Which region is heavily disputed by India and Pakistan?

Answer 1

Kashmir is the source of conflict between India and Pakistan.

But that's today.

There is an historical background to the Kashmir conflict which one needs to understand how the two countries have reached such an impasse over the Kashmir issue today.

It has to do with British Colonial policy at the time of British Colonial withdrawal in 1947. There were two classes of states within the Indian Union, in the British Indian empire. One class of states were known as the so-called princely states. Kashmir was one such state. There were 562 princely states, and in addition to that there were the states of British India. Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy, said that the princely states had one of two choices: they could join either India or Pakistan; independence as an option was ruled out.

These so-called princely states had recognized the British as the paramount power on the subcontinent. With the departure of the British, the doctrine of paramountcy would lapse, and then the rulers of the princely states would have to join either India or Pakistan on the basis of two things: one, geographic contiguity with India or Pakistan or, and, their religious composition. So if they were predominately Muslim, they would go to Pakistan. Kashmir posed a peculiar problem. It had a Hindu monarch, a predominately Muslim population, and potential borders with both India and Pakistan.

So the monarch of Kashmir chose not to join either India or Pakistan, and vacillated on the question of acceding to one of the two states. To his dismay, what happened is the Pakistanis sent in troops disguised as local tribesmen, taking advantage of a tribal rebellion which had broken out in the Western reaches of the state in early October, 1947. When the tribal invaders came in armed, with regular Pakistani troops, supported by regular Pakistani troops, dressed as local tribesmen, the Maharaja panicked--this was the ruler of Kashmir, a man called Maharaja Hari Seng--panicked, and appealed to India for assistance. India agreed to provide support only if Kashmir acceded to India. Only when the maharaja acceded to India, Prime Minister Nehru sent in troops, but not before the invaders had captured 1/3 of the state, and 2/3 were still in Indian hands.

Why did Nehru so passionately hold on to Kashmir, and why did the Pakistanis, with equal zeal, seek to possess Kashmir? Principally because Kashmir went to the heart of the nation-building enterprises in both India and in Pakistan. For Pakistan, as the homeland for Muslims, as the homeland for Muslims in South Asia, it was vitally important to incorporate Kashmir, because otherwise Pakistan would not be complete, because here you had a contiguous, Muslim majority state. India at that was passionately a secular state. Nehru and others believed in the notion that a secular state would provide a home for people of all religions, of all ethnic groups, of all linguistic groups, that India could be a haven, a multicultural and multireligious polity which would respect all possible faiths that existed in its midst. And if you could somehow convince a Muslim majority state to stay within your midst, then the promise of Indian secularism would be realized.

But over the years, the commitment to secularism in India has eroded very significantly. In Pakistan, they haven't quite decided what it means to be a Muslim state, particularly after 1971 when East Pakistan breaks away on the basis of language and economic exploitation by West Pakistan. So Pakistan's claim to Kashmir also declined. So today the two countries hold on to Kashmir with such passion on the basis of simple statecraft and the desire that they're not gonna part with territory. The great moral and intellectual commitments of the 1940s and 50s have been effectively lost. bengladesh

Answer 2

It is Kashmir.