The history of Azad Kashmir, a part of the Kashmir region administered by Pakistan, is a component of the overall history of Kashmir. After the Partition of India in 1947, the princely states were given the option of joining either India or Pakistan. However, Hari Singh, the Sikh maharaja of the princely state of Kashmir, wanted Kashmir to remain independent. In order to buy some time, he signed a stand-still agreement, which sidestepped the agreement that each princely state would join either India or Pakistan.[1] Later there was a revolution by Kashmiri Muslims in the western part of the kingdom,[2] and raiders from the North-West Frontier Province and the northwestern Tribal Areas in Pakistan feared that Hari Singh might join the Indian Union. In October 1947, supported by the Pakistani Army, they attacked Kashmir and tried to take over control of Kashmir. Initially Hari Singh tried to resist their progress but failed. Hari Singh then requested the Indian Union to help. India responded that it could not help unless Kashmir acceded to India. On 26 October 1947, Kashmir's accession papers were signed (known as the Instrument of Accession) and Indian Army troops were airlifted to the capital Srinagar. Fighting ensued between the Indian Army and Pakistani Army, leading to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, with control stabilizing more or less around what is now the "Line of Control".[3]
Later, India approached the United Nations to solve the dispute and resolutions were passed to hold a plebiscite with regard to Kashmir's future. However, this plebiscite has not been held on either side, since the legal requirement for the holding of a plebiscite was the withdrawal of the Indian and Pakistani armies from the parts of Kashmir that were under their respective control— a withdrawal that never did take place.[4] In 1949, a cease-fire line separating and demarcating the Indian and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir was formally put into effect.
Following the 1949 cease-fire agreement, the government of Pakistan divided the northern and western parts of Kashmir, which it held, into the following two separately-controlled political entities; together, both these territories form the Pakistan-administered Kashmir region:
An area of Kashmir that was once under Pakistani control is the Shaksgam tract—a small region along the northeastern border of the Northern Areas that was provisionally ceded by Pakistan to the People's Republic of China in 1963 and which now forms part of China's Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang. The part of Kashmir administered by India meanwhile is Jammu and Kashmir.
In 1972, the then-current border between Pakistan and India, which held areas of Kashmir, was designated as the "Line of Control". The Line of Control has remained unchanged[6] since the 1972 Simla Agreement, which bound the two countries "to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations." Some political experts claim that, in view of that pact, the only solution to the issue is mutual negotiation between the two countries without involving a third party, such as the United Nations.
A devastating earthquake hit Azad Kashmir in 2005.
Azad Kashmir Day celebrates the 61st day of the Azad Jammu Kashmir government, created on 24 October 1947.
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