...Until China and Pakistan stop trying to undermine its territorial sovereignty in Jammu and Kashmir, India will have little choice but to take steps to protect itself.
...while Kashmir is majority Muslim, Jammu is majority Hindu; and the vast, sparsely populated Ladakh is traditionally Buddhist. Gilgit-Baltistan is also predominantly Muslim – Shia Muslim, to be precise (though Pakistan’s government has for decades been encouraging Sunni Muslims to relocate there and gradually form a majority).
...J&K residents who speak the Kashmiri language (Koshur) are concentrated mainly in the Indian-administered, densely populated, predominantly Sunni-Muslim Kashmir Valley, which has become a hotbed of Pakistan-backed jihadists fighting to establish an Islamic emirate. In early 1990, the jihadists launched a rapid and bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing, which drove virtually the entire native Hindu community out of the territory. Since then, the Islamists have been systematically replacing the Valley’s syncretic traditions with Wahhabi/Salafi culture.
...The Pakistani- and Chinese-held portions of J&K are essentially the spoils of separate wars of aggression waged by Pakistan and China against India in the period from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.
...Today, China has thousands of People’s Liberation Army troops stationed in the Pakistani-held part of J&K. So, beyond controlling its own section of J&K, which serves as a vital link between Xinjiang and Tibet, China benefits from an “economic corridor” through Pakistani-held J&K territory to Pakistan’s Chinese-controlled Gwadar port. The corridor connects the overland and maritime routes of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
...it is worth noting that India allows media free access to its J&K territory, whereas Pakistan requires foreign journalists to obtain a military-approved “no-objection certificate.” China has never allowed international media into its portion of J&K.
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