India-Pakistan Relations and Domestic Politics
How the India-Pakistan rivalry shapes domestic politics in both countries, why peace efforts have repeatedly failed, and the nuclear dimension that makes the conflict uniquely dangerous.
The Partition Legacy
The India-Pakistan relationship is the longest-running rivalry between nuclear-armed states, rooted in the 1947 Partition that killed roughly one million people and displaced 15 million. The two countries have fought four wars (1947, 1965, 1971, and the 1999 Kargil conflict) and experienced numerous crises including the 2001-2002 military standoff after the attack on India's parliament and the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Kashmir is the central territorial dispute. India controls roughly 55% of the former princely state, Pakistan controls about 30%, and China controls the remainder. Both countries claim the territory in its entirety. India's revocation of Article 370 in 2019, which stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special constitutional status and downgraded it from a state to a union territory, was seen by Pakistan as an illegal annexation and by India as an internal constitutional matter.
