India and Pakistan have been involved in four major wars to date since gaining independence from Great Britain in August 1947. They have also been involved in dozens of skirmishes and conflicts of lesser intensity.
In 1947, two separate states were created, constituting the most violent “divorce” in history. India, where Hindus predominate, and Pakistan, where Muslims predominate. The coexistence of the two countries has been tainted by mass violence and population movements, causing irreparable wounds and great mutual suspicion.
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948, also known as the First Kashmir War, was a war fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, a strategically important region in the Western Himalayas, north of both India and Pakistan. India then occupied about two-thirds of the region and Pakistan the other third.
It should also be noted that China has controlled part of Kashmir, Aksai Chin on the eastern side since the 1960s.
Kashmir covers an area of 222,200 square kilometers. About 4 million people live in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and 13 million in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
The region’s population is overwhelmingly Muslim. Pakistan controls the northern and western parts, namely Azad Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan, while India controls the southern and southeastern parts, including the Kashmir Valley and its largest city, Srinagar, as well as Jammu and Ladakh.
Kashmir has not only strategic importance but also deep symbolic value for India and Pakistan, which both countries claim in their entirety.
Pakistan emphasizes that the majority of Kashmir’s population is Muslim, and therefore considers it a natural extension of itself, while India emphasizes its multi-religious nature and therefore considers it an integral part of it.
Kashmir has also become entwined in the national narrative of both countries, making any retreat politically difficult. The term “Indian Occupied Kashmir” dominates Pakistani media discourse, while Pakistani school textbooks portray India in a negative light.
At the same time, the region is rich in water resources, vital for agriculture in northern India and Pakistan. The largest rivers of the region, among others, originate or pass through Kashmir. In particular, the Indus River originates in Tibet, crosses India from Indian Kashmir and ends in Pakistan, constituting the main artery of the Pakistani hydrological system. More than 90% of Pakistani agriculture depends directly or indirectly on its waters. The waters of the Indus River are not only a natural resource but also a geopolitical stake.
In 1965, war broke out again between India and Pakistan, which became known as the Second Kashmir War, and was a series of skirmishes between the military forces of the two countries, from August 1965 to September of the same year. The fighting took place in this territorial area, claimed by both countries, and was a continuation of the battles fought there in 1947. Although the war lasted only three weeks, it was particularly bloody.
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 began with the Bangladeshi War of Independence, then known as East Pakistan. Indian support for the Bangladeshi independence movement was the genesis of that conflict, which was a continuation of the previous war of 1965 between India and Pakistan.
The Pakistani Air Force, in a spectacular move, launched a preemptive strike on air bases in northern India on December 3, 1971, with the aim of destroying the Indian Air Force on the ground. The airstrike would bring India into the war between Pakistan and Bangladesh, which had already broken out on March 26, 1971, and would end with the defeat of the Pakistani army on December 16 of the same year and the subsequent independence of Bangladesh.
The Kargil War took place between May and July 1999 between Pakistan and India in the Kargil region. The war was fought at high altitudes of around 5,000 meters and under extreme conditions, and was a large and deadly conflict. The war resulted in significant casualties on both sides, with estimates of Indian military deaths at around 527 and Pakistani losses ranging from 400 to 4,000.
India and Pakistan, which are estimated to have equal numbers of nuclear warheads – India possesses 172 nuclear warheads and Pakistan 170 – have recently been involved in military conflict again, the most serious conflict between the two nuclear powers in two decades.
The new “chapter” of tension opened in the early hours of Wednesday, May 7, 2025, when India bombed nine targets inside Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, in retaliation for the massacre of April 22, 2025, when 25 Indian tourists and a Nepali national were murdered by gunmen at the Pahalgam tourist resort in the Baisaram Valley, causing widespread anger in India.
From the first hours after the massacre, New Delhi accused Islamabad of supporting the extremist group that is responsible for this murderous attack, something the Pakistani government categorically denied.
After four days of fierce clashes on the border of the two nuclear powers, a ceasefire agreement was reached on May 10, 2025, following intense diplomatic pressure from the US, which will be gratifying if it is consolidated and does not prove fragile.
India, however, is larger in population, economic and military power than Pakistan. India’s population is 1.438 billion, while Pakistan’s is 247.5 million. It is also ranked as the 4th most powerful military power in the world, while Pakistan is ranked 12th. India is also ranked 5th in the world’s most powerful economies.
Following the tragic incident in Pahalgam, India suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty that divided the six rivers of the Indus Basin between the two countries. India’s suspension of the Treaty, a retaliatory step after the violent attack, is not just a symbolic move, but also has material consequences.
In closing, I would like to underline with emphasis that the two countries should finally find a solution to their differences – which is certainly not easy – and move on the path to lasting peace, given that they are nuclear powers, and a nuclear confrontation between them, which could result from a fatal mistake, would be absolutely devastating.
*Isidoros Karderinis was born in Athens in 1967. He is a journalist, foreign press correspondent accredited to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as an economist, novelist and poet. His articles and reports have been published in newspapers, magazines and websites in 130 countries. Facebook: Karderinis Isidoros
