Discerning India's Kashmir Strategy:Approach, Challenges and Outcomes

The people of Kashmir are blood of our blood and flesh of our flesh, and Jammu and Kashmir [is] one of the sixteen states of the Indian Union, and the people of Kashmir, as Indian citizens, share in the total freedom which India enjoys”. [...] Upholding of the territorial sovereignty over the entire region of what constituted the princely State of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 and at the time of the signing of the Instrument of Accession, stands and leads the matrix defining India’s positions and policy courses. [...] They were quick to respond to the Maharaja of Kashmir’s overtures in distress, but were clear on the principle of integrating Jammu and Kashmir and not let the princely State fall in the Pakistani trap in the face of the violent outbreak and crisis. [...] The actual contour of the LoC and the respectively held perceptions by India and Pakistan, was at the root of the inception of the Siachen conflict. [...] A major overhaul in the security apparatus, the creation of the National Investigation Agency and the establishment of a robust security grid in the aftermath of 26/11 attacks have gone a long way in preventing attacks by Pakistan in the hinterland at least of that scale and magnitude.