedures for the dispute's settlement. In
January 1948, Pakistan's approach was to assign full responsibility to the United Nations
for ordering and maintaining a cease-fire and organizing and supervising the plebiscite.
India on the other hand sought a mandate for the U.N. that would entrust it with stopping
the fighting but that would leave responsibility for policing the State to Indian troops79
and that would restrict the U.N. to an adviser's role during a plebiscite to be organized by
a Kashmir National Assembly based on adult suffrage and proportional representation. 80
76
The J&K IoA is at: http://www.jammu-kashmir.com/documents/instrument_of_accession.html
Venkatesh Nayak has reported that “While a large number of Rulers signed their respective IoAs in
August itself, Maharaja Hari Singh signed it in October when his hands were forced by the invasion from
across the State’s borders. This explains the striking out of “August” to insert “October” in the IoA.”
Venkatesh Nayak, “The Backstory of Article 370: A True Copy of J&K’s Instrument of Accession”, the
wire.in, first e-published 26 October 2016, republished 5 August 2019. https://thewire.in/history/public-
first-time-jammu-kashmirs-instrument-accession-india
77
More fully, Nehru stated: “We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the
people. That pledge we have given, and the Maharaja has supported it not only to the people of Kashmir
but the world. We will not, and cannot back out of it. We are prepared when peace and law and order
have been established to have a referendum held under international auspices like the United Nations. We
want it to be a fair and just reference to the people, and we shall accept their verdict. I can imagine no
fairer and juster offer.” Extracts from Nehru’s Broadcast on 2 November, 1947
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nehru1.htm
78
According to Gupta, Kashmir, 303, Nehru’s public position changed in the spring of 1956 to a
“practical point of view” whereby he maintained that “Kashmir has acceded to and is part of the Union of
India.” Comments at 2 April 1956 Press Conference cited in Gupta, Kashmir, 155.
79
The Resolutions concerning Kashmir adopted by the United Nations in 1948 can be accessed at:
https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/resolutions-adopted-security-council-1948
80
Gupta, Kashmir, 148-156.

These conflicting proposals stemmed from differing conceptions as to the legality of

the Maharajah's accession to India. To Pakistan, India was but an intruder in Jammu and
Kashmir. The Indians, for their part, believed that Kashmir's accession to their Union
made the former Princely State part of their territory. As Gupta has summarized the
contending objectives: "India wanted the U.N. to help clear the invaders by persuading
Pakistan to deny them aid and assistance; Pakistan wanted the U.N. to get the Indian
troops out by itself (the U.N.) taking over the territory of Kashmir". 81
Over the eighteen-year period from the time when these opposing conceptions were
first enunciated until the outbreak of hostilities in 1965, nothing of substance in the
respective positions regarding the legitimacy of Kashmir's accession to India was altered.
Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, made it clear on 13 July 1965 that it was
Pakistan's desire to have India leave Jammu and Kashmir. 82 Four days later, an Official
Note from the Indian Foreign Ministry countered Bhutto's statement by refuting Pakistan's
claims to Kashmir sovereignty, including "Azad" Kashmir.83 Several ancillary objectives
have evolved over the years in both camps to form part of government policy. The basic
issue of political sovereignty nevertheless remained the principal point of disagreement
between the dyadic adversaries up to and throughout the conflict period.
Many of the most important issues of disagreement having a non-Kashmiri focus

between the two countries have been discussed in our description and analysis of
economic and cultural distance. Nevertheless, while it is true that conflicting positions on
questions respecting human settlements, monetary policy, tariffs, arms acquisition and
development, propaganda, minority rights, and the role of third-party actors have assumed
their own particular dynamic, it would appear that a decision to resolve the Kashmir issue
would have had positive repercussions on other outstanding issues. Indeed, many of the
points of dyadic friction which had assumed the status of ‘givens’ over the years had been
managed in both national capitals so as to impact the Kashmir issue.
From the 1 January 1949 cease-fire until the outbreak of hostilities on 5 August 1965,
publicly available primary and secondary sources indicate that the demilitarization of
81
Gupta, Kashmir, 157.
82
National Assembly of Pakistan (NAP) Debates, 13 July 1965.
83
Official Note reproduced in Foreign Affairs Record, Ministry of External Affairs, External Publicity
Division, Government of India, Vol. XI, No. 8.

Kashmir with a view to the holding of a plebiscite proved to be the principal obstacle to
any agreement regarding the political status of Jammu and Kashmir State.84
Notwithstanding repeated discussion in the Security Council, as well as the Dixon,

McNaughton, Graham and Jarring mediation missions, and a series of bilateral talks over
the course of the intervening years up to 1965, there was no reason to believe that the
Indian position had changed from Nehru's 1956 rejection of a plebiscite as a means of
resolving the conflict. From the Indian perspective, changed circumstances, both within
Kashmir itself and in the configuration of world alliances, had vitiated the validity of a
plebiscite in the State. As long as India remained militarily superior to Pakistan and
prevented the formation of an effective anti-Indian alliance between Pakistan and any
combination of third-party states, it was clear that no settlement favoring the Pakistani
thesis would occur. In 1962, during the Sino-Indian conflict, both the U.S. and the U.K.,
using the lever of promises of arms aid, tried to persuade India to resolve the Kashmir
issue as a first step towards joint Indian-Pakistani defence against the Chinese. The
Anglo-American plan apparently involved the surrender by India of a significant part of
the Valley of Kashmir. As Neville Maxwell has stated: "The British and the Americans
have been misled by a mirage effect of India's mood of 'nothing matters but repelling the
Chinese'. Indians at all levels were saying that the time had come to settle with Pakistan -
but they meant, settle on the status quo in Kashmir. To the Pakistanis, this was not
settlement, but rather a refusal to reach one." 85
Indian and Pakistani objectives with regard to Kashmir had not changed by the
summer of 1965. From Pakistan's perspective, the time when even military force could be
employed with moderate hope of success was fast running out because of the increasing
disparity in capabilities in India's favor.86 Other factors which combined to prompt the
Pakistani leadership to initiate hostilities in Kashmir in August 1965 included: India's
preoccupation with Chinese intentions and this concern's effect on troop deployments; a
hardening of Indian attitudes towards the Kashmir question; political unrest in the Valley
of Kashmir and, indeed, elsewhere in India; problems of logistics involved in defending
84
A summary account of this period is given in: Leiss & Bloomfield, Control of Local Conflict, 242-262.
Fuller treatments are in: Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashmir (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, [1954] 2015;
Gupta, Kashmir; Choudhury, Pakistan’s Relations; Brown, United States; Palmer, South Asia; Barnds,
India, Pakistan; Lamb, Crisis in Kashmir; and, Lars Blinkenberg, India-Pakistan: The History of
Unsolved Conflicts (Munksgaard, Denmark: Danish Institute of International Studies, 1972).
85
Maxwell, India’s China War, 436.
86
Barnds, India, Pakistan, 183.

the Valley; domestic pressure to take concrete action against India; indications that
international support for India would not materialize in the event of a flare-up over
Kashmir; and, confidence in the Pakistan military's fighting ability vis-à-vis the Indian
armed forces.87
What Pakistan had tried in vain to accomplish by all methods short of open warfare,
namely, to deny the legitimacy of Indian control in Kashmir, remained its objective in
August 1965. Initiating armed hostilities, as we shall see in this working paper’s follow-
on analyses, was a calculated gamble on the part of Pakistan’s political leadership. The
decision seemed to be predicated on the assumption that conditions for resolving the
dispute would not improve in the foreseeable future and, indeed, that trends both within
India and in the encompassing international system indicated that the issue would either
be resolved - or at least be kept alive as an international issue, by force at that time or it
would not be resolved in any manner but de facto acceptance of the status quo. For a
multiplicity of reasons that went to the heart of country’s raison d'être as a nation,88
perpetuation of the status quo was an outcome that Pakistan could not accept. For similar
reasons of self-definition, India would defend its vital interests as they related to
Kashmir.89
87
Various orderings of these factors appear in the secondary-source literature treating the rationale for
the Pakistani decision to engage hostilities.
88
See Sumit Ganguly’s discussion, inter alia : The Origin of War in South Asia: Indo-Pakistani Conflicts
Since 1947, 2nd ed. (Boulder: CO.: Westview Press, 1994), 9-12. Republished by Routledge, Taylor &
Francis Group, as an e-book in 2019.
89
In addition of course, a substantial range of geopolitical stakes reinforced the contentious national self-
imaging that informed and lent impetus to the Kashmir conflict.

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Denmark: Danish Institute of International Studies, 1972.
Sumantra Bose. Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
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Michael Brecher. Nehru: A Political Biography. London: Oxford, 1961.
Michael Brecher. The Struggle for Kashmir. Toronto: Ryerson, 1953.
Russell Brines. The Indo-Pakistani Conflict. London: Pall Mall, 1968.
Vijay Sen Budhraj. Soviet Russia and the Hindustan Subcontinent. Bombay: Somaiya
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S. M. Burke. Pakistan’s Foreign Policy 1947-1972: An Historical Analysis. London:

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G. W. Choudhury. Pakistan’s Relations with India 1947-1966. London: Pall Mall, 1968.
Philip J. Ethington. “The Intellectual Construction of “Social Distance”: Toward a

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Margaret W. Fisher, et al. Himalayan Battleground: Sino-Indian Rivalry in Ladakh.

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Eric S. Margolis. War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan and Asia,
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I. B. Tauris, 2000.
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India, 1971.

O.H.K. Spate and A.T.A. Learmonth. India and Pakistan: Land, People and Economy.
London: Methuen, 1972.
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Alex von Tunzelmann. Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire.
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2007.
United Nations. Yearbook of International Trade Statistics, 1965. New York: Department
of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistical Office of the United Nations, United Nations,
New York, 1967, ST/STAT/ser. G/16, 361.
United States Department of the Army. U.S. Army Area Handbook for India. Washington:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975.
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International Political Theory Development. Chisinau, MD: Eliva Press, 2020.
John D. Young, B.A. (Hons.), M. Sc. Soc., PhD, Emeritus

Department of Political Science and Economics
Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4399-5960

The Historical Background of The 1965 Kashmir War: 1961 - 1964

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The Historical Background of the 1965 Kashmir War : 1961 - 1964

Introductory Note on Context, Purpose, and Methodology

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1.1 Geographical Relationship of the Dyad

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Map 1: Kashmir in Geopolitical Context5

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1.2: Political and Military Distance

The Political and military dimensions of dyadic distance, conceptualized in terms of

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shared membership in regional or military alliances, may be treated in summary fashion as

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1.3 Economic Distance

Notwithstanding the solid economic reasoning in support of this decision to maintain

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Subsequent disputes have, of course, only served to impede a resumption of what, in a

As counterpoint to the Table 3 data representing the trading patterns of a decade,

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Table 1: India’s Trade with Pakistan: 1961-196523

General Imports c.i.f.24

1961 1962 1963 1964 1965

Total Trade 10900.6 11314.8 12228.5 13490.3 13940.5

Pakistan 138.6 166.5 93.5 165.8 56.5

National Exports f.o.b.25

1961 1962 1963 1964 1965

Total Trade 6551.7 6781.5 7892.8 8131.5 8055.6

Pakistan 94.4 93.8 71.7 97.0 48.8

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Table 2: Pakistan’s Trade with India : 1961-196526

General Imports c.i.f.

1961 1962 1963 1964 1965

Total Trade 3056.3 3514.9 4231.7 4749.3 4967.0

India 120.8 104.2 92.7 104.3 98.1

General Exports f.o.b.

1961 1962 1963 1964 1965

Total Trade 1905.0 1892.0 1983.4 2351.9 2515.2

India 113.4 189.3 139.0 158.9 137.7

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Table 3: India-Pakistan Trade 1958-196727

India Trade with Pakistan - Imports

Pakistan Trade with India – Exports

Pakistan Trade with India – Imports

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1.4 Cultural Distance

Our assessment of cultural distance centers on the relative similarities and

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Table 4: Religious Groups: Pakistan

Religious Groups Pakistan East Pakistan West Pakistan

Muslims 88.09% 80.43% 97.17%

Table 5: Religious Groups: India

Religious Groups Percent of Population

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