Three Wars and More

Anuradha Bhasin

India and Pakistan have fought three wars–in 1947-48, 1965, and 1971. The first two were directly related to the unresolved issue of Kashmir. Despite the scale of these conflicts, there are hardly any official statistics available on civilian deaths, let alone data on the displacement and destruction they caused.

For people living along the India-Pakistan border, especially in Jammu and Kashmir, the violence has been more or less continuous since 1947-48. The first war, triggered in the wake of Partition and the unresolved Kashmir question, turned these border regions into permanent zones of hostility. Since then, regular firing, shelling, loss of life and damage to property has become a part of daily life for many in these areas.

The 1965 war was rooted in Pakistan’s “Operation Gibraltar”, which aimed to infiltrate forces into Jammu and Kashmir to incite rebellion. It led to intense ground battles and aerial combat. Both countries claimed victory, though India was seen to have gained a slight advantage.

For those living near the LoC and international border, conflict remains an ongoing reality, long after ceasefires are declared and treaties are signed.

The 1971 war was primarily fought over the creation of Bangladesh, eventually extending to the India-Pakistan western border, severely affecting Jammu and Kashmir. Yet, when one searches for civilian casualties from that conflict, the focus remains on Bangladesh. Statistics for the number of civilians killed or displaced on the western front–stretching from Jammu and Kashmir to Gujarat–are virtually non-existent. In most official records, these losses do not even find a passing mention.

Importantly, the violence does not end when wars do. For those living near the LoC and international border, conflict remains an ongoing reality, long after ceasefires are declared and treaties are signed.

Although the 1999 Kargil War is often described as a limited conflict, its effects spread far beyond the Kargil region in Ladakh. The fighting led to frequent exchanges of fire along multiple points on the LoC–from Uri in the north to Akhnoor in the south–causing prolonged disruption in these areas. In Akhnoor, villagers were displaced and forced to live in makeshift tents for nearly a decade. In several villages, farm fields were littered with landmines, making it impossible to cultivate crops and pushing residents to the brink of starvation.

To secure the border, fencing was installed along the international boundary and the LoC. However, the fences were not always built right along the actual border. In many areas–especially those with uneven, hilly terrain–they were erected several kilometres inside Indian Territory, possibly as part of a broader military strategy. As a result, entire villages, or parts of them, ended up on the wrong side of the fence.

For many villagers, this created severe hardships. In some areas, the fence cut right through the village–houses were inside, but fields were outside the fence. This meant they could only access their farmland with special permission from the army. Some villages were completely fenced out, making it necessary for residents to pass through army checkpoints to go anywhere. This process involved time-consuming checks, questions about their movements, and searches, even of their wallets. Friends and relatives from outside could not visit freely, cutting off these communities from the outside world.

The fences turned many of these border villages into isolated pockets, cut off not only physically but also socially and economically. Even those who retained access to their land found themselves dependent on the army to open gates, often at times that did not match their agricultural needs.

Between 2002 and 2008, a “composite dialogue” between India and Pakistan fostered travel, exchanges, and trade. For the people of Jammu and Kashmir, this brought much-needed relief from daily violence. A significant, albeit unsigned, ceasefire in 2003 silenced the guns along the borders for a decade. With symbolic trade and travel routes opening on the LoC, border communities finally experienced some of the economic development they had longed for. However, this dialogue process was abruptly suspended after the Mumbai terror attacks on 26 November 2008. As recent events following the Pahalgam incident show, periods of peace on the border are often short-lived.

Although militancy declined after the India-Pakistan dialogue ceased, the restless population of the Kashmir Valley, yearning for a dignified and lasting settlement, resorted to street protests. These were met with a brutal response, which only intensified the demonstrations. The result was an endless sequence of suppression using bullets, tear gas, and pellet guns. Between 2010 and 2018, many young people in the Kashmir Valley were killed, maimed, or blinded.

While the guns have fallen silent for now, genuine peace remains elusive. Militancy has continued to simmer, even reappearing in the Jammu region after decades. The administration’s crackdown on civil liberties since 2019–through persistent raids, detentions, device confiscations, demolitions, and property seizures–has tormented and brutalised the people’s psyche.

After the Pahalgam attack, it was once again ordinary people–especially Kashmiris–who bore the brunt. Perpetually seen with suspicion, they continue to face collective punishment. This time, it came in the form of demolishing the homes of nine suspected militants, arresting between 1,500 and 2,000 people, and carrying out raids, interrogations, and constant surveillance. Media reports suggest more than 2800 detentions, though it is not known how many of them were later released. 

Despite official claims from New Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir has not seen true normalcy in the past 75 years. In addition to the constant threat of war, people living along the border have now had a terrifying glimpse of modern warfare, especially the use of drones. This has only deepened the sense of dread that already pervades their daily lives.

Following the Pahalgam killings, the government ordered the deportation of all Pakistani citizens. Among those forcibly taken from Srinagar was 80-year-old Abdul Waheed Bhat, a bedridden man suffering from paralysis. Bhat was not originally a Pakistani national. He had been stranded in Pakistan for 15 years between 1965 and 1980 and had been forced to obtain a Pakistani passport simply to return home. On 30 April 2025, he died at the Attari-Wagah border, where he had been brought to be expelled to Pakistan.

His tragic story echoes that of Bishan Singh, who collapses and dies in the no-man’s land between India and Pakistan, in “Toba Tek Singh”, a poignant tale by Saadat Hasan Manto–one of South Asia’s greatest chroniclers of the human cost of Partition. Manto exposed not only the senseless pain inflicted on ordinary people but also the inhuman instincts awakened by arbitrarily drawn borders.

But it is another of Manto’s stories, “Teetwalka Kutta”, that feels eerily prophetic. Set during the 1947-48 Kashmir war, the story revolves around a stray dog that wanders between two opposing military camps on either side of the border. The Indian soldiers named the dog “Chapad Jhunjhun” and send it across with a message that it is an “Indian dog”. In return, the Pakistani soldiers rename it “Sapad Sunsun” and declare it theirs. Caught between two sides blinded by hostility, the terrified dog is pushed back and forth between the camps–amid gunfire and shouted abuse–until both sides, suspicious of the animal’s loyalties, shoot it.

As the dog dies, one soldier remarks coldly, “He died a dog’s death.”
Whether or not Manto intended this story to be a metaphor for Kashmir, “TeetwalkaKutta” has come to symbolize the tragic reality of the people of Jammu and Kashmir–caught between two hostile nations, treated with suspicion, punished as traitors, and demonised even in death. (abridged)

[Anuradha Bhasin is Managing Editor of Kashmir Times and author of The Untold Story of Kashmir after Article 370 (HarperCollins India, 2022). The India Forum]