1947. India was on the threshold
of Independence. But the fire of Hindu-Muslim partition
was still spreading everywhere. Out of the nation's 565 princely states,
almost everyone had decided to either join India,
or the new country of Pakistan. But the future of some places
was still uncertain, like Jammu & Kashmir, where the population was largely Muslim but the ruler was Hindu. Maharaja Hari Singh always wanted
to be a part of India. However, Prime Minister Nehru was not ready
to accept Kashmi
r's accession Until the Maharaja agreed
to handover the reins of Kashmir to Nehru's close friend Sheikh Abdullah. Taking advantage
of this political tug of war Pakistan launched an attack on Kashmir with its army and tribesmen
in the dark of night. Helpless, the Maharaja accepted
Pandit Nehru's condition. But before the Indian army could completely drive out
the enemy from Kashmir, the Indian government accepted
the UN's ceasefire proposal and stopped the war with Pakistan. As a result, one-th
ird of Kashmir fell
into Pakistan's unlawful possession. Taking advantage of the fact that it was
the only Muslim-majority state in India, Sheikh Abdullah demanded
a special status for Kashmir from the central government. This led to the birth of Article 370, which gave Kashmir
a separate constitution, a separate leader, and a separate flag, Accepting which,
we had almost unknowingly established a separate nation within our own country. Taking advantage of this power, since the 90s,
some Kashmir
i separatists, Pakistanis and terrorists made various attempts
to break India, from wars to jihad. They went to the extent
of massacring Kashmiri Hindus and expelling them from the Valley. Moving forward to 2015, social media gave a new role
to this old conflict. And a new star emerged
from this changing panorama of Jihad, Burhan Wani, who captured the hearts and minds of Kashmiri youth through
his viral instigating videos. The situation was continuously worsening, and the central government
in
Delhi began to realize that the time had come to rectify
a historic mistake made 70 years ago.
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