David Howery said:would the situation be all that different? Instead of India having a restive muslim population in Kashmir, Pakistan would have a restive Hindu population there. I imagine there would still be some hostility over it....
horticultureandmelodrama said:Kashmir in 1947 was a large princely state under a Hindu Ruler. The Kashmir valley was 90% Muslim, the Jammu area was 88% Hindu and the Ladakh region was 90% Buddhist (Tibetian Vajrayan school). Kashmir like all 500 other princely states was given the choice of joining either India or Pakistan. The Maharajah was angling for independence and was rumored to be talking to America. The Pakistan army and irregulars invaded the valley and alarmed the Maharajah enough to acceed to India.
The popular movement in Kashmir was led by the National Conference whose leader Sheikh Abdullah was a populist secular leader with close ties to Nehru and the Indian National Congress and an abiding dislike of Jinnah and the Muslim League.
simonbp said:Just fyi, the 'k' in Pakistan is for Kashmir....
Simon
are they conveniently adjacent to Pakistan and India?Justin Green said:What if it were just partioned with the muslim areas to Pakistan, and the hindu areas to India?
PJ Norris said:I can't imagine that the world would be any better than real life. Instead of two large nations eyeballing each other, you'd have two nations meddling, two ideals (communism and capitalism), border tensions and another Yugoslavia that can't afford to break up.
So yeah, another Afghanistan or Yugoslavia in a blood bath that has no end in sight.