April to June 1948

Kashmir was in a difficult position after Partition. Massive armed riots and a mutiny among part of the Armed Forces had already resulted in the establishment of a competing government in parts of the country. To make matters worse, even though the Maharaja had reaffirmed his sovereignty in the wake of the British departure (and, indeed, legally speaking, Jammu and Kashmir was a fully sovereign and independent nation), his two neighbors, India and Pakistan, had no intention of recognizing his nation as independent, having previously agreed between themselves to illegally invade and divide up the country for themselves.

For the better part of year, Maharaja Hari Singh stalled. He made numerous overtures to the Indians through his representatives, seeking to accede the entirety of his state to India (better to go out on his own terms, he thought, and his odds of maintaining some level of influence in India were fairly decent), but all were rejected. He made attempts to secure recognition from further afield, too, but with India and Pakistan maintaining total control over Kashmir’s access to the outside world, such efforts were moot.

On 7 April 1948, after repeated attempts to coerce the Maharaja of Kashmir to comply with the demands of India and Pakistan to surrender and subject his state to partition and annexation, Pakistan and India illegally invaded the sovereign state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Jammu and Ladakh Front

As the violence of Partition wracked the subcontinent, Jammu--just across the river from Punjab--was not spared. Though majority-Hindu, the region had a sizable Muslim minority. Unlike in Punjab, this minority had no one there to protect them, especially after Hari Singh had purged most Muslims from the state security forces in response to the Poonch Rebellion. RSS militias and Kashmiri State Forces alike spent their nine months of independence inflicting unmitigated horrors against the Muslims of Jammu. By the time India finally crossed the border in April, estimates of the death toll (the government had not kept records) ranged between 50,000 and 120,000. Few, if any, Muslims remained.

Indian troops poured over the border from India proper into the hills of Jammu only to encounter very little in the way of resistance. The Maharaja, still perhaps holding some hope of negotiating a final settlement with India, had pulled out almost all of his forces from Jammu, maintaining only enough of a presence there to maintain order. What troops were present quickly surrendered rather than fighting a pointless battle against unbeatable odds.

The advance into Ladakh was tougher going--not because of any active enemy resistance, but because of the terrain. By ceding the Vale of Kashmir to Pakistan, India had also ceded the easiest route up into the mountains of Ladakh. Rather than taking the established caravan path between Srinagar and Leh, the Indian forces were instead forced to cross multiple mountain ranges in a journey that lasted several weeks.

The Kashmir Front

Where the Indian entrance into Jammu was smooth going, the Pakistani assault on Kashmir was bitterly resisted, with the entirety of the (Hindu-dominated) State Forces dedicated themselves to the defense of the Vale. Upon the entrance of Pakistan into the conflict, the State Forces abandoned all serious attempts at contesting the frontier districts outside of the Vale and fell back to defensive positions within the mountain range surrounding the Vale.

It took just over a month of brutal fighting in the mountains for the Pakistani forces to finally punch through this defensive perimeter and enter Kashmir proper. Though Kashmir’s State Forces were small--only a bit over 12,000 strong--the terrain was extremely defensible, making it difficult for Pakistan’s larger force to gain much purchase. Still, their collapse was inevitable. With Pakistan and India controlling the only paths to the outside world, and with Kashmir having no domestic industry to speak of, it was only a matter of time before the finite supplies ran out.

The breakthrough finally came around Teetwal, where retreating KSF forces allowed Pakistani forces access into the Vale. Resistance on the flatter terrain of the Vale proper faltered quickly. Without terrain on their side, the KSF simply lacked the necessary manpower to counter Pakistani attacks, and with no clear front line, there was no way for the officers to maintain order among their men. The Maharaja’s closest supporters put up a stiff defense around Srinagar, where the urban terrain was more defensible, but the battered and poorly-supplied troops couldn’t last more than a week. On 3 June 1948, the last serious armed resistance in Kashmir was snuffed out. The Maharaja was captured in his residence by elements of the 1st Punjab Regiment.

The Aftermath

Legally speaking, the status of Kashmir remains dubious. Hari Singh, despite his captivity, refuses to sign away his sovereignty to either Pakistan or India. With no other source of governmental authority possessing the competence to surrender the state's sovereignty, there is no legal mechanism by which to transfer the sovereignty of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India and Pakistan. Legality hasn't stopped either government so far, though, and it certainly didn't stop them now. The leadership of Azad Kashmir, claiming to be the legal successors of the Maharaja's government, have willingly "acceded" to Pakistan, passing control of the Vale of Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan to Pakistan.

A slightly less dubious legal route also exists for both India and Pakistan. Hari Singh's young son, the 17 year old Karan Singh, has indicated a willingness to act as Regent in his father's incapacity (he can't very well rule from captivity, can he?) to "accede" Jammu to India in exchange for the right to a decently-sized privy purse, retention of the Maharaja's personal property in Jammu (he wants what was captured by Pakistan too, but that seems more difficult...), and recognition of his titles (similar to the deal offered to other Princely States that acceded to India).