EDITOR'S NOTE:

In April our Dispatch from Derek Flood looks at the conflict in and over Kashmir. In 1947 the territory of Pakistan was split away ("partitioned") from India. Kashmir, located at the juncture of the Indian, Pakistani and Chinese borders, was joined to India by the then-colonial government.

Pakistan disputed the decision to unite mostly-Muslim Kashmir to India, a largely Hindu country. It seems that this should have come as no surprise because the newly created Pakistan and India were severed for similar reasons. A war quickly erupted, lasting from 1947–1949 and another was precipitated in 1965.

The "Line of Conflict" effectively cuts Kashmir into two pieces between Pakistan and India, each country controlling one side (a third smaller region of Kashmir is under China's control). Besides the threat of India's and Pakistan's nuclear weapons, the tension has been ratcheted up by the presence of militant Islamic forces that appeared in Pakistan in 1989. Terrorist attacks on the legislature of Srinagar and New Delhi – two among many – are aimed at driving India out.

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