The Kashmir conflict (, ) is a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, the northwestern most region of South Asia.

India claims the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir and as of 2010, administers approximately 43% of the region, including most of Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, and the Siachen Glacier. India's claims are contested by Pakistan, which controls approximately 37% of Kashmir, namely Azad Kashmir and the northern areas of Gilgit and Baltistan.

India has officially stated that it believes that Kashmir is an integral part of India, though the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, stated after the 2010 Kashmir Unrest that his government is willing to grant autonomy within the purview of Indian constitution to Kashmir if there is consensus on this issue. Pakistan maintains that Kashmir is the "jugular vein of Pakistan" and a currently disputed territory whose final status must be determined by the people of Kashmir. China states that Aksai Chin is a part of China and does not recognize the addition of Aksai Chin to the Kashmir region. Certain Kashmiri independence groups believe that Kashmir should be independent of both India and Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have fought at least three wars over Kashmir, including the Indo-Pakistani Wars of 1947, 1965 and 1999. India and Pakistan have also been involved in several skirmishes over the Siachen Glacier.

Since 1987, a disputed State election has resulted in some of the state's legislative assembly forming militant wings, creating a catalyst for insurgency. The Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir has been the site of conflict between the Indian Armed Forces, militants, and separatists. India has furnished documentary evidence to the United Nations that these militants are supported by Pakistan, leading to a ban on some terrorist organisations, which Pakistan has yet to enforce. The turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir has resulted in thousands of deaths, but has become less deadly in recent years. There have been protest movements in Indian Administered Kashmir since 1989. The movements were created to voice Kashmir's disputes and grievances with the Indian government, specifically the Indian Military. Elections held in 2008 were generally regarded as fair by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, had a high voter turnout in spite of calls by militants for a boycott, and led to the pro-India Jammu & Kashmir National Conference forming the government in the state. According to Voice of America, many analysts have interpreted the high voter turnout in this election as a sign that the people of Kashmir have endorsed Indian rule in the state. However Sajjad Lone, a prominent separatist leader in Kashmir, claims that "the high turnout should not be taken as a sign that Kashmiris no longer want independence. Altaf Ahmad, a separatist activist of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, said, "The whole of Kashmir nation is standing against these elections, because these elections are not as India claims in the United Nations, that people of Kashmir are representing themselves in these elections, that this is the self determination," In 2009 and 2010 unrest erupted again.

Timeline[link]

Early history[link]

According to folk etymology, the name "Kashmir" means "desiccated land" (from the Sanskrit: ''Ka'' = water and ''shimeera'' = desiccate). In the ''Rajatarangini,'' a history of Kashmir written by Kalhana in the mid-12th century, it is stated that the valley of Kashmir was formerly a lake. According to Hindu mythology, the lake was drained by the ''saptarishi'' or sage, Kashyapa, son of Marichi, son of Brahma, by cutting the gap in the hills at Baramulla (''Varaha-mula''). When Kashmir had been drained, Kashyapa asked Brahmans to settle there. This is still the local tradition, and in the existing physical condition of the country, we may see some ground for the story which has taken this form. The name of Kashyapa is by history and tradition connected with the draining of the lake, and the chief town or collection of dwellings in the valley was called ''Kashyapa-pura'', which has been identified with ''Kaspapyros'' of Hecataeus (''apud'' Stephanus of Byzantium) and ''Kaspatyros'' of Herodotus (3.102, 4.44). Kashmir is also believed to be the country meant by Ptolemy's ''Kaspeiria''.

However an earlier and well known recorded reference can be found in the writings of a Tibetan Buddhist monk in the 6th Century. Hsien Tsang referred to a state called 'Kash-mi-lo' that had existed in the 1st century.

In the 18th century, Kashmir was ruled by the Pashtun Durrani Empire. In 1819, Kashmir was conquered by the Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh. Following the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1845 and 1846, Kashmir was first ceded by the Treaty of Lahore to the East India Company, and shortly after sold by the Treaty of Amritsar to Gulab Singh, Raja of Jammu, who thereafter was given the title Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. From then until the Partition of India in 1947, Kashmir was ruled by the Hindu Maharajas of the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu, although the majority of the population were Muslim, except in the Jammu and Ladakh region.

Partition and dispute[link]

In 1947, British rule in India ended with the creation of two new nations: the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, while British suzerainty over the 562 Indian princely states ended. According to the Indian Independence Act 1947, "the suzerainty of His Majesty over the Indian States lapses, and with it, all treaties and agreements in force at the date of the passing of this Act between His Majesty and the rulers of Indian States", so the states were left to choose whether to join India or Pakistan or to remain independent. Jammu and Kashmir, the largest of the princely states, had a predominantly Muslim population, while having a Hindu ruler (Maharaja Hari Singh.) On partition Pakistan expected Kashmir to be annexed to it.

In October 1947, Muslim revolutionaries in western Kashmir and Pakistani tribals from Dir entered Kashmir, intending to liberate it from Dogra rule. Unable to withstand the invasion, the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession on 25 October 1947 that was accepted by the government of India on 27 October 1947.

Indo-Pakistani War of 1947[link]

After rumours that the Maharaja supported the annexation of Kashmir by India, militant Muslim revolutionaries from western Kashmir and Pakistani tribesmen made rapid advances into the Baramulla sector. Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir asked the government of India to intervene. However, India and Pakistan had signed an agreement of non-intervention. Although tribal fighters from Pakistan had entered Jammu and Kashmir, there was no iron-clad legal evidence to unequivocally prove that Pakistan was officially involved. It would have been illegal for India to unilaterally intervene in an open, official capacity unless Jammu and Kashmir officially joined the Union of India, at which point it would be possible to send in its forces and occupy the remaining parts.

The Maharaja desperately needed military assistance when the Pakistani tribals reached the outskirts of Srinagar. Before their arrival into Srinagar, India argued that the Maharaja must complete negotiations for ceding Jammu and Kashmir to India in exchange for receiving military aid. The agreement which ceded Jammu and Kashmir to India was signed by the Maharaja and Lord Mountbatten of Burma. In Jammu and Kashmir, National Conference volunteers worked with the Indian Army to drive out the Pakistanis.

The resulting war over Kashmir, the First Kashmir War, lasted until 1948, when India moved the issue to the UN Security Council. Sheikh Abdullah was not in favor of India seeking UN intervention because he was sure the Indian Army could free the entire State of invaders. The UN had previously passed resolutions for setting up monitoring of the conflict in Kashmir. Following the set-up of the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNCIP), the UN Security Council passed Resolution 47 on 21 April 1948. The resolution imposed an immediate cease-fire and called on Pakistan to withdraw all military presence. The resolution stated that Pakistan would have no say in Jammu and Kashmir politics. India would retain a minimum military presence and "the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be made in accordance with the will of the people expressed through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations." The ceasefire was enacted on 31 December 1948.

The Indian and Pakistani governments agreed to hold the plebiscite, but Pakistan did not withdraw its troops from Kashmir, thus violating the conditions for holding the plebiscite. In addition, the Indian Government distanced itself from its commitment to hold a plebiscite. Over the next several years, the UN Security Council passed four new resolutions, revising the terms of Resolution 47 to include a synchronous withdrawal of both Indian and Pakistani troops from the region, per the recommendations of General Andrew McNaughton. To this end, UN arbitrators put forward 11 different proposals for the demilitarization of the region. All of these were accepted by Pakistan, but rejected by the Indian government. The resolutions were passed by United Nations Security Council under Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter. Resolutions passed under Chapter VI of the UN charter are considered non-binding and have no mandatory enforceability, as opposed to the resolutions passed under Chapter VII.

Sino-Indian War[link]

In 1962, troops from the People's Republic of China and India clashed in territory claimed by both. China won a swift victory in the war, resulting in the Chinese annexation of the region called Aksai Chin, which has continued as of January 2012. Another smaller area, the Trans-Karakoram, was demarcated as the Line of Control (LOC) between China and Pakistan, although some of the territory on the Chinese side is claimed by India to be part of Kashmir. The line that separates India from China in this region is known as the "Line of Actual Control".

1965 and 1971 wars[link]

In 1965 and 1971, heavy fighting broke out again between India and Pakistan. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 resulted in the defeat of Pakistan and the Pakistani military's surrender in East Pakistan, leading to the creation of Bangladesh. The Simla Agreement was signed in 1972 between India and Pakistan. By this treaty, both countries agreed to settle all issues by peaceful means using mutual discussion in the framework of the UN Charter.

1989 popular insurgency and militancy[link]

In 1989, a widespread popular and armed insurgency started in Kashmir. After the 1987 State legislative assembly election, some of the results were disputed. This resulted in the formation of militant wings after the election and was the beginning of the Mujahadeen insurgency, which continues to this day. India contends that the insurgency was largely started by Afghan mujahadeen who entered the Kashmir valley following the end of the Soviet-Afghan War. Pakistani and Kashmiri nationalists argue that Afghan mujahideen did not leave Afghanistan in large numbers until 1992, three years after the insurgency began. Yasin Malik, a leader of one faction of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, was one of the Kashmiris to organize militancy in Kashmir, along with Ashfaq Majid Wani and Farooq Ahmad Dar (alias Bitta Karatay). Since 1995, Malik has renounced the use of violence and calls for strictly peaceful methods to resolve the dispute. He developed differences with one of the senior leaders, Farooq Siddiqui (alias Farooq Papa), for shunning the demand for an independent Kashmir and trying to cut a deal with the Indian Prime Minister. This resulted in a spilt in which Bitta Karatay, Salim Nanhaji, and other senior comrades joined Farooq Papa. Pakistan claims these insurgents are Jammu and Kashmir citizens, and are rising up against the Indian army in an independence movement. Pakistan accuses the Indian army of committing serious human rights violations in Kashmir. Pakistan denies that it has or currently is supplying weapons and ammunition to the insurgents.

India claims these insurgents are Islamic terrorist groups from Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Afghanistan, fighting to make Jammu and Kashmir, a part of Pakistan. They claim Pakistan is supplying munitions to the terrorists and training them in Pakistan. India states that the terrorists have been killing many citizens in Kashmir and committing human rights violations. They deny that their own armed forces are responsible for human rights abuses. On a visit to Pakistan in 2006 current Chief Minister of Kashmir Omar Abdullah remarked that foreign militants were engaged in reckless killings and mayhem in the name of religion. Indian government has said militancy is now on the decline.

The Pakistani government calls these insurgents "Kashmiri freedom fighters", and claims that it gives only moral and diplomatic support to these insurgents, though India believes they are Pakistan-supported terrorists from Pakistan Administered Kashmir. In October 2008, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan called the Kashmir separatists, terrorists in an interview with ''The Wall Street Journal''. These comments by Zardari sparked outrage amongst many Kashmiris, some of whom defied a curfew by the Indian army to burn him in effigy.

In 2008, pro-separation leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told the ''Washington Post'' that there has been a "purely indigenous, purely Kashmiri" peaceful protest movement alongside the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir since 1989. The movement was created for the same reason as the insurgency; it began with the disputed election of 1987. The Kashmiris have grievances with the Indian government, specifically the Indian Military, which has committed human rights violations, according to the United Nations.

Al-Qaeda involvement[link]

In a 'Letter to American People' written by Osama bin Laden in 2002, he stated that one of the reasons he was fighting America is because of its support of India on the Kashmir issue. While on a trip to Delhi in 2002, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld suggested that Al-Qaeda was active in Kashmir, though he did not have any hard evidence. An investigation in 2002 unearthed evidence that Al-Qaeda and its affiliates were prospering in Pakistan-administered Kashmir with tacit approval of Pakistan's National Intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence. A team of Special Air Service and Delta Force was sent into Indian-administered Kashmir in 2002 to hunt for Osama bin Laden after reports that he was being sheltered by the Kashmiri militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. U.S. officials believed that Al-Qaeda was helping organize a campaign of terror in Kashmir in order to provoke conflict between India and Pakistan. Their strategy was to force Pakistan to move its troops to the border with India, thereby relieving pressure on Al-Qaeda elements hiding in northwestern Pakistan. U.S. intelligence analysts say Al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan-administered Kashmir are helping terrorists they had trained in Afghanistan to infiltrate Indian-administered Kashmir. Fazlur Rehman Khalil, the leader of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, signed al-Qaeda's 1998 declaration of holy war, which called on Muslims to attack all Americans and their allies. In 2006 Al-Qaeda claim they have established a wing in Kashmir; this worried the Indian government. Indian Army Lt. Gen. H.S. Panag, GOC-in-C Northern Command, said to reporters that the army has ruled out the presence of Al-Qaeda in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. He said that there no evidence that verifies reports from the media of an Al-Qaeda presence in the state. He stated that Al-Qaeda had strong ties with the Kashmir militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in Pakistan. While on a visit to Pakistan in January 2010, U.S. Defense secretary Robert Gates stated that Al-Qaeda was seeking to destabilize the region and planning to provoke a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

In September 2009, a U.S. Drone strike reportedly killed Ilyas Kashmiri, who was the chief of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, a Kashmiri militant group associated with Al-Qaeda. Kashmiri was described by Bruce Riedel as a 'prominent' Al-Qaeda member, while others described him as the head of military operations for Al-Qaeda. Waziristan had now become the new battlefield for Kashmiri militants, who were now fighting NATO in support of Al-Qaeda. Ilyas Kashmiri was charged by the U.S. in a plot against ''Jyllands-Posten'', the Danish newspaper which was at the center of Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

Indian Army Lt. Gen. H.S. Panag, GOC-in-C Northern Command told reporters that the army has ruled out the presence of Al-Qaeda in Jammu and Kashmir, and that there is no evidence that confirms an Al Qaeda presence in the state.

Conflict in Kargil[link]

In mid-1999, insurgents and Pakistani soldiers from Pakistani Kashmir infiltrated into Jammu and Kashmir. During the winter season, Indian forces regularly move down to lower altitudes, as severe climatic conditions makes it almost impossible for them to guard the high peaks near the Line of Control. The insurgents took advantage of this and occupied vacant mountain peaks of the Kargil range overlooking the highway in Indian Kashmir that connects Srinagar and Leh. By blocking the highway, they wanted to cut off the only link between the Kashmir Valley and Ladakh. This resulted in a high-scale conflict between the Indian Army and the Pakistan Army.

Fears of the Kargil War turning into a nuclear war provoked the then-United States President Bill Clinton to pressure Pakistan to retreat. Faced with mounting losses of personnel and posts, the Pakistan Army withdrew their remaining troops from the area, ending the conflict. India reclaimed control of the peaks, which they now patrol and monitor all year long.

Reasons behind the dispute[link]

The Kashmir Conflict arises from the Partition of British India in 1947 into modern India and Pakistan. Both the countries have made claims to Kashmir, based on historical developments and religious affiliations of the Kashmiri people. The state of Jammu and Kashmir, which lies strategically in the north-west of the subcontinent, bordering Afghanistan and China, was a princely state ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh under the paramountcy of British India. In geographical and legal terms, the Maharaja could have joined either of the two new Dominions. Although urged by the Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, to determine the future of his state before the transfer of power took place, Singh demurred. In October 1947, incursions by Pakistan took place leading to a war, as a result of which the state of Jammu and Kashmir remains divided between the two countries.

{| class="wikitable" |- ! Administered by !! Area !! Population !! % Muslim !! % Hindu !! % Buddhist !! % Other |- || India |Kashmir valley |~4 million |95% |4% |– |– |- | |Jammu |~3 million |30% |66% |– |4% |- | |Ladakh |~0.25 million |46% (Shia) |– |50% |3% |- || Pakistan |Northern Areas |~1 million |99% |– |– |– |- | |Azad Kashmir |~2.6 million |100% |– |– |– |- |China |Aksai Chin |– |– |– |– |– |- | colspan ="7" |

Statistics from the BBC report. In Depth *There are roughly 1.5 million refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir in Pakistan administered Kashmir and Pakistan UNHCR

About 300,000 Hindus in Indian Administered Kashmir valley are internally displaced due to militancy in Kashmir CIA

Muslims are the majority in Poonch, Rajouri, Kishtwar, and Doda districts in Jammu region. Shia Muslims make up the majority in Kargil district in Ladakh region.

India does not accept the two-nation theory and considers that Kashmir, despite being a Muslim-majority state, is in many ways an "integral part" of secular India. — India holds that the Instrument of Accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to the Union of India, signed by Maharaja Hari Singh (erstwhile ruler of the State) on 25 October 1947 & executed on 27 October 1947 between the ruler of Kashmir and the Governor General of India was a legal act, was completely valid in terms of the Government of India Act (1935), Indian Independence Act (1947) and international law and was total and irrevocable. There is no evidence of any deceit practiced by India on Kashmir. The Government of India had no right to question the right of the Maharaja to sign the Instrument of Accession, as he alone had the right and power to take a decision for his state. To have asked the ruler to establish his right to sign the Instrument of Accession would have meant that the Government of India was going to meddle with the internal policies of the state. Law does not permit any such intervention in the affairs of another state. The Constituent assembly of Jammu and Kashmir had unanimously ratified the Maharaja's Instrument of Accession to India and had adopted a constitution for the state that called for a perpetual merger of Jammu and Kashmir with the Union of India. India claims that the Constituent assembly was a representative one, and that its views were those of the Kashmiri people at the time. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172 tacitly accepts India's stand regarding all outstanding issues between India and Pakistan and urges the need to resolve the dispute through mutual dialogue and does not call for a plebiscite. United Nations Security Council Resolution 47 cannot be implemented since Pakistan failed to withdraw its forces from Kashmir, which was the first step in implementing the resolution. India is also of the view that Resolution 47 is obsolete, since the geography and demographics of the region have been permanently altered. The resolution was passed by United Nations Security Council under Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter. It is therefore non-binding and has no mandatory enforceability, as opposed to the resolutions passed under Chapter VII. India does not accept the two-nation theory that forms the basis of Pakistan and considers that Kashmir, despite being a Muslim-majority state, is in many ways an "integral part" of secular India. The state of Jammu and Kashmir was provided significant autonomy in Article 370 of the Constitution of India. All differences between India and Pakistan, including Kashmir, need to be settled through bilateral negotiations as agreed to by the two countries when they signed the Simla Agreement on 2 July 1972.

Additional Indian viewpoints regarding the broader debate over the Kashmir conflict include — In a diverse country like India, disaffection and discontent are not uncommon. Indian democracy has the necessary resilience to accommodate genuine grievances within the framework of India's sovereignty, unity, and integrity. The Government of India has expressed its willingness to accommodate the legitimate political demands of the people of the state of Kashmir. Insurgency and terrorism in Kashmir is deliberately being fueled by Pakistan to create instability in the region. The Government of India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of waging a proxy war in Kashmir by providing weapons and financial assistance to terrorist groups in the region. Pakistan is trying to raise anti-India sentiment among the people of Kashmir by spreading false propaganda against India. According to the state government of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistani radio and television channels deliberately spread "hate and venom" against India to alter Kashmiri opinion. India has asked the United Nations not to leave unchallenged or unaddressed the claims of moral, political, and diplomatic support for terrorism, which were clearly in contravention of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373. This is a Chapter VII resolution that makes it mandatory for member states to not provide active or passive support to terrorist organizations. Specifically, it has pointed out that the Pakistani government continues to support various terrorist organizations, such as Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, in direct violation of this resolution. India points out reports by human rights organizations condemning Pakistan for the lack of civic liberties in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. According to India, most regions of Pakistani Kashmir, especially Northern Areas, continue to suffer from lack of political recognition, economic development, and basic fundamental rights. Dr Karan Singh, the state’s first and last sadar-e-riyast and son of the last Dogra ruler of Jammu and Kashmir Maharaja Hari Singh said that the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh was the same as signed by other states; however the state had its own separate constitution. That is why the state has special status and Article 370. With the signing of Instrument of Accession, it became an integral part of India.

Pakistani view[link]

Pakistan's claims to the disputed region are based on the rejection of Indian claims to Kashmir, namely the Instrument of Accession. Pakistan insists that the Maharaja was not a popular leader, and was regarded as a tyrant by most Kashmiris. Pakistan maintains that the Maharaja used brute force to suppress the population. Pakistan accuses India of hypocrisy, as it refused to recognize the accession of Junagadh to Pakistan and Hyderabad's independence, on the grounds that those two states had Hindu majorities (in fact, India had occupied and forcibly integrated those two territories). Since he had fled Kashmir due to Pakistani invasion, Pakistan asserts that the Maharaja held no authority in determining Kashmir's future. Pakistan argues that even if the Maharaja had any authority in determining the plight of Kashmir, he signed the Instrument of Accession under duress, thus invalidating the legitimacy of his actions.

Pakistan claims that Indian forces were in Kashmir before the Instrument of Accession was signed with India, and that therefore Indian troops were in Kashmir in violation of the Standstill Agreement, which was designed to maintain the status quo in Kashmir (although India was not signatory to the Agreement, which was signed between Pakistan and the Hindu ruler of Jammu and Kashmir).

From 1990 to 1999, some organizations reported that the Indian Armed Forces, its paramilitary groups, and counter-insurgent militias were responsible for the deaths of 4,501 Kashmiri civilians. Also from 1990 to 1999, there were records of 4,242 women between the ages of 7–70 being raped. Similar allegations were also made by some human rights organizations.

In short, Pakistan holds that: The popular Kashmiri insurgency demonstrates that the Kashmiri people no longer wish to remain within India. Pakistan suggests that this means that Kashmir either wants to be with Pakistan or independent.

According to the two-nation theory, which is one of the theories that is cited for the partition that created India and Pakistan, Kashmir should have been with Pakistan, because it has a Muslim majority.

India has shown disregard to the resolutions of the UN Security Council and the United Nations Commission in India and Pakistan by failing to hold a plebiscite to determine the future allegiance of the state.

The Kashmiri people have now been forced by circumstances to uphold their right of self-determination through militancy. Pakistan claims to give the Kashmiri insurgents moral, ethical and military support (see 1999 Kargil Conflict).

Recent protests in Indian-administered Kashmir attracted a large number of people to massive rallies that took place to oppose Indian control of the state. Pakistan points to the violence that accompanies elections in Indian Kashmir and the anti Indian sentiments expressed by some people in the state. Pakistan has noted the widespread use of extrajudicial killings in Indian-administered Kashmir carried out by Indian security forces while claiming they were caught up in encounters with militants. These encounters are commonplace in Indian-administered Kashmir. The encounters go largely uninvestigated by the authorities, and the perpetrators are spared criminal prosecution. Pakistan points towards reports from the United Nations which condemn India for its human rights violations against Kashmiri people. Human rights organizations have strongly condemned Indian troops for widespread rape and murder of innocent civilians while accusing these civilians of being militants. The Chenab formula was a compromise proposed in the 1960s, in which the Kashmir valley and other Muslim-dominated areas north of the Chenab river would go to Pakistan, and Jammu and other Hindu-dominated regions would go to India.

Chinese view[link]

China did not accept the boundaries of the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu, north of the Aksai Chin and the Karakoram that were proposed by the British. China settled its border disputes with Pakistan in the Trans Karakoram Tract in 1963 with the provision that the settlement was subject to the final solution of the Kashmir dispute.

Cross-border troubles[link]

The border and the Line of Control separating Indian and Pakistani Kashmir passes through some exceptionally difficult terrain. The world's highest battleground, the Siachen Glacier, is a part of this difficult-to-man boundary. Even with 200,000 military personnel, India maintains that it is infeasible to place enough men to guard all sections of the border throughout the various seasons of the year. Pakistan has indirectly acquiesced its role in failing to prevent "cross border terrorism" when it agreed to curb such activities after intense pressure from the Bush administration in mid 2002.

The Government of Pakistan has repeatedly claimed that by constructing a fence along the line of control, India is violating the Shimla Accord. India claims the construction of the fence has helped decrease armed infiltration into Indian-administered Kashmir.

In 2002, Pakistani President and Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf promised to check infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir.

Water dispute[link]

Another reason for the dispute over Kashmir is water. Kashmir is the origin point for many rivers and tributaries of the Indus River basin.The river basin is divided between Pakistan, which has about 60 per cent of the catchment area, India with about 20 per cent, Afghanistan with 5 per cent and around 15 per cent in Tibet. The river tributaries are the Jhelum and Chenab rivers, which primarily flow into Pakistan while other branches—the Ravi, Beas, and the Sutlej—irrigate northern India.

The Indus is a river system that sustains communities in both countries India and Pakistan. They both have extensively dammed the Indus River for irrigation of their crops and hydro-electricity systems. In arbitrating the conflict in 1947 Sir Cyril Radcliffe, decided to demarcate the territories as he was unable to give to one or the other the control over the river as it was a main economic resource forth both areas. . The Line of Control (LoC) was recognised as an international border establishing that India would have control over the upper riparian and Pakistan over the lower riparian of Indus and its tributaries. However they might seem separate issues, the Kashmir dispute and the dispute over the water control are somehow related and the fight over the water remains as one of the main problems when establishing good relationships between the two countries.

In 1948, Eugene Black, then president of the World Bank, offered his services in order to solve the tension around the water control. In the early days of independence, the fact that India was able to shut off the Central Bari Doab Canals at the time of the sowing season, causing significant damage to Pakistan's crops. Nevertheless, military and political clashes over Kashmir in the early years of independence appear to be more about ideology and sovereignty, rather than sharing water resources. But the minister of Pakistan stated the oppossite.

The Indus Waters Treaty was signed by both countries in September 1960, giving exclusive rights over the three western rivers of the Indus river system (Jhelum, Chenab and Indus) to Pakistan, and over the three eastern rivers (Sutlej, Ravi and Beas) to India, as long as it does not reduce or delay the supply to Pakistan. India therefore maintains that they are not willing to break the regulation established and they see no more problems with this issue.

Human rights abuse[link]

Indian administered Kashmir[link]

Claims of human rights abuses have been made against the Indian Armed Forces and the armed insurgents operating in Jammu and Kashmir.. Since 1989, over 50,000 and by some reports nearly 100,000 Kashmiris have claimed to be died during the conflict.. Indian Security forces have allegedly killed hundreds of Kashmiris by indiscriminate use of force and torture, firing on demonstrations, custodial killings, fake encounters and unlawful detensions. Kashmiris in thousands have vanished in enforced disappearances by Indian security forces . State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has found 2,730 bodies buried into unmarked graves scattered all over Kashmir believed to contain the remains of victims of unlawful killings and enforced disappearances by Indian security forces .According to the cables leaked by website WikiLeaks, US diplomats in 2005 were informed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) about the use of torture and sexual humiliation against hundreds of Kashmiri detainees by the security forces.The cable said Indian security forces relied on torture for confessions and the human right abuses are believed to be condoned by the Indian government.

During the eruption of armed rebellion the Islamic insurgency has claimed to have specifically targeted the Hindu Kashmiri Pandits minority and violated their human rights. 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus have either been murdered or displaced. The main organisation of Hindus in Kashmir, Kashmir Pandit Sangharsh Samiti claimed that 399 Kashmiri Pandit were killed by Islamic insurgents. The violence was condemned and labeled as ethnic cleansing in a 2006 resolution passed by the United States Congress. The CIA has reported about 300,000 Pandit Hindus and over 100,000 Kashmiri Muslims from Indian Administered Kashmir are internally displaced due to the insurgency. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights reports that there are roughly 1.5 million refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in Pakistan.

A 2005 study conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières found that Kashmiri women are among the worst sufferers of sexual violence in the world, with 11.6% of respondents reporting that they had been victims of sexual abuse. Some surveys have found that in the Kashmir region itself (where the bulk of separatist and Indian military activity is concentrated), popular perception holds that the Indian Armed Forces are more to blame for human rights violations than the separatist groups. Amnesty International has called on India to "unequivocally condemn enforced disappearances" and to ensure that impartial investigation is conducted on mass graves in its Kashmir region. The Indian state police confirms as many as 331 deaths while in custody and 111 enforced disappearances since 1989. Amnesty International criticised the Indian Military regarding an incident on 22 April 1996, when several armed forces personnel forcibly entered the house of a 32-year-old woman in the village of Wawoosa in the Rangreth district of Jammu and Kashmir. They reportedly molested her 12-year-old daughter and raped her other three daughters, aged 14, 16, and 18. When another woman attempted to prevent the soldiers from attacking her two daughters, she was beaten. Soldiers reportedly told her 17-year-old daughter to remove her clothes so that they could check whether she was hiding a gun. They molested her before leaving the house.

Several international agencies and the UN have reported human rights violations in Indian-administered Kashmir. In a recent press release the OHCHR spokesmen stated "The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is concerned about the recent violent protests in Indian-administered Kashmir that have reportedly led to civilian casualties as well as restrictions to the right to freedom of assembly and expression." A 1996 Human Rights Watch report accuses the Indian military and Indian-government backed paramilitaries of "committ[ing] serious and widespread human rights violations in Kashmir." One such alleged massacre occurred on 6 January 1993 in the town of Sopore. ''TIME Magazine'' described the incident as such: "In retaliation for the killing of one soldier, paramilitary forces rampaged through Sopore's market, setting buildings ablaze and shooting bystanders. The Indian government pronounced the event 'unfortunate' and claimed that an ammunition dump had been hit by gunfire, setting off fires that killed most of the victims." There have been claims of disappearances by the police or the army in Kashmir by several human rights organizations. Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978: Human rights organizations have asked Indian government to repeal the Public Safety Act, since "a detainee may be held in administrative detention for a maximum of two years without a court order."

Many human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch (HRW) have condemned human rights abuses in Kashmir by Indians such as "extra-judicial executions", "disappearances", and torture. The "Armed Forces Special Powers Act" grants the military, wide powers of arrest, the right to shoot to kill, and to occupy or destroy property in counterinsurgency operations. Indian officials claim that troops need such powers because the army is only deployed when national security is at serious risk from armed combatants. Such circumstances, they say, call for extraordinary measures. Human rights organizations have also asked Indian government to repeal the Public Safety Act, since "a detainee may be held in administrative detention for a maximum of two years without a court order." A 2008 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees determined that Indian Administered Kashmir was only 'partly free'. A recent report by Amnesty International stated that up to 20,000 people have been detained by draconian laws in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Pakistan administered Kashmir[link]

Azad Kashmir[link]

Pakistan, an Islamic Republic, imposes multiple restrictions on peoples' religious freedom. Religious minorities also face unofficial economic and societal discrimination and have been targets of sectarian violence.

The constitution of Azad Kashmir specifically prohibits activities that may be prejudicial to the state's accession to Pakistan, and as such regularly suppresses demonstrations against the government. A number of Islamist militant groups operate in this area including Al-Qaeda, with tacit permission from Pakistan's intelligence. As in Indian administered Kashmir, there have been allegations of human rights abuse.

A report titled "Kashmir: Present Situation and Future Prospects", which was submitted to the European Parliament by Emma Nicholson, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, was critical of the lack of human rights, justice, democracy, and Kashmiri representation in the Pakistan National Assembly. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence operates in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and is involved in extensive surveillance, arbitrary arrests, torture, and murder. Generally this is done with impunity and perpetrators go unpunished. The 2008 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees determined that Pakistan-administered Kashmir was 'Not free'. According to Shaukat Ali, chairman of the International Kashmir Alliance, "On one hand Pakistan claims to be the champion of the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people, but she has denied the same rights under its controlled parts of Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan".

Gilgit-Baltistan[link]

The main demand of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan is a constitutional status to the region as a fifth province of Pakistan. However, Pakistan claims that Gilgit-Baltistan cannot be given constitutional status due to Pakistan's commitment to the 1948 UN resolution. In 2007, International Crisis Group stated that "Almost six decades after Pakistan's independence, the constitutional status of the Federally Administered Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan), once part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir and now under Pakistani control, remains undetermined, with political autonomy a distant dream. The region's inhabitants are embittered by Islamabad's unwillingness to devolve powers in real terms to its elected representatives, and a nationalist movement, which seeks independence, is gaining ground. The rise of sectarian extremism is an alarming consequence of this denial of basic political rights". A two-day conference on Gilgit-Baltistan was held on 8–9 April 2008 at the European Parliament in Brussels under the auspices of the International Kashmir Alliance. Several members of the European Parliament expressed concern over the human rights violation in Gilgit-Baltistan and urged the government of Pakistan to establish democratic institutions and rule of law in the area.

In 2009, the Pakistan government implemented an autonomy package for Gilgit-Baltistan which entails rights similar to those of Pakistan’s other provinces. Gilgit-Baltistan thus gains province-like status without actually being conferred such a status constitutionally. The direct rule by Islamabad is replaced by an elected legislative assembly and its chief minister.

There has been criticism and opposition to this move in Pakistan, India, and Pakistan administrated Kashmir. The move has been dubbed as an eyewash to hide the real mechanics of power, which allegedly are under the direct control of the Pakistani federal government. The package was opposed by Pakistani Kashmiri politicians who claimed that the integration of Gilgit-Baltistan into Pakistan would undermine their case for the independence of Kashmir from India. 300 activists from Kashmiri groups protested during the first Gilgit-Baltistan legislative assembly elections, with some carrying banners reading "Pakistan's expansionist designs in Gilgit-Baltistan are unacceptable"

In December 2009, activists of nationalist Kashmiri groups staged a protest in Muzaffarabad to condemn the alleged rigging of elections and killing of a 18-year old student.

Map issues[link]

As with other disputed territories, each government issues maps depicting their claims in Kashmir territory, regardless of actual control. Due to India's Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1961, it is illegal in India to exclude all or part of Kashmir in a map (or to publish any map that differs from those of the Survey of India). It is illegal in Pakistan not to include the state of Jammu and Kashmir as disputed territory, as permitted by the United Nations. Non-participants often use the Line of Control and the Line of Actual Control as the depicted boundaries, as is done in the CIA World Factbook, and the region is often marked out in hashmarks, although the Indian government strictly opposes such practices. When Microsoft released a map in Windows 95 and MapPoint 2002, a controversy was raised because it did not show all of Kashmir as part of India as per the Indian claim. All the neutral and Pakistani companies claim to follow the UN's map and over 90% of all maps containing the territory of Kashmir show it as disputed territory.

The boundaries, names, and designations used on the map prepared by the United Nations do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat, or the publishers concerning the legal status of any country, territory or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. There is no intention to define the status of Jammu and/or Kashmir, which has not yet been agreed upon by the parties. A dotted line represents the Line of Control agreed upon by the Republic of India and the Government of Pakistan since 1972. Both parties have not yet agreed upon the final status of the region, and nothing significant has been implemented since the peace process began in 2004.

The Government of Pakistan maintains unprovisionally and unconditionally that the informal accession of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan or to the Republic of India remains to be decided by UN plebiscite. It accepts the UN's map of the territory.

The Government of India states that "the external artificial boundaries of India, especially concerning the Kashmir region under its jurisdiction created by a foreign body are neither correct nor authenticated".

Recent developments[link]

India continues to assert their sovereignty or rights over the entire region of Kashmir, while Pakistan maintains that it is a disputed territory. Pakistan argues that the status quo cannot be considered as a solution. Pakistan insists on a UN-sponsored plebiscite. Unofficially, the Pakistani leadership has indicated that they would be willing to accept alternatives such as a demilitarized Kashmir, if sovereignty of Azad Kashmir was to be extended over the Kashmir valley, or the "Chenab" formula, by which India would retain parts of Kashmir on its side of the Chenab river, and Pakistan the other side – effectively re-partitioning Kashmir on communal lines. The problem is that the population of the Pakistan-administered portion of Kashmir is for the most part ethnically, linguistically, and culturally different from the Valley of Kashmir, a part of Indian-administered Kashmir. A partition on the Chenab formula is opposed by some Kashmiri politicians, though some, such as Sajjad Lone, have suggested that the non-Muslim part of Jammu and Kashmir be separated from Kashmir and handed to India. Some political analysts say that the Pakistan state policy shift and mellowing of its aggressive stance may have to do with its total failure in the Kargil War and the subsequent 9/11 attacks. These events put pressure on Pakistan to alter its position on terrorism. Many neutral parties to the dispute have noted that the UN resolution on Kashmir is no longer relevant. The European Union has viewed that the plebiscite is not in Kashmiris' interest. The report notes that the UN conditions for such a plebiscite have not been, and can no longer be, met by Pakistan. The Hurriyat Conference observed in 2003 that a "plebiscite [is] no longer an option". Besides the popular factions that support either parties, there is a third faction which supports independence and withdrawal of both India and Pakistan. These have been the respective stands of the parties for long, and there have been no significant changes over the years. As a result, all efforts to solve the conflict have been futile so far.

In a 2001 report titled "Pakistan's Role in the Kashmir Insurgency" from the American RAND Corporation, the think tank noted that "the nature of the Kashmir conflict has been transformed from what was originally a secular, locally based struggle (conducted via the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front – JKLF) to one that is now largely carried out by foreign militants and rationalized in pan-Islamic religious terms." Most of the militant organizations are composed of foreign mercenaries, mostly from the Pakistani Punjab. In 2010, with the support of its intelligence agencies, Pakistan has again been 'boosting' Kashmir militants, and recruitment of mujahideen in the Pakistani state of Punjab has increased. In 2011, the FBI revealed that Pakistan's spy agency ISI paid millions of dollars into a United States-based non-governmental organization to influence politicians and opinion-makers on the Kashmir issue and arrested Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai.

The Freedom in the World 2006 report categorized Indian-administered Kashmir as "partly free", and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, as well as the country of Pakistan, as "not free". India claims that contrary to popular belief, a large proportion of the Jammu and Kashmir populace wishes to remain with India. A MORI survey found that within Indian-administered Kashmir, 61% of respondents said they felt they would be better off as Indian citizens, with 33% saying that they did not know, and the remaining 6% favouring Pakistani citizenship. However, this support for India was mainly in Ladakh and Jammu regions, not the Kashmir Valley, as only 9% of the respondents from the Kashmir Valley said that they would be better off with India. According to a 2007 poll conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi, 87% of respondents in the Kashmir Valley prefer independence over union with India or Pakistan. However, a survey by the Chatham House in both Indian and Pakistani administered Kashmir found that support of independence was at 43% and 44% respectively.

The 2005 Kashmir earthquake, which killed over 80,000 people, led to India and Pakistan finalizing negotiations for the opening of a road for disaster relief through Kashmir.

Efforts to end the crisis[link]

The 9/11 attacks on the United States resulted in the U.S. government wanting to restrain militancy in the world, including Pakistan. They urged Islamabad to cease infiltrations, which continue to this day, by Islamist militants into Indian-administered Kashmir. In December 2001, a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament linked to Pakistan, resulted in war threats, massive deployment, and international fears of a nuclear war in the subcontinent.

After intensive diplomatic efforts by other countries, India and Pakistan began to withdraw troops from the international border on 10 June 2002, and negotiations began again. Effective 26 November 2003, India and Pakistan agreed to maintain a ceasefire along the undisputed international border, the disputed Line of Control, and the Siachen glacier. This is the first such "total ceasefire" declared by both powers in nearly 15 years. In February 2004, Pakistan increased pressure on Pakistanis fighting in Indian-administered Kashmir to adhere to the ceasefire. The neighbours launched several other mutual confidence-building measures. Restarting the bus service between the Indian- and Pakistani- administered Kashmir has helped defuse the tensions between the countries. Both India and Pakistan have decided to cooperate on economic fronts.

On 5 December 2006, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told an Indian TV channel that Pakistan would give up its claim on Kashmir if India accepted some of his peace proposals, including a phased withdrawal of troops, self-governance for locals, no changes in the borders of Kashmir, and a joint supervision mechanism involving India, Pakistan, and Kashmir. Musharraf stated that he was ready to give up the United Nations' resolutions regarding Kashmir.

2008 militant attacks[link]

In the week of 10 March 2008, 17 people were wounded when a blast hit the region's only highway overpass located near the Civil Secretariat—the seat of government of Indian-controlled Kashmir—and the region's high court. A gun battle between security forces and militants fighting against Indian rule left five people dead and two others injured on 23 March 2008. The battle began when security forces raided a house on the outskirts of the capital city of Srinagar, housing militants. The Indian Army has been carrying out cordon-and-search operations against militants in Indian-administered Kashmir since the violence broke out in 1989. While the authorities say 43,000 persons have been killed in the violence, various rights groups and non-governmental organizations have put the figure at twice that number.

According to the Government of India Home Ministry, 2008 was the year with the lowest civilian casualties in 20 years, with 89 deaths, compared to a high of 1,413 in 1996. 85 security personnel died in 2008 compared to 613 in 2001, while 102 militants were killed. The human rights situation improved, with only one custodial death, and no custodial disappearances. Many analysts say Pakistan's preoccupation with jihadis within its own borders explains the relative calm.

2008 Kashmir protests[link]

Massive demonstrations occurred after plans by the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir state government to transfer of land to a trust which runs the Hindu Amarnath shrine in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley. This land was to be used to build a shelter to house Hindu pilgrims temporarily during their annual pilgrimage to the Amarnath temple.

Indian security forces and the Indian army responded quickly to keep order. More than 40 unarmed protesters were killed and at least 300 were detained. The largest protests saw more than a half million people waving Pakistani flags and crying for freedom at a rally on 18 August, according to ''Time magazine''. Pro-independence Kashmir leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq warned that the peaceful uprising could lead to an upsurge in violence if India's heavy-handed crackdown on protests was not restrained. The United Nations expressed concern on India's response to peaceful protests and urged investigations be launched against Indian security personnel who had taken part in the crackdown.

Separatists and workers of a political party were believed to be behind stone-pelting incidents, which led to retaliatory fire by the police. An autorickshaw laden with stones meant for distribution was seized by the police in March 2009. Following the unrest in 2008, secessionist movements got a boost.

2008 Kashmir elections[link]

State elections were held in Indian-held Kashmir in seven phases, starting 17 November and finishing on 24 December 2008. In spite of calls by separatists for a boycott, an unusually high turnout of almost 50% was recorded. The National Conference party, which was founded by Sheikh Abdullah and is regarded as pro-India, emerged with a majority of the seats. On 30 December, the Congress Party and the National Conference agreed to form a coalition government, with Omar Abdullah as Chief Minister. On 5 January 2009, Abdullah was sworn in as the eleventh Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

In March 2009, Abdullah stated that only 800 militants were active in the state and out of these only 30% were Kashmiris.

2009 Kashmir protests[link]

In 2009, protests started over the alleged rape and murder of two young women in Shopian in South Kashmir. Suspicion pointed towards the police as the perpetrators. A judicial enquiry by a retired High Court confirmed the suspicion, but a CBI enquiry reversed their conclusion. It gave a fresh impetus to the popular agitation against India. Significantly, the unity between the separatist parties was lacking this time.

2010 Kashmir Unrest[link]

The 2010 Kashmir unrest were a series of protests in the Muslim majority Kashmir Valley in Jammu & Kashmir which started in June 2010. These protests occurred in response to 'Quit Jammu Kashmir Movement' which was a civil disobedience movement launched by Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who had called for the complete demilitarization of Jammu and Kashmir. The All Parties Hurriyat Conference made this call to protest, citing human rights abuses by Indian troops. Protesters shouting pro-independence slogans, defied curfew, attacked security forces with stones and burnt police vehicles and government buildings. The Jammu and Kashmir Police and Indian Para-military forces fired live ammunition on the protesters, resulting in 112 deaths, including many teenagers. The protests subsided after the Indian government announced a package of measures aimed at defusing the tensions in September 2010.

US President Obama on the conflict[link]

In an interview with Joe Klein of ''Time'' magazine in October 2008, Barack Obama expressed his intention to try to work with India and Pakistan to resolve the crisis. He said he had talked to Bill Clinton about it, as Clinton has experience being a mediator. In an editorial in ''The Washington Times'', Selig S Harrison, director of the Asia Programme at the Center for International Policy and a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International, called it Obama's first foreign policy mistake. In an editorial, ''The Australian'' called Obama's idea to appoint a presidential negotiator "a very stupid and dangerous move indeed". In an editorial in ''Forbes'', Reihan Salam, associate editor for ''The Atlantic'', noted "The smartest thing President Obama could do on Kashmir is probably nothing. We have to hope that India and Pakistan can work out their differences on Kashmir on their own". ''The Boston Globe'' called the idea of appointing Bill Clinton as an envoy to Kashmir "a mistake". President Obama appointed Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan. President Asif Ali Zardari hoped that Holbrooke would help mediate to resolve the Kashmir issue. Subsequently Kashmir was removed from the mandate of Holbrooke. "Eliminating ... Kashmir from his job description ... is seen as a significant diplomatic concession to India that reflects increasingly warm ties between the country and the United States," ''The Washington Post'' noted in a report. Brajesh Mishra, India's former national security adviser, was quoted in the same report as saying that "No matter what government is in place, India is not going to relinquish control of Jammu and Kashmir". "That is written in stone and cannot be changed." According to ''The Financial Times'', India has warned Obama that he risks "barking up the wrong tree" if he seeks to broker a settlement between Pakistan and India over Kashmir.

In July 2009, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert O. Blake, Jr. stated that the United States had no plans of appointing any special envoy to settle the dispute, calling it an issue which needs to be sorted out bilaterally by India and Pakistan. According to ''Dawn'' this will be interpreted in Pakistan as an endorsement of India's position on Kashmir that no outside power has any role in this dispute.

See also[link]

History of Jammu and Kashmir

Indo-Pakistani Wars

Further reading[link]

Drew, Federic. 1877. ''The Northern Barrier of India: a popular account of the Jammoo and Kashmir Territories with Illustrations''.&;#8221; 1st edition: Edward Stanford, London. Reprint: Light & Life Publishers, Jammu. 1971.

Dr. Ijaz Hussain, 1998, ''Kashmir Dispute: An International Law Perspective'', National Institute of Pakistan Studies

Alastair Lamb, Kashmir: ''A Disputed Legacy 1846–1990'' (Hertingfordbury, Herts: Roxford Books, 1991)

Kashmir Study Group, 1947–1997, the Kashmir dispute at fifty : charting paths to peace (New York, 1997)

Jaspreet Singh, ''Seventeen Tomatoes– an unprecedented look inside the world of an army camp in Kashmir'' (Vehicle Press; Montreal, Canada, 2004)

Navnita Behera, ''State, identity and violence : Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh'' (New Delhi: Manohar, 2000)

Sumit Ganguly, ''The Crisis in Kashmir'' (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Cambridge : Cambridge U.P., 1997)

Sumantra Bose, ''The challenge in Kashmir : democracy, self-determination and a just peace'' (New Delhi: Sage, 1997)

Robert Johnson, ''A Region in Turmoil'' (London and New York, Reaktion, 2005)

Hans Köchler, ''The Kashmir Problem between Law and Realpolitik. Reflections on a Negotiated Settlement''. Keynote speech delivered at the "Global Discourse on Kashmir 2008." European Parliament, Brussels, 1 April 2008.

Prem Shankar Jha, ''Kashmir, 1947: rival versions of history'' (New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 1996)

Manoj Joshi, ''The Lost Rebellion'' (New Delhi: Penguin India, 1999)

Alexander Evans, "Why Peace Won't Come to Kashmir", ''Current History'' (Vol 100, No 645) April 2001 p170-175.

Younghusband, Francis and Molyneux, E. 1917. ''Kashmir''. A. & C. Black, London.

Victoria Schofield, ''Kashmir in Conflict'' I.B. Tauris, London.

Victoria Schofield, ''Kashmir in the Crossfire'', I.B. Tauris, London.

Andrew Whitehead, ''A Mission in Kashmir'', Penguin India, 2007

Muhammad Ayub, ''An Army; Its Role & Rule (A History of the Pakistan Army from Independence to Kargil 1947–1999). Rosedog Books, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA. 2005. ISBN 0-8059-9594-3

Kashmir Conflict, Homepage ''Washington Post''.

References[link]

External links[link]

The Future of Kashmir, Matthew A. Rosenstein et al., ACDIS Swords and Ploughshares 16:1 (winter 2007-8), Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Centre for Contemporary Conflict on Kargil War

BBC articles on Kashmir

Recent Kashmir developments

The Political Economy of the Kashmir Conflict U.S. Institute of Peace Report, June 2004

The Kashmir dispute-cause or symptom?

LoC-Line of Control situation in Kashmir

An outline of the history of Kashmir

News Coverage of Kashmir

Accession Document

University of California at Berkeley Library Bibliographies and Web-Bibliographies list">''Conflict in Kashmir: Selected Internet Resources by the Library, University of California, Berkeley, USA''; University of California at Berkeley Library Bibliographies and Web-Bibliographies list

Timeline since April 2003

Kashmir resolution of the European Parliament, 24 May 2007

"Election in Kashmir Begins Amid Boycott Calls"

Animated PNG of disputed regions

Category:Disputed territories in Asia Category:History of Azad Kashmir Category:History of Jammu and Kashmir Category:Independent India Category:Kashmir Category:Resource conflict Category:Territorial disputes of India Category:Territorial disputes of Pakistan Category:Mountain warfare

ar:نزاع كشمير az:Kəşmir problemi de:Kaschmir#Kaschmirkonflikt es:Conflicto de Cachemira it:Conflitto del Kashmir kk:Кашмир мәселесі ms:Konflik Kashmir nl:Kasjmirconflict ja:カシミール紛争 pl:Spór o Kaszmir pt:Conflito na Caxemira ru:Кашмирский конфликт fi:Kashmirin konflikti sv:Kashmirkonflikten

Kashmir (Balti, Gojri, Poonchi/Chibhali, Dogri: कश्मीर; Kashmiri: कॅशीर, کٔشِیر; Ladakhi: ཀཤམིར; Uyghur: ; Shina: کشمیر) is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term ''Kashmir'' geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range. Today ''Kashmir'' denotes a larger area that includes the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir (the Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh), the Pakistani-administered Gilgit–Baltistan and the Azad Kashmir provinces, and the Chinese-administered regions of Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract.

In the first half of the first millennium, the Kashmir region became an important center of Hinduism and later of Buddhism; later still, in the ninth century, Kashmir Shaivism arose. In 1349, Shah Mir became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir and inaugurated the ''Salatin-i-Kashmir'' or Swati dynasty. For the next five centuries, Muslim monarchs ruled Kashmir, including the Mughals, who ruled from 1526 until 1751, then the Afghan Durrani Empire that ruled from 1747 until 1820. That year, the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh, annexed Kashmir. In 1846, upon the purchase of the region from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, the Dogras—under Gulab Singh—became the new rulers. Dogra Rule, under the ''paramountcy'' (or tutelage) of the British Crown, lasted until 1947, when the former princely state became a disputed territory, now administered by three countries: India, Pakistan, and the People's Republic of China.

Etymology[link]

The word Kashmir is an ancient Sanskrit word which literally means Land of Kashyap Rishi. Kashyap Rishi was a Saraswat Brahmin and one of the Saptarshis, who was key in formalizing the ancient Historical Vedic Religion. The Kashmiri Pandits are his descendants and have named the valley after him, in his honour.

History[link]

Buddhism in Kashmir[link]

The Buddhist Mauryan emperor Ashoka is often credited with having founded the old capital of Kashmir, Shrinagari, now ruins on the outskirts of modern Srinagar. Kashmir was long to be a stronghold of Buddhism.

As a Buddhist seat of learning, the Sarvāstivādan school strongly influenced Kashmir. East and Central Asian Buddhist monks are recorded as having visited the kingdom. In the late 4th century AD, the famous Kuchanese monk Kumārajīva, born to an Indian noble family, studied Dīrghāgama and Madhyāgama in Kashmir under Bandhudatta. He later became a prolific translator who helped take Buddhism to China. His mother Jīva is thought to have retired to Kashmir. Vimalākṣa, a Sarvāstivādan Buddhist monk, travelled from Kashmir to Kucha and there instructed Kumārajīva in the ''Vinayapiṭaka''.

Adi Shankara visited the pre-existing '''' (Sharada Peeth) in Kashmir in late 8th century or early 9th century AD. The ''Madhaviya Shankaravijayam'' states this temple had four doors for scholars from the four cardinal directions. The southern door (representing South India) had never been opened, indicating that no scholar from South India had entered the Sarvajna Pitha. Adi Shankara opened the southern door by defeating in debate all the scholars there in all the various scholastic disciplines such as Mimamsa, Vedanta and other branches of Hindu philosophy; he ascended the throne of Transcendent wisdom of that temple.

Abhinavagupta (approx. 950 - 1020 AD) was one of India's greatest philosophers, mystics and aestheticians. He was also considered an important musician, poet, dramatist, exeget, theologian, and logician - a polymathic personality who exercised strong influences on Indian culture. He was born in the Valley of Kashmir in a family of scholars and mystics and studied all the schools of philosophy and art of his time under the guidance of as many as fifteen (or more) teachers and gurus. In his long life he completed over 35 works, the largest and most famous of which is Tantrāloka, an encyclopedic treatise on all the philosophical and practical aspects of Trika and Kaula (known today as Kashmir Shaivism). Another one of his very important contributions was in the field of philosophy of aesthetics with his famous Abhinavabhāratī commentary of Nāṭyaśāstra of Bharata Muni.

In the 10th century AD ''Moksopaya'' or ''Moksopaya Shastra'', a philosophical text on salvation for non-ascetics (''moksa-upaya'': 'means to release'), was written on the Pradyumna hill in Śrīnagar. It has the form of a public sermon and claims human authorship and contains about 30,000 shloka's (making it longer than the ''Ramayana''). The main part of the text forms a dialogue between Vasistha and Rama, interchanged with numerous short stories and anecdotes to illustrate the content. This text was later (11th to the 14th century AD) expanded and vedanticized, which resulted in the ''Yoga Vasistha''.

Muslim rule[link]

The Muslims and Hindus of Kashmir lived in relative harmony, since the Sufi-Islamic way of life that Muslims followed in Kashmir complemented the Rishi tradition of Kashmiri Pandits, and Sufi saints such as Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali were thought of as Muslim Rishis. This led to a syncretic culture where Hindus and Muslims revered the same local saints and prayed at the same shrines . Famous sufi saint Bulbul Shah was able to convert Rinchan Shah who was then prince of Kashgar Ladakh to an Islamic lifestyle, thus founding the Sufiana composite culture. Under this rule, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist Kashmiris generally co-existed peacefully. Over time, however, the Sufiana governance gave way to outright Muslim monarchs.

First Muslim Ruler, Shah Mir[link]

In the beginning of 14th century a ferocious, Dulucha, coming from Turkestan invaded the valley through its northern side Zojila Pass, with an army of 60,000 men. Like Taimur in the Punjab and Delhi, Dulucha carried sword and fire, destroyed towns and villages and slaughtered thousands. Dulacha was liquidated on his way back from the valley as he was mis-directed by the Brahmins and thus he and his army perished in a snow blizzard. His savage attack practically ended the Hindu rule in Kashmir. Raja Sahadev was the ruler then. It was during his reign that three men, Shah Mir from (has often been mentioned erroneously from Swat) entered Kashmir from a proximal region of the Kashmir Valley, Rinchin from Ladhak, and Hilmat and Hikmat Chak from Dard territory came to Kashmir, and played a notable role in subsequentive political history of the valley.

Shah Mir was the second Muslim ruler (Rinchin was the first as he converted to Islam) of Kashmir and the founder of the Shah Miri dynasty named after him. Jonaraja, in his Rajatarangini mentioned him as Sahamera who was from a proximal region of Kashmir and claimed lineage from Arjuna. According to Jonaraja his ancestors were of Hindu origin and wrree Kshatriyas. Shah Mir was succeeded by his eldest son Jamshid, but he was deposed by his brother Ali Sher probably within few months, who ascended the throne under the name of Alauddin[1] Following the Shahmiri Dynasty, was the Chak Dynasty that ruled until Mughal conquest in 1586.

Some Kashmiri rulers, such as Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin who was popularly known as Budshah(بڈشاہ) (the King) (r.1423-1474), were tolerant of all religions in a manner comparable to Akbar. However, several Muslim rulers of Kashmir were intolerant of other religions. Sultãn Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir (AD 1389-1413) is often considered the worst of these. Historians have recorded many of his atrocities. The Tarikh-i-Firishta records that Sikandar persecuted the Hindus and issued orders proscribing the residence of any other than Muslims in Kashmir. He also ordered the breaking of all "golden and silver images". The Tarikh-i-Firishta further states: "Many of the Brahmins, rather than abandon their religion or their country, poisoned themselves; some emigrated from their native homes, while a few escaped. After the emigration of the Brahmins, Sikandar ordered all the temples in Kashmir to be thrown down. Having broken all the images in Kashmir, (Sikandar) acquired the title of 'Destroyer of Idols'."

Kalhana's metrical chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, called the ''Rajatarangini,'' has been pronounced by Professor H. H. Wilson to be the only Sanskrit composition yet discovered to which the appellation "history" can with any propriety be applied. It first became known to the Muslims when, on Akbar's invasion of Kashmir in 1588, a copy was presented to the emperor. A translation into Persian was made at his order. A summary of its contents, taken from this Persian translation, is given by Abul Fazl in the ''Ain-i-Akbari''. The ''Rajatarangini'' was written around the middle of the 12th century. His work, in six books, makes use of earlier writings that are now lost.

The ''Rajatarangini'' is the first of a series of four histories that record the annals of Kashmir. Commencing with a rendition of traditional history of very early times, the ''Rajatarangini'' comes down to the reign of Sangrama Deva, (''c.''1006 AD). The second work, by Jonaraja, continues the history from where Kalhana left off, and, entering the Muslim period, gives an account of the reigns down to that of Zain-ul-Abidin, 1412. Srivara carried on the record to the accession of Fah Shah in 1486. The fourth work, called ''Rajavalipataka'', by Prajnia Bhatta, completes the history to the time of the incorporation of Kashmir in the dominions of the Mogul emperor Akbar, 1588.

Sikh rule[link]

In 1819, the Kashmir valley passed from the control of the Durrani Empire of Afghanistan, and four centuries of Muslim rule under the Mughals and the Afghans, to the conquering armies of the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh of Lahore. As the Kashmiris had suffered under the Afghans, they initially welcomed the new Sikh rulers. However, the Sikh governors turned out to be hard taskmasters, and Sikh rule was generally considered oppressive, protected perhaps by the remoteness of Kashmir from the capital of the Sikh empire in Lahore; The Sikhs enacted a number of anti-Muslim laws, which included handing out death sentences for cow slaughter, closing down the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, and banning the ''azaan'', the public Muslim call to prayer. Kashmir had also now begun to attract European visitors, several of whom wrote of the abject poverty of the vast Muslim peasantry and of the exorbitant taxes under the Sikhs. High taxes, according to some contemporary accounts, had depopulated large tracts of the countryside, allowing only one-sixteenth of the cultivable land to be cultivated. However, after a famine in 1832, the Sikhs reduced the land tax to half the produce of the land and also began to offer interest-free loans to farmers; Kashmir became the second highest revenue earner for the Sikh empire. During this time Kashmiri shawls became known world wide, attracting many buyers especially in the west.

Earlier, in 1780, after the death of Ranjit Deo, the Raja of Jammu, the kingdom of Jammu (to the south of the Kashmir valley) was also captured by the Sikhs and afterwards, until 1846, became a tributary to the Sikh power. Ranjit Deo's grandnephew, Gulab Singh, subsequently sought service at the court of Ranjit Singh, distinguished himself in later campaigns, especially the annexation of the Kashmir valley, and, for his services, was appointed governor of Jammu in 1820. With the help of his officer, Zorawar Singh, Gulab Singh soon captured for the Sikhs the lands of Ladakh and Baltistan to the east and north-east, respectively, of Jammu.

Princely State[link]

In 1845, the First Anglo-Sikh War broke out. According to the Imperial Gazetteer of India,

"Gulab Singh contrived to hold himself aloof till the battle of Sobraon (1846), when he appeared as a useful mediator and the trusted advisor of Sir Henry Lawrence. Two treaties were concluded. By the first the State of Lahore (i.e. West Punjab) handed over to the British, as equivalent for one crore indemnity, the hill countries between the rivers Beas and Indus; by the second the British made over to Gulab Singh for 75 lakhs all the hilly or mountainous country situated to the east of the Indus and the west of the Ravi ''i.e.'' the Vale of Kashmir)."

Drafted by a treaty and a bill of sale, and constituted between 1820 and 1858, the Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu (as it was first called) combined disparate regions, religions, and ethnicities: to the east, Ladakh was ethnically and culturally Tibetan and its inhabitants practised Buddhism; to the south, Jammu had a mixed population of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs; in the heavily populated central Kashmir valley, the population was overwhelmingly ''Sunni'' Muslim, however, there was also a small but influential Hindu minority, the Kashmiri brahmins or pandits; to the northeast, sparsely populated Baltistan had a population ethnically related to Ladakh, but which practised ''Shi'a'' Islam; to the north, also sparsely populated, Gilgit Agency, was an area of diverse, mostly ''Shi'a'' groups; and, to the west, Punch was Muslim, but of different ethnicity than the Kashmir valley. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, in which Kashmir sided with the British, and the subsequent assumption of direct rule by Great Britain, the princely state of Kashmir came under the suzerainty of the British Crown.

In the British census of India of 1941, Kashmir registered a Muslim majority population of 77%, a Hindu population of 20% and a sparse population of Buddhists and Sikhs comprising the remaining 3%. That same year, Prem Nath Bazaz, a Kashmiri Pandit journalist wrote: “The poverty of the Muslim masses is appalling. ... Most are landless laborers, working as serfs for absentee [Hindu] landlords ... Almost the whole brunt of official corruption is borne by the Muslim masses.” For almost a century until the census, a small Hindu elite had ruled over a vast and impoverished Muslim peasantry. Driven into docility by chronic indebtedness to landords and moneylenders, having no education besides, nor awareness of rights, the Muslim peasants had no political representation until the 1930s.

Year 1947 and 1948 [link]

Ranbir Singh's grandson Hari Singh, who had ascended the throne of Kashmir in 1925, was the reigning monarch in 1947 at the conclusion of British rule of the subcontinent and the subsequent partition of the British Indian Empire into the newly independent Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. According to Burton Stein's ''History of India'',

"Kashmir was neither as large nor as old an independent state as Hyderabad; it had been created rather off-handedly by the British after the first defeat of the Sikhs in 1846, as a reward to a former official who had sided with the British. The Himalayan kingdom was connected to India through a district of the Punjab, but its population was 77 per cent Muslim and it shared a boundary with Pakistan. Hence, it was anticipated that the maharaja would accede to Pakistan when the British paramountcy ended on 14–15 August. When he hesitated to do this, Pakistan launched a guerrilla onslaught meant to frighten its ruler into submission. Instead the Maharaja appealed to Mountbatten for assistance, and the governor-general agreed on the condition that the ruler accede to India. Indian soldiers entered Kashmir and drove the Pakistani-sponsored irregulars from all but a small section of the state. The United Nations was then invited to mediate the quarrel. The UN mission insisted that the opinion of Kashmiris must be ascertained, while India insisted that no referendum could occur until all of the state had been cleared of irregulars."

In the last days of 1948, a ceasefire was agreed under UN auspices, but since the plebiscite demanded by the UN was never conducted, relations between India and Pakistan soured, and eventually led to two more wars over Kashmir in 1965 and 1999. India has control of about half the area of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, while Pakistan controls a third of the region, the Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, "Although there was a clear Muslim majority in Kashmir before the 1947 partition and its economic, cultural, and geographic contiguity with the Muslim-majority area of the Punjab (in Pakistan) could be convincingly demonstrated, the political developments during and after the partition resulted in a division of the region. Pakistan was left with territory that, although basically Muslim in character, was thinly populated, relatively inaccessible, and economically underdeveloped. The largest Muslim group, situated in the Valley of Kashmir and estimated to number more than half the population of the entire region, lay in Indian-administered territory, with its former outlets via the Jhelum valley route blocked."

Current status and political divisions[link]

The eastern region of the former princely state of Kashmir has also been involved in a boundary dispute. In the late 19th- and early 20th centuries, although some boundary agreements were signed between Great Britain, Afghanistan and Russia over the northern borders of Kashmir, China never accepted these agreements, and the official Chinese position did not change with the communist revolution in 1949. By the mid-1950s the Chinese army had entered the north-east portion of Ladakh. : "By 1956–57 they had completed a military road through the Aksai Chin area to provide better communication between Xinjiang and western Tibet. India's belated discovery of this road led to border clashes between the two countries that culminated in the Sino-Indian war of October 1962."

The region is divided among three countries in a territorial dispute: Pakistan controls the northwest portion (Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir), India controls the central and southern portion (Jammu and Kashmir) and Ladakh, and China controls the northeastern portion (Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract). India controls the majority of the Siachen Glacier area including the Saltoro Ridge passes, whereas Pakistan controls the lower territory just southwest of the Saltoro Ridge. India controls of the disputed territory, Pakistan and China, the remaining .

Jammu and Pakistan administered Kashmir lie outside Pir Panjal range, and are under Indian and Pakistani control respectively. These are populous regions. The main cities are Mirpur, Dadayal, Kotli, Bhimber Jammu, Muzaffarabad and Rawalakot.

The Gilgit–Baltistan, formerly called ''Northern Areas'', are a group of territories in the extreme north, bordered by the Karakoram, the western Himalayas, the Pamir, and the Hindu Kush ranges. With its administrative center at the town of Gilgit, the Northern Areas cover an area of 72,971 km² (28,174 mi²) and have an estimated population approaching 1,000,000. The other main city is Skardu.

Ladakh is a region in the east, between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south. Main cities are Leh and Kargil. It is under Indian administration and is part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is one of the most sparsely populated regions in the area and is mainly inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent.

Aksai Chin is a vast high-altitude desert of salt that reaches altitudes up to . Geographically part of the Tibetan Plateau, Aksai Chin is referred to as the Soda Plain. The region is almost uninhabited, and has no permanent settlements.

Though these regions are in practice administered by their respective claimants, neither India nor Pakistan has formally recognised the accession of the areas claimed by the other. India claims those areas, including the area "ceded" to China by Pakistan in the Trans-Karakoram Tract in 1963, are a part of its territory, while Pakistan claims the entire region excluding Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract. The two countries have fought several declared wars over the territory. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 established the rough boundaries of today, with Pakistan holding roughly one-third of Kashmir, and India one-half, with a dividing line of control established by the United Nations. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 resulted in a stalemate and a UN-negotiated ceasefire.

Demographics [link]

In the 1901 Census of the British Indian Empire, Muslims constituted 74.16% of the total population of the princely state of ''Kashmir and Jammu'' where Gujjar Muslims constitute 20% population, Hindus, 23.72%, and Buddhists, 1.21%. The Hindus were found mainly in Jammu, where they constituted a little less than 70% of the population. In the Kashmir Valley, Muslims constituted 95.6% of the population and Hindus 3.24%. These percentages have remained fairly stable for the last 100 years. Forty years later, in the 1941 Census of British India, Muslims accounted for 93.6% of the population of the Kashmir Valley and the Hindus for 4%. In 2003, the percentage of Muslims in the Kashmir Valley was 95% and those of Hindus 4%; the same year, in Jammu, the percentage of Hindus was 66% and those of Muslims 30%. In the 1901 Census of the British Indian Empire, the population of the princely state of ''Kashmir and Jammu'' was 2,905,578. Of these 2,154,695 were Muslims (74.16%), 689,073 Hindus (23.72%), 25,828 Sikhs, and 35,047 Buddhists.

Among the Muslims of the princely state, four divisions were recorded: "Shaikhs, Saiyids, Mughals, and Pathans. The Shaikhs, who are by far the most numerous, are the descendants of Hindus, but have retained none of the caste rules of their forefathers. They have clan names known as ''krams'' ..." It was recorded that these ''kram'' names included "Tantre," "Shaikh,", "Bhat", "Mantu," "Ganai," "Dar," "Damar," "Lon" etc. The Saiyids, it was recorded "could be divided into those who follow the profession of religion and those who have taken to agriculture and other pursuits. Their ''kram'' name is "Mir." While a Saiyid retains his saintly profession Mir is a prefix; if he has taken to agriculture, Mir is an affix to his name." The ''Mughals'' who were not numerous were recorded to have ''kram'' names like "Mir" (a corruption of "Mirza"), "Beg," "Bandi," "Bach," and "Ashaye." Finally, it was recorded that the Pathans "who are more numerous than the Mughals, ... are found chiefly in the south-west of the valley, where Pathan colonies have from time to time been founded. The most interesting of these colonies is that of Kuki-Khel Afridis at Dranghaihama, who retain all the old customs and speak Pashtu." Among the main tribes of Muslims in the princely state are the Butts, Dar, Lone, Jat, Gujjar, Rajput, Sudhan and Khatri. A small number of Butts, Dar and Lone use the title Khawaja and the Khatri use the title Shaikh the Gujjar use the title of Chaudhary. All these tribes are indigenous of the princely state and many Hindus also belong to these tribes.

The Hindus were found mainly in Jammu, where they constituted a little less than 60% of the population. In the ''Kashmir Valley'', the Hindus represented "524 in every 10,000 of the population (''i.e.'' 5.24%), and in the frontier ''wazarats'' of Ladhakh and Gilgit only 94 out of every 10,000 persons (0.94%)." In the same Census of 1901, in the Kashmir Valley, the total population was recorded to be 1,157,394, of which the Muslim population was 1,083,766, or 93.6% and the Hindu population 60,641. Among the Hindus of ''Jammu'' province, who numbered 626,177 (or 90.87% of the Hindu population of the princely state), the most important castes recorded in the census were "Brahmans (186,000), the Rajputs (167,000), the Khattris (48,000) and the Thakkars (93,000)."

In the 1911 Census of the British Indian Empire, the total population of ''Kashmir and Jammu'' had increased to 3,158,126. Of these, 2,398,320 (75.94%) were Muslims, 696,830 (22.06%) Hindus, 31,658 (1%) Sikhs, and 36,512 (1.16%) Buddhists. In the last census of British India in 1941, the total population of Kashmir and Jammu (which as a result of the second world war, was estimated from the 1931 census) was 3,945,000. Of these, the total Muslim population was 2,997,000 (75.97%), the Hindu population was 808,000 (20.48%), and the Sikh 55,000 (1.39%).

The Kashmiri Pandits, the only Hindus of the Kashmir valley, who had stably constituted approximately 4 to 5% of the population of the valley during Dogra rule (1846–1947), and 20% of whom had left the Kashmir valley by 1950, began to leave in much greater numbers in the 1990s. According to a number of authors, approximately 100,000 of the total Kashmiri Pandit population of 140,000 left the valley during that decade. Other authors have suggested a higher figure for the exodus, ranging from the entire population of over 150,000, to 190,000 of a total Pandit population of 200,000, to a number as high as 300,000.

Islam>Muslim !! % Hinduism
	[[Kashmir Valley	~4 million	95%	4%*	–	–
	Jammu	~3 million	30%	66%	–	4%
	Ladakh	~0.25 million	46%	–	50%	3%
	Azad Kashmir	~2.6 million	100%	–	–	–
	Gilgit–Baltistan	~1 million	99%	–	–	–
	Aksai Chin	–	–	–	–	–
	* Statistics from the BBC In Depth report.

Culture and cuisine[link]

Kashmiri cuisine includes dum aloo (boiled potatoes with heavy amounts of spice), tzaman (a solid cottage cheese), rogan josh (lamb cooked in heavy spices), yakhiyn (lamb cooked in curd with mild spices), hakh (a spinach-like leaf), rista-gushtaba (minced meat balls in tomato and curd curry),danival korme and of course the signature rice which is particular to Asian cultures. The traditional wazwan feast involves cooking meat or vegetables, usually mutton, in several different ways.

Alcohol is strictly prohibited in most places. There are two styles of making tea in the region: Noon Chai, or salt tea, which is pink in colour (known as chinen posh rang or peach flower colour) and popular with locals; and kahwah, a tea for festive occasions, made with saffron and spices (cardamom, cinamon,sugar, noon chai leaves), and black tea.

Economy[link]

Kashmir's economy is centred around agriculture. Traditionally the staple crop of the valley was rice, which formed the chief food of the people. In addition, Indian corn, wheat, barley and oats were also grown. Given its temperate climate, it is suited for crops like asparagus, artichoke, seakale, broad beans, scarletrunners, beetroot, cauliflower and cabbage. Fruit trees are common in the valley, and the cultivated orchards yield pears, apples, peaches, and cherries. The chief trees are deodar, firs and pines, chenar or plane, maple, birch and walnut, apple, cherry.

Historically, Kashmir became known worldwide when Cashmere wool was exported to other regions and nations (exports have ceased due to decreased abundance of the cashmere goat and increased competition from China). Kashmiris are well adept at knitting and making Pashmina shawls, silk carpets, rugs, kurtas, and pottery. Saffron, too, is grown in Kashmir. Efforts are on to export the naturally grown fruits and vegetables as organic foods mainly to the Middle East. Srinagar is known for its silver-work, papier mache, wood-carving, and the weaving of silk.

The economy was badly damaged by the 2005 Kashmir earthquake which, as of October 8, 2005, resulted in over 70,000 deaths in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir and around 1,500 deaths in Indian controlled Kashmir.

The Indian-administered portion of Kashmir is believed to have potentially rich rocks containing hydrocarbon reserves.

Transport[link]

Transport is predominantly by air or road vehicles in the region. The only functioning railway is the under-construction Kashmir Railway which will link the Kashmir Valley to the rest of India. Another railway in the Indian side, the Bilaspur-Mandi-Leh Railway has been approved in the 2012-2013 Indian railway budget. A railway on the Pakistani side, the Khunjerab Railway has been proposed however has not been approved.

History of tourism in Kashmir[link]

The state of Jammu & Kashmir is a region of widely varying people and geography. In the south, Jammu is a transition zone from the Indian plains to the Himalaya . Nature has lavishly endowed Kashmir with certain distinctive favors which hardly find a parallel in any alpine land of the world. It is the land of snow clad mountains that shares a common boundary with Afghanistan, China and Pakistan, Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state of the Indian Union. Known for its extravagant natural beauty this land formed a major caravan route in the ancient times.

Trade relations through these routes between China and Central Asia made it a land inhabited by various religious and cultural groups. It was during the reign of Kashyapa that the various wandering groups led a settled life Buddhism influenced Kashmir during the rule of Ashoka and the present town of Srinagar was founded by him. This place was earlier called 'Srinagari' or Purandhisthan. The Brahmins who inhabited these areas admired and adorned Buddhism too. From the regions of Kashmir Buddhism spread of Ladakh, Tibet, Central Asia and China. Various traditions co-existed till the advent of the Muslims.

The Mughal had a deep influence on this land and introduced various reforms in the revenue industry and other areas that added to the progress of Kashmir. In 1820 Maharaj Gulab Singh got the Jagir of Jammu from Maharaj Ranjit Sigh. He is said to have laid the foundation of the Dogra dynasty. In 1846 Kashmir was sold to Maharaj Gulab Singh. Thus the two areas of Kashmir and Jammu were integrated into a single political unit. A few chieftains who formed part of the administration were of the Hunza, Kishtwar, Gilgit Ladakh. During the Dogra dynasty trade improved, along with the preservation and promotion of forestry.

See also[link]

United Nations Security Council Resolution 47

Line of Control

Kashmir conflict

List of Kashmiri people

Kargil War

2005 Kashmir earthquake

List of Jammu and Kashmir related articles

Notes[link]

Cited References[link]

. . . . . . .

Further reading[link]

Blank, Jonah. "Kashmir–Fundamentalism Takes Root," Foreign Affairs, 78,6 (November/December 1999): 36-42.

Drew, Federic. 1877. "The Northern Barrier of India: a popular account of the Jammoo and Kashmir Territories with Illustrations; 1st edition: Edward Stanford, London. Reprint: Light & Life Publishers, Jammu. 1971.

Evans, Alexander. Why Peace Won't Come to Kashmir, Current History (Vol 100, No 645) April 2001 p. 170-175.

Hussain, Ijaz. 1998. "Kashmir Dispute: An International Law Perspective", National Institute of Pakistan Studies.

Irfani, Suroosh, ed "Fifty Years of the Kashmir Dispute": Based on the proceedings of the International Seminar held at Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir August 24–25, 1997: University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, AJK, 1997.

Joshi, Manoj Lost Rebellion: Kashmir in the Nineties (Penguin, New Delhi, 1999).

Khan, L. Ali The Kashmir Dispute: A Plan for Regional Cooperation 31 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 31, p. 495 (1994).

Knight, E. F. 1893. ''Where Three Empires Meet: A Narrative of Recent Travel in: Kashmir, Western Tibet, Gilgit, and the adjoining countries''. Longmans, Green, and Co., London. Reprint: Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company, Taipei. 1971.

Knight, William, Henry. 1863. ''Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet''. Richard Bentley, London. Reprint 1998: Asian Educational Services, New Delhi.

Köchler, Hans. ''The Kashmir Problem between Law and Realpolitik. Reflections on a Negotiated Settlement''. Keynote speech delivered at the "Global Discourse on Kashmir 2008." European Parliament, Brussels, 1 April 2008.

Moorcroft, William and Trebeck, George. 1841. ''Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab; in Ladakh and Kashmir, in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and Bokhara... from 1819 to 1825'', Vol. II. Reprint: New Delhi, Sagar Publications, 1971.

Neve, Arthur. (Date unknown). ''The Tourist's Guide to Kashmir, Ladakh, Skardo &c''. 18th Edition. Civil and Military Gazette, Ltd., Lahore. (The date of this edition is unknown - but the 16th edition was published in 1938).

Stein, M. Aurel. 1900. ''Kalhaṇa's Rājataraṅgiṇī–A Chronicle of the Kings of Kaśmīr'', 2 vols. London, A. Constable & Co. Ltd. 1900. Reprint, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1979.

Younghusband, Francis and Molyneux, Edward 1917. ''Kashmir''. A. & C. Black, London.

Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia. "Kashmir and the Convergence of Time, Space and Destiny", 2004; ISBN 0-945747-00-4. First published as a four-part series, March 2002 - April 2003, in 'Prakash', a review of the Jagat Guru Bhagavaan Gopinath Ji Charitable Foundation.

Muhammad Ayub. ''An Army; Ita Role & Rule (A History of the Pakistan Army from Independence to Kargil 1947-1999)'' Rosedog Books, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA 2005. ISBN 0-8059-9594-3.

External links[link]

Instrument of Accession

United Nations Military Observers Group in Kashmir

Official website of the Jammu and Kashmir Government (Indian-administered Kashmir)

Official website of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Government (Pakistan-administered Kashmir)

(Kashmir resources)

Category:Disputed territories in Asia Category:Geography of India

ar:كشمير an:Caixmir az:Kəşmir be:Кашмір bg:Кашмир bs:Kašmir ca:Caixmir cs:Kašmír da:Kashmir de:Kaschmir et:Kashmir el:Κασμίρ es:Cachemira (región) eo:Kaŝmiro eu:Kaxmir fa:کشمیر fo:Kashmir fr:Cachemire gl:Caxemira gu:કાશ્મીર ko:카슈미르 hi:कश्मीर hr:Kašmir id:Kashmir it:Kashmir he:קשמיר kn:ಕಾಶ್ಮೀರ ks:کٲشِر kk:Кашмир sw:Kashmir la:Caspira lv:Kašmīra lt:Kašmyras hu:Kasmír (régió) ml:കശ്മീര്‍ mr:काश्‍मीर mzn:کشمیر ms:Kashmir mn:Кашмир nl:Jammu en Kasjmir (gebied) new:काष्मीर् (सन् २००३या संकिपा) ja:カシミール no:Kashmir nn:Kashmir or:କାଶ୍ମୀର pnb:کشمیر ps:کشمير nds:Kaschmir pl:Dżammu i Kaszmir (region) pt:Caxemira ro:Cașmir ru:Кашмир simple:Kashmir sr:Кашмир sh:Kašmir fi:Kashmir sv:Kashmir ta:காஷ்மீர் tt:Кашмир tg:Кашмир tr:Keşmir uk:Кашмір ur:کشمیر ug:كەشمىر vi:Kashmir diq:Keşmir zh:克什米尔

name	Robert Fisk
birth date	July 12, 1946
birth place	Maidstone, Kent, England
education	Lancaster University (B.A., 1968)Trinity College, Dublin (Ph.D., 1985)
occupation	Middle East correspondent for ''The Independent''
credits	Jacob's Award, Amnesty International UK Press Awards, British Press Awards, International Journalist of the Year, "Reporter of the Year", David Watt prize, Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize
url	http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/ }}

Robert Fisk (born 12 July 1946) is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. As Middle East correspondent of ''The Independent'', he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported on the United States's war in Afghanistan and its 2003 invasion of Iraq. Fisk holds more British and International Journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent.

Career[link]

''The New York Times'' once described Robert Fisk as "probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain." He reported the Northern Ireland troubles in the 1970s, the Portuguese Revolution in 1974, the Lebanese Civil War, the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A vernacular Arabic speaker, he is one of few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden, and did so three times between 1994 and 1997. His awards include being voted International Journalist of the Year seven times.

Fisk has said that journalism must "challenge authority, all authority, especially so when governments and politicians take us to war." He has quoted with approval the Israeli journalist Amira Hass: "There is a misconception that journalists can be objective ... What journalism is really about is to monitor power and the centres of power." Speaking on "Lies, Misreporting, and Catastrophe in the Middle East," at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 22 September 2010, Fisk stated, "I think it is the duty of a foreign correspondent to be neutral and unbiased on the side of those who suffer, whoever they may be."

He has written at length on how much of contemporary conflict has its origin, in his view, in lines drawn on maps: "After the allied victory of 1918, at the end of my father's war, the victors divided up the lands of their former enemies. In the space of just seventeen months, they created the borders of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and most of the Middle East. And I have spent my entire career—in Belfast and Sarajevo, in Beirut and Baghdad—watching the people within those borders burn."

Fisk is a pacifist and has never voted.

The blogosphere term fisking originates from various American conservative blogs, which have taken particular issue with Mr. Fisk, who holds a "very skeptical view of U.S. foreign policy", and his articles and reports. Many of these bloggers have responded by reprinting his dispatches on their blogs, adding their own paragraph-by-paragraph commentary, purportedly dissecting and debunking Fisk's facts and opinions. Irrespective of the success of their endeavour, the term "fisking" has come to denote the practice of "savaging an argument and scattering the tattered remnants to the four corners of the internet".

In a 2002 appearance at the Cambridge Union Society, actor John Malkovich when asked whom he would most like to "fight to the death", replied that he would "rather just shoot" journalist Robert Fisk and British MP George Galloway. Both Fisk and Galloway reacted with outrage.

Early career[link]

Fisk was educated at Yardley Court preparatory school, Sutton Valence School and at Lancaster University and has a PhD in Political Science, from Trinity College, Dublin in 1983. The title of his doctoral thesis was "A condition of limited warfare: Éire’s neutrality and the relationship between Dublin, Belfast and London, 1939–1945". He worked on the ''Sunday Express'' diary column before a disagreement with the editor, John Junor, prompted a move to ''The Times''. From 1972–75, the height of The Troubles, Fisk served as Belfast correspondent for ''The Times'', before becoming its correspondent in Portugal covering the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution. He then was appointed Middle East correspondent (1976–1988). When a story of his was spiked (Iran Air Flight 655) after Rupert Murdoch's takeover, he moved to ''The Independent'', with his first report published there on 28 April 1989.

Lebanon, and other conflicts [link]

Fisk has been living in Beirut since 1976, and was present in Beirut throughout the Lebanese civil war. He was one of the first journalists to visit the scene of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, as well as the Syrian Hama Massacre. His book on the Lebanese conflict, ''Pity the Nation'', was first published in 1990. Fisk also reported on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Kosovo war, the Algerian civil war, and the Iran-Iraq War. Fisk suffered partial but permanent hearing loss as a result of being close to Iraqi heavy artillery in the Shatt-al-Arab when covering the early stages of the Iran-Iraq conflict.

Osama bin Laden [link]

Fisk is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden—three times (all published by ''The Independent'': 6 December 1993, 10 July 1996, and 22 March 1997). During one of Fisk's interviews with Bin Laden, Fisk noted an attempt by Bin Laden to convert him. Bin Laden said; "Mr Robert, one of our brothers had a dream. He dreamed ... that you were a spiritual person ... this means you are a true Muslim." Fisk replied; "Sheikh Osama, I am not a Muslim ... I am a journalist ... A journalist's task is to tell the truth." Bin Laden replied: "If you tell the truth, that means you are a good Muslim."

During the 1996 interview, Bin Laden accused the Saudi royal family of corruption. During the 1997 (and final) interview, Bin Laden said he sought God's help "to turn America into a shadow of itself".

11 September attacks [link]

Fisk condemned the 11 September 2001 attacks, describing them as a "hideous crime against humanity." He also denounced the Bush administration's response to the attacks, arguing that "a score of nations" were being identified and positioned as "haters of democracy" or "kernels of evil," and urged a more honest debate on U.S. policy in the Middle East. He argued that such a debate had hitherto been avoided "because, of course, to look too closely at the Middle East would raise disturbing questions about the region, about our Western policies in those tragic lands, and about America's relationship with Israel."

In August 2007 Fisk expressed personal doubts about the official historical record of the 11 September attacks. In an article for ''The Independent'', he claimed that, while the Bush administration was incapable of successfully carrying out such attacks due to its organisational incompetence: "I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11." He proceeded to raise his concerns about a lack of aircraft debris, the melting point of steel, the collapse of World Trade Center 7, misidentified suicide-hijackers, the authenticity of correspondence attributed by the CIA to Mohamed Atta, and other familiar questions that have circulated within the 9/11 Truth Movement. He added that he does not condone the "crazed 'research' of David Icke [...] I am talking about scientific issues". Fisk had earlier addressed similar concerns in a speech at Sydney University in 2006. During the speech, Fisk said: "Partly I think because of the culture of secrecy of the White House, never have we had a White House so secret as this one. Partly because of this culture, I think suspicions are growing in the United States, not just among Berkeley guys with flowers in their hair [...] But there are a lot of things we don’t know, a lot of things we’re not going to be told [...] perhaps the plane was hit by a missile, we still don’t know."

War in Afghanistan [link]

After the United States launched its attack on Afghanistan, Fisk was for a time transferred to Pakistan to provide coverage of that conflict. While reporting from there, he was attacked and beaten by a group of Afghan refugees fleeing heavy bombing by the United States Air Force. He was saved from this attack by another Afghan refugee. In his graphic account of his own beating, Fisk pardoned the attackers of responsibility and pointed out that their "brutality was entirely the product of others, of us—of we who had armed their struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and laughed at their civil war and then armed and paid them again for the 'War for Civilisation' just a few miles away and then bombed their homes and ripped up their families and called them 'collateral damage.'"

Iraq[link]

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Fisk was stationed in Baghdad and filed many eyewitness reports. He has criticized other journalists based in Iraq for what he calls their "hotel journalism", literally reporting from one's hotel room without interviews or first hand experience of events. His opposition to the war brought criticism from both Irish ''Sunday Independent'' columnist and senator, Eoghan Harris, and ''The Guardian'' columnist, Simon Hoggart.

Fisk has criticised the American handling of the sectarian violence in post-invasion Iraq, and argued that the official narrative of sectarian conflict is not possible: "The real question I ask myself is: who are these people who are trying to provoke the civil war? Now the Americans will say it's Al Qaeda, it's the Sunni insurgents. It is the death squads. Many of the death squads work for the Ministry of Interior. Who runs the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad? Who pays the Ministry of the Interior? Who pays the militia men who make up the death squads? We do, the occupation authorities [...] We need to look at this story in a different light."

Books and other works[link]

Books [link]

Fisk has published a number of books. His 2005 work, ''The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East'', with its criticism of Western and Israeli approaches to the Middle East, was well-received by critics and students of international affairs, and is perhaps his best-known work.

''The Point of No Return: The Strike which Broke the British in Ulster'' (1975). London: Times Books/Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-96682-X

''In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality, 1939–1945'' (2001). London: Gill & Macmillan. ISBN 0-7171-2411-8 (1st ed. was 1983).

''Pity the Nation : Lebanon at War'' (3rd ed. 2001). London: Oxford University Press; xxi, 727 pages. ISBN 0-19-280130-9 (1st ed. was 1990).

''The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East'' (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate; xxvi, 1366 pages. ISBN 1-84115-007-X

''The Age of the Warrior: Selected Writings'' (2008) London, Fourth Estate ISBN 978-0-00-727073-6

Video documentary[link]

Fisk produced a three-part series titled ''From Beirut To Bosnia'' in 1993 which Fisk says was an attempt "to find out why an increasing number of Muslims had come to hate the West." Fisk says that the Discovery Channel did not show a repeat of the films, after initially showing them in full, due to a letter campaign launched by pro-Israel groups such as CAMERA.

Forgery misattributed to Robert Fisk[link]

''Saddam Hussein—From Birth to Martyrdom'' (2007). Egypt: Ibda; 272 pages.

Awards[link]

In 1991, Fisk won a Jacob's Award for his RTÉ Radio coverage of the first Gulf War. He received Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 for his reports from Algeria and again in 2000 for his articles on the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. In 1999, Fisk won the Orwell Prize for journalism.

He has received the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year seven times, and twice won its "Reporter of the Year" award. In 2001, he was awarded the David Watt Prize for "outstanding contributions towards the clarification of political issues and the promotion of their greater understanding" for his investigation into the Armenian Genocide by the Turks in 1915. In 2002 he was the fourth recipient of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. More recently, Fisk was awarded the 2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize along with $350,000.

He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews on 24 June 2004. The Political and Social Sciences department of Ghent University (Belgium) awarded Fisk an honorary doctorate on 24 March 2006. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University of Beirut in June 2006. Trinity College Dublin awarded him a second, honorary, Doctorate in July 2008.

Fisk gave the 2005 Edward Said Memorial lecture at Adelaide University.

In 2011, Fisk was awarded the International Prize at the Amalfi Coast Media Awards in Italy.

Fisk is also a recipient of the College Historical Society's "Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse".

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Robert Fisk on Shakespeare and war

''Man of War'' by Rachel Cooke of The Observer, 13 April 2008

Journalism and 'the words of power': Robert Fisk address to the fifth Al Jazeera annual forum on 23 May

External links[link]

Column archive at ''The Independent''

Article archive at Journalisted

Robert Fisk on the Gap Between U.S. Rhetoric and Action in the Egyptian Uprising—video interview by ''Democracy Now!'', 2011

Interview with Robert Fisk in Lebanon - 16 May 2011 (The Student Journals)

Category:1946 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Dublin Category:Alumni of Lancaster University Category:British historians Category:British people of the Iraq War Category:British reporters and correspondents Category:English expatriates in Lebanon Category:Historians of the Middle East Category:Jacob's Award winners Category:People from Maidstone Category:People educated at Sutton Valence School Category:The Independent people Category:Irish Independent people Category:The Times people Category:War correspondents Category:War correspondents of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present) Category:Writers on the Middle East

ar:روبرت فيسك bn:রবার্ট ফিস্ক ca:Robert Fisk cs:Robert Fisk cy:Robert Fisk de:Robert Fisk es:Robert Fisk eu:Robert Fisk fa:رابرت فیسک fr:Robert Fisk ga:Robert Fisk it:Robert Fisk ml:റോബർട്ട് ഫിസ്ക് nl:Robert Fisk pl:Robert Fisk pt:Robert Fisk ru:Фиск, Роберт sh:Robert Fisk fi:Robert Fisk sv:Robert Fisk tr:Robert Fisk uk:Роберт Фіск

name	Omar Abdullah عمر عبدالله
birth date	March 10, 1970
birth place	Rochford, Essex, United Kingdom
residence	Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India
office1	Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir
term start1	05 January 2009
predecessor1	President's Rule
successor1	Incumbent
office2	Minister of State for External Affairs
primeminister2	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
term start2	23 July 2001
term end2	23 December 2002
predecessor2	U V Krishnam Raju
successor2	Digvijay Singh
party	Jammu and Kashmir National Conference
spouse	Payal Nath Singh Ne(separated)
children	Zahir Abdullah and Zamir Abdullah(sons)
twitter	@abdullah_omar }}

Omar Abdullah (, ), born 10 March 1970, is an Indian Kashmiri politician and the scion of one of the state's most prominent political family, the Abdullah family who became the 11th and the youngest Chief Minister of the northern Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, after forming a government in coalition with the Congress party, on January 5, 2009.

He was a member of 14th Lok Sabha, representing Srinagar constituency of Jammu and Kashmir, India. He was a Union Minister of State for External affairs in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's NDA government, from July 23, 2001 to December 23, 2002. He resigned from NDA government in October 2002 to concentrate on party work.

Omar joined politics in 1998, as a Lok Sabha member, a feat he repeated in subsequent three elections and also remained a Union minister; he took on the mantle of National Conference from his father in 2002, though he lost his own seat of Ganderbal during the 2002 state assembly elections, and so did his party, the political mandate; four years later, he contested once again from the same seat and won in the 2008 Kashmir Elections.

Early life and education[link]

Omar Abdullah was born 10 March 1970. He is the son of Farooq Abdullah and grandson of Sheikh Abdullah, all three of whom have been List of Prime and Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir. His mother Mollie, a British Christian, and a nurse by profession, was not in favor of him joining politics. He studied at the Burn Hall School, Srinagar and then at Lawrence School, Sanawar. He is an alumnus of Sydenham College, Mumbai (where he did his B.Com.). After that he joined the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, for an MBA, although he did not complete it.

He married Payal Nath, daughter of an Army officer, Major General Ram Nath from Delhi on September 1, 1994, and the couple have two sons, Zahir and Zamir, hence. They are currently separated. His younger sister, Sara Abdullah is married to Sachin Pilot, son of Rajesh Pilot.

Political career[link]

Before joining politics, Omar Abdullah worked with ITC Limited in its International Business Division. He was posted in Hyderabad and Mumbai. In 1998, at the age of 29, Omar Abdullah was elected to 12th Lok Sabha, becoming the youngest minister. In 1998-99, he was a member of both the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the Ministry of Tourism's Consultative Committee. In 1999, he was elected to 13th Lok Sabha (2nd term as a Member of Parliament). On October 13, 1999 he took oath as Union Minister of State, Commerce and Industry. On July 22, 2001, he became the youngest Union Minister, when he was made Union Minister of State for External affairs. He resigned from the post on December 23, 2002, to concentrate on party work.

On June 23, 2002, he became the President of the National Conference party, replacing his father, Farooq Abdullah.

He lost his Ganderbal seat in the Kashmir assembly elections held in September–October 2002.

Abdullah was re-elected as the National Conference party's president in 2006.

In March 2006, much to the disapproval of the centre, Omar Abdullah had a one-on-one meeting with Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharaf, in Islamabad. This was the first meeting of its kind between a mainstream politician from Jammu & Kashmir and the Pakistani government, thereby re-enforcing Omar's growing commitment to the solution of the Jammu & Kashmir cause. Omar received a rousing reception by thousands of Kashmiris upon his return.

On July 9, 2007, Omar escaped a bid on his life when suspected militants threw two rifle grenades targeted at him. The incident happened when Omar was interacting with party workers at a party leader's house.

On July 22, 2008, Omar gave a passionate speech during the 2008 Lok Sabha vote of confidence, which was praised by almost all quarters, and even won him fans on the internet. He was also seen briefly, playing himself, in director Apoorva Lakhia’s film, Mission Istanbul (2008), based on international terrorism.

After the 2008 Kashmir Elections, the National Conference won the maximum number of seats, and formed a coalition government with the Congress party, and Omar was sworn in as the 11th Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir on January 5, 2009 at the General Zoravar Singh Stadium in the University of Jammu, Jammu, raising hope amongst the people of Jammu and Kashmir who had been reeling under insurgency and violence since 1989.

Criticism[link]

After Abdullah assumed the office of Chief Minister on 5 January 2009, the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir deteriorated.

Within his first six months in the office, Indian Paramilitary Forces, specifically the Central Reserve Police Force, were accused of killing at least fifteen civilians, including three women whom they were also accused of raping. The first killing took place barely a few hundred meters away from the residence of Omar Abdullah, only two days after he was sworn in as Chief Minister of the state. The victim, Abdul Rashid Rishi, 45, a deaf man from South Kashmir’s Pahalgam, was shot dead by the Central Reserve Police Force on January 7, 2009. The killings at Bomai, Khaigam, Baramulla and the rape and murder of two young women in Shopian invoked severe public anger, and resulted in valley-wide protests, and reiterated demands for freedom and removal of Indian Paramilitary Forces from Jammu and Kashmir.

In the subsequent days, hundreds of protesters, including opposition leaders, were beaten up, and many were arrested or detained under a controversial Public Safety Act. On 8 July 2009 alone, PTI reported that "...police has arrested over 320 people..." who according to police were "fomenting trouble". Police slapped minor charges of disturbing peace to serious offences like that under section 307 (attempt of murder) on those arrested. An editorial in Greater Kashmir noted about this situation that "...ever since the new government took over the state administration has not only been handling every situation ineptly but also ridiculously... (administration) has been detaining and slapping Public Safety Acts against the voices of dissent and disagreement on absurd and ludicrous grounds that have made it a laughing stock within and outside the state...". According to official statistics, 554 persons were detained under PSA in Jammu and Kashmir from January 2008 to August 2009. Ironically, the Law and parliamentary affairs minister, Ali Mohammad Sagar said that invoking of PSA is necessary for running the affairs of the State.

Omar Abdullah was also accused of covering up the rape and murder of two young women in Shopian, which was allegedly perpetrated by Indian Paramilitary Forces. A. G. Noorani, a prominent lawyer and a commentator on regional affairs stated that Abdullah "needed prodding by the Centre even to order registration of a First Information Report... this testifies the gravity of Omar Abdullah’s lapses... (and) reveals the mindset that he will follow the tradition firmly established by his father, Farooq Abdullah..."

Conversely, there have been claims that the two women who were found dead were not raped and/or murdered. The CBI has said in its chargesheet filed before a court in Srinagar that Aasiya was a virgin and that both women drowned. The CBI investigation has declared that doctors in the district hospital had fiddled with the port-mortem report and fabricated evidence to implicate the security forces. However, majority of media opinion and that of the public is against this view, who regards this defense as a mere cover-up for the case. The case is still ongoing.

References[link]

External links[link]

Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website

Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:University of Mumbai alumni Category:Alumni of the University of Strathclyde Category:Indian politicians Category:Jammu and Kashmir politicians Category:Jammu and Kashmir MLAs Category:13th Lok Sabha members Category:14th Lok Sabha members Category:Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir Category:Kashmiri people Category:People from Jammu and Kashmir Category:Jammu & Kashmir National Conference politicians Category:Lawrence School, Sanawar alumni

es:Omar Abdullah fr:Omar Abdullah hi:उमर अब्दुल्ला kn:ಉಮರ್ ಅಬ್ದುಲ್ಲಾ mr:ओमर अब्दुल्ला sv:Omar Abdullah ta:உமர் அப்துல்லா

Name	Benazir Bhuttoبينظير ڀٽو بے نظیر بھٹو
Office	Prime Minister of Pakistan
President	Wasim SajjadFarooq Leghari
Term start	19 October 1993
Term end	5 November 1996
Predecessor	Moeenuddin Ahmad Qureshi (Acting)
Successor	Malik Meraj Khalid (Acting)
President1	Ghulam Ishaq Khan
Term start1	2 December 1988
Term end1	6 August 1990
Predecessor1	Muhammad Khan Junejo
Successor1	Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi (Acting)
Office2	Leader of the Opposition
Term start2	5 November 1996
Term end2	12 October 1999
Predecessor2	Nawaz Sharif
Successor2	Fazal-ur-Rehman
Term start3	6 November 1990
Term end3	18 April 1993
Predecessor3	Khan Abdul Wali Khan
Successor3	Nawaz Sharif
Office4	Minister of Finance
Term start4	26 January 1994
Term end4	10 October 1996
Predecessor4	Babar Ali (Acting)
Successor4	Naveed Qamar
Primeminister5	Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi (Acting)Nawaz Sharif
Term start5	4 December 1988
Term end5	6 December 1990
Predecessor5	Mahbub ul Haq (Acting)
Successor5	Sartaj Aziz
Office6	Minister of Defence
Term start6	4 December 1988
Term end6	6 August 1990
Predecessor6	Mahmoud Haroon (Acting)
Successor6	Ghous Ali Shah
Office7	Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party
Term start7	12 November 1982
Term end7	27 December 2007Acting until 10 January 1984
Predecessor7	Nusrat Bhutto
Successor7	Asif Ali ZardariBilawal Zardari Bhutto
Birth date	June 21, 1953
Birth place	Karachi, Pakistan
Death date	December 27, 2007
Death place	Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Party	Pakistan Peoples Party
Spouse	Asif Ali Zardari (1987–2007)
Children	BilawalBakhtawarAsifa
Alma mater	Harvard UniversityLady Margaret Hall, OxfordSt Catherine's College, Oxford
Religion	Sunni Islam
Website	Official website
Signature	Benazir Bhutto Signature.svg }}

Benazir Bhutto (; }}, ; 21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani democratic socialist who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former prime minister of Pakistan and the founder of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which she led.

In 1982, at age 29, Benazir Bhutto became the chairwoman of PPP — a democratic socialist, centre-left party, making her the first woman in Pakistan to head a major political party. In 1988, she became the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state and was also Pakistan's first (and thus far, only) female prime minister. Noted for her charismatic authority and political astuteness, Benazir Bhutto drove initiatives for Pakistan's economy and national security, and she implemented social capitalist policies for industrial development and growth. In addition, her political philosophy and economic policies emphasized deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labor markets, the denationalization of state-owned corporations, and the withdrawal of subsidies to others. Benazir Bhutto's popularity waned amid recession, corruption, and high unemployment which later led to the dismissal of her government by conservative President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

In 1993, Benazir Bhutto was re-elected for a second term after the 1993 parliamentary elections. She survived an attempted coup d'état in 1995, and her hard line against the trade unions and tough rhetorical opposition to her domestic political rivals and to neighboring India earned her the nickname "Iron Lady"; she is also respectfully referred to as B.B. In 1996, the charges of corruption leveled against her led to the final dismissal of her government by President Farooq Leghari. Benazir Bhutto conceded her defeat in the 1997 Parliamentary elections and went into self-imposed exile in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 1998.

After nine years of self-exile, she returned to Pakistan on 18 October 2007, after having reached an understanding with Military President General Pervez Musharraf, by which she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a bombing on 27 December 2007, after leaving PPP's last rally in the city of Rawalpindi, two weeks before the scheduled Pakistani general election of 2008 in which she was a leading opposition candidate. The following year, she was named one of seven winners of the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights.

Education and personal life[link]

Benazir Bhutto was born at Pinto Hospital in Karachi, Dominion of Pakistan on 21 June 1953. She was the eldest child of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a Pakistani of Sindhi descent, and Begum Nusrat Ispahani, a Pakistani Shia Muslim of Kurdish descent. Her paternal grandfather was Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto.

Bhutto was raised to speak both English and Urdu; English was her first language; and while she was fluent in Urdu, it was often colloquial rather than grammatical. Despite her family being Sindhi speakers, her Sindhi skills were almost non-existent.

She attended the Lady Jennings Nursery School and Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi. After two years at the Rawalpindi Presentation Convent, she was sent to the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed her O-level examinations at the age of 15. She then went on to complete her A-Levels at the Karachi Grammar School.

After completing her early education in Pakistan, she pursued her higher education in the United States. From 1969 to 1973 she attended Radcliffe College at Harvard University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with ''cum laude'' honors in comparative government. She was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Bhutto later called her time at Harvard "four of the happiest years of my life" and said it formed "the very basis of her belief in democracy". Later in 1995 as Prime Minister, she arranged a gift from the Pakistani government to Harvard Law School. In 1989, during her first visit, Benazir Bhutto was conferred with her honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree from Harvard University in 1989.

In June 2006, she received an Honorary LL.D degree from the University of Toronto.

The next phase of her education took place in the United Kingdom. Between 1973 and 1977 Bhutto studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, during which time she took additional courses in International Law and Diplomacy. After LMH she attended St Catherine's College, Oxford and in December 1976 she was elected president of the Oxford Union, becoming the first Asian woman to head the prestigious debating society.

On 18 December 1987, she married Asif Ali Zardari in Karachi. The couple had three children: two daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, and a son, Bilawal. When she gave birth to Bakhtawar in 1990, she became the first modern head of government to give birth while in office.

Family[link]

Benazir Bhutto's father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was removed from office following a military coup in 1977 led by the then chief of army General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who imposed martial law but promised to hold elections within three months. Instead of holding general elections, General Zia charged Bhutto with conspiring to murder the father of dissident politician Ahmed Raza Kasuri.

Despite the accusation being "widely doubted by the public", and many clemency appeals from foreign leaders, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged on 4 April 1979 under the effective orders of Supreme Court of Pakistan. Appeals for clemency were dismissed by Chief Martial Law Administrator General Zia-ul-Haq. Benazir Bhutto, her siblings, and her mother were held in a "police camp" until May 1979.

Martial Law: Arrest and imprisonment[link]

After 1979, Zulfi Bhutto's children and his wife struggle hard against the ruthless far-right wing military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, despite consequences to themselves for their opposition. Benazir Bhutto and her younger brother Murtaza spent the next eighteen months in and out of house arrest while she worked to rally political support in an attempt to force General Zia-ul-Haq to drop murder charges against her father. On behalf of Bhutto's former Law minister Abdul Hafeez Pirzada and Fakhruddin Abrahim, the Bhutto's family filed a petition at the Chief Martial Law Administrator Office for the reconsideration the sentence of Zulfikar Bhutto, and for the release of Bhutto's friend Dr. Mubashir Hassan. However, General Zia-ul-Haq claimed to have misplaced the petition, and further ignored worldwide appeals for clemency. Zulfikar Bhutto was hanged on April 1979 despite the international pressure. Following the hanging of Bhutto, Benazir and Murtaza were arrested repeatedly. Following PPP's victory in the local elections, General Zia postponed the national elections indefinitely and moved Benazir, Murtaza, and their mother Nusrat Bhutto from Karachi to Larkana Central Jail. This was the seventh time that Nusrat Bhutto and her children had been arrested within two years of the military coup. After repeatedly placing them under house arrest, the regime finally imprisoned her under solitary confinement in a desert cell at Sindh Province during the summer of 1981. She described the conditions in her wall-less cage in her book "''Daughter of Destiny''", which goes by the title of "Daughter of the East" in Commonwealth countries for copyright reasons:

After her six month imprisonment in Sukkur jail, she remained hospitalized for months after which she was shifted to Karachi Central Jail, where she remained imprisoned until 11 December 1981. She was then placed under house arrest in Larkana for eleven months and Karachi for fourteen.

Release and Self-exile[link]

In January 1984, after six years of house arrests and imprisonment, General Zia succumbed to international pressure and allowed Bhutto's family to travel abroad for medical reasons. After undergoing surgery, she resumed her political activities and began to raise awareness about the mistreatment of political prisoners in Pakistan at the hands of Zia regime. This intensified pressure forced General Zia into holding a referendum to give legitimacy to his government. The referendum held on 1 December 1984 proved to be a farce: only 10% of the voters bothered to turn out despite the state machinery. In 1985, Benazir Bhutto received news at a local hotel in Nice, France that her brother Shahnawaz Bhutto was murdered by poisoning. The Bhutto family believed that this was done under orders from General Zia-ul-Haq, prompting Zulfikar Bhutto's children to hide.

Further pressure from the international community forced General Zia to hold elections, for a unicameral legislature on a non-party basis. Benazir Bhutto announced a boycott of the election on the grounds that they were not being held in accordance with the constitution of Pakistan. She continued to raise her voice against human rights violations by the regime and addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 1985. In retaliation to the speech, Zia announced death sentences for 54 workers of her party at a military court in Lahore headed by Zia himself.

Political campaign[link]

Benazir Bhutto, who had returned to Pakistan after completing her studies, found herself placed under house arrest in the wake of her father's imprisonment and subsequent execution. Having been allowed to return to the United Kingdom in 1984, she became a leader in exile of the People's Party of Pakistan (PPP). For the first time in the history of Pakistan a woman was head of a major political party, though she was unable to make her political presence felt in Pakistan until after the death of General Zia-ul-Haq. She succeeded her mother as leader of the PPP and the pro-democracy opposition to the General Zia-ul-Haq regime.

1988 Parliamentary elections[link]

The seat, from which Benazir contested for the safe constituency for the post of Prime Minister in 1980s, namely, NA 207. This seat was considered a Bhutto Clan's post and first contested in 1926 by the late Sardar Wahid Bux Bhutto, in the first ever elections in Sindh, British Indian Empire. The elections were for the Central Legislative Assembly of India. Sardar Wahid Bux won, and became not only the first elected representative from Sindh to a democratically elected parliament, but also the youngest member of the Central Legislative Assembly at age 27. Wahid Bux's achievement was monumental as it was he who was the first Bhutto elected to a government, from a seat that would, thereafter, always be contested by his family members.

Therefore, it was he who paved the way for subsequent Bhuttos to enter Pakistani politics. Sardar Wahid Bux went on to be elected to the Bombay Council. After Wahid Bux's untimely and mysterious death at the age of 33, his younger brother Nawab Nabi Bux Bhutto contested from the same seat and remained undefeated until retirement. It was Nabi Bux who then gave this seat to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to contest in 1970. On 16 November 1988, the first open political elections in more than a decade were held and Benazir Bhutto won major provinces of Pakistan and had the largest percentile for seats in the National Assembly— a lower house of Parliament.

Prime minister[link]

First term (1988–1990)[link]

Benazir Bhutto became 11th Prime minister on 2 December 1988. Arriving at Prime minister Secretariat, Benazir Bhutto addresses the huge crowd:

Initially on December 2, Benazir Bhutto formed a coalition government with MQM, a liberal party, as her ally. As time passed, Bhutto quietly isolated MQM's influence from government and later ousted them, establishing a single party government and claiming the entire mandate from all of Pakistan. During this time, the effects of General Zia's domestic policies began to reveal themselves and she found them difficult to counter. During her first term, Benazir Bhutto vowed to repeal the controversial Hudood Ordinance and to revert the Eight Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto also promised to shift Pakistan's Semi-presidential system to Parliamentary system. But none of the reforms were made and Benazir began to struggle with conservative President Ghulam Ishaq Khan over the issues of executive authorities. President Khan repeatedly vetoed proposed laws and ordinances that would have lessened his Presidential authority. Benazir Bhutto's accomplishments during this time were in initiatives for nationalist reform and modernization, which some conservatives characterized as Westernization.

Relations with India and Afghanistan war[link]

Benazir took the office in the crucial and penultimate decade of Cold war, and closely aligned with the United States President George H. Bush, based on mutual their distrust of Communism, although she strongly opposed United States support of Afghan Mujaheddin which she labeled them as "America's Frankestein" during her first state visit to United States in 1989. Benazir Bhutto's government oversaw and witnessed the major events in the alignment of the middle east and the south asia. On the Western front, the Soviet Union was withdrawing its combatant forces in Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States-Pakistan alliance had broken off with the United States suspicions on nuclear weapons, in 1990. Benazir Bhutto deliberately attempted to warm the relations with neighboring India and met with Rajiv Gandhi in 1989 where she negotiated for a trade agreement when the Indian Premier paid a farewell visit to Pakistan. The goodwill relations with India continued until 1990 after V. P. Singh succeeded Gandhi as Premier. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) influence on Singh forced him to abrogate with agreements, and the tensions began to arise with Pakistan after BJP forced its hardline policies on Kashmir to Pakistan. Soon, the V.P. Singh administration launched the military operation in Kashmir to curbed the liberation movement. In response, Benazir allegedly gave authorization for covert operations to support Kashmiri succession movements in Indian Kashmir. In 1990, Major-General Pervez Musharraf who was the Director-General of the Directorate-General for the Military Operations (DGMO), proposed a strategic plan against India to Benazir Bhutto calling for a Kargil Infiltration, but Benazir refused because General Musharraf didn't have a strategy for dealing with any resultant international fallout. In 1988, Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul met with Bhutto and advocated for a plan supporting the Khalistan movement, a Sikh nationalist movement. General Gul justified this strategy as the only way of preempting a fresh Indian threat to Pakistan's territorial integrity. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto disagreed with his views and asked him to stop playing this "''Card''". General Gul refused and, politely told the Prime minister Benazir Bhutto in mocking French accent that, "Madame' Prime minister, keeping [Indian] Punjab destabilized is equivalent... to the Pakistan Army.... having an extra division at no cost to the taxpayers...".

On the Western front, Benazir Bhutto also authorized further aggressive military operations in Afghanistan to topple the fragile communist regime and the Soviet influence in the region. One of her notable military authorizations was military action in Jalalabad of Soviet Afghanistan in retaliation for the Soviet Union's long unconditional support of India, a proxy war in Pakistan, and Pakistan's loss in the 1965 and 1971 wars. This operation was "a defining moment for her [Benazir's] government" to prove the loyalty to Pakistan Armed Forces. This operation planned by then-Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (''ISI'') Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul, with inclusion of U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Robert Oakley. Known as Battle of Jalalabad, it was intended to gain a conventional victory on Soviet Union after Soviet Union had withdrawn its troops. The central planner of this operation was Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul who gained Bhutto's permission and authorization after he had briefed her on the Afghanistan situation. The mission, planned solely by Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul, brutally failed in a matter of two months with no effective results produced. The morale of the mujahideen involved in the attack slumped and many local commanders ended truces with the government. Angered and frustrated with the outcomes of the operation, Benazir Bhutto, who was already displeased with Gul, immediately deposed and sacked Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul while his rank was not degraded but his pay rate was made equivalent to Major rank officer. Bhutto's decision to depose Gul was one of her authoritative moves that surprised many senior statesman, though they did back her. She replaced Gul with another Lieutenant General Shamsur Rahman Kallu who proved to be more a capable officer in the Afghan war than Gul. After Gul's removal, Benazir Bhutto took the matter into her own hands by favoring a political settlement between all the Afghan Mujaheddin factions and hence international legitimacy for the new government. This was never achieved and the factions began fighting each other, further destabilizing the country. Benazir also promoted and strengthened relations with the United Kingdom, and met with British counter part Margaret Thatcher where a finance assistance and trade agreement was signed by both prime ministers. In all, during her first government, Benazir Bhutto's foreign policy revolved around Afghanistan, India, and the United States.

Science policy[link]

While on her trip to United Kingdom in 1990, Benazir Bhutto paid a visit to Dr. Abdus Salam, a Nobel laureate in Physics and science advisor of her father, where she had paid great respect to Abdus Salam. During her first and second term, Benazir Bhutto followed the same policy on science and technology as her father did in 1972, and promoted the military funding of science and technology as part of her policy. However, in 1988, Benazir Bhutto was denied access to any of the country's classified national research institutes run under the Pakistan Armed Forces which maintained under the control of civilian President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the Chief of Army Staff. Ironically, Benazir Bhutto was deliberately kept unaware about the progress of the nuclear complexes when country passed the milestone of manufacturing fissile core decades ago. At there, Benazir Bhutto learned to status of this crash program which had been matured since 1978, and on behalf of dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, Benazir first paid the visit to KRL in 1989 which angered the President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. Benazir Bhutto also responded to Khan when she moved the Ministry of Science and Technology's office to the Prime minister Secretariat with Munir Ahmad Khan directly reporting to her. }} In 1980s, Benazir Bhutto started aerospace projects such as ''Project Sabre II'', ''Project PAC'', ''Ghauri project'' under dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan in 1990 and the ''Shaheen programme'' in 1995 under dr. Samar Mubarakmand. The starting of the integrated space weapons programme was one of the major contributions that enhanced Pakistan's atomic bomb program as well. One of her initiatives was the launching of the an ambitious package of computer literacy through participation from the private sector. }} It was during her regime that Pressler amendment came in effect in an attempt to freeze the programme. Benazir Bhutto also carried messages to Munir Ahmad Khan from her father and back in 1979 as her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had instructed his daughter to remain in touch with the Chairman of PAEC. In this context, Bhutto had appointed Munir Ahmad Khan as her Science Adviser who kept her informed about the development of the programme. In all, the nuclear weapons and energy program remained Benazir's top priority as with the country's economy. During her first term, the nuclear program was under attack and under pressure by the Western world, particularly the United States. Despite the economic aid that was offered by the European Union and the United States in return to halt or freeze the program, Benazir did not compromise and continued this crash program under her first and second regime.

During her first term, Bhutto had approved and launched the Shaheen programme as she had advocated for this programme strongly. A vocal and avid supporter of the program, Bhutto also allotted funds for the programme, and strategic programs were launched under Bhutto's premiership. On 6 January 1996, Bhutto publicly announced that if India conducts a nuclear test, Pakistan could be forced to "follow suit". Bhutto later said that the day will never arise when we have to use our knowledge to make and detonate a [nuclear] device and export our technology.

}}

Space programme[link]

Benazir Bhutto continued her policy to modernize and expand the space programme and as part of this policy, Benazir Bhutto launched and supervised the clandestine project, Integrated research programme (IRP)— a missile programme which remained under Benazir Bhutto's watch and successfully ended in 1996, also under her auspices. With launching of ''Badr-I'', Pakistan under Benazir Bhutto, became the first Muslim country to have launch and placed the satellite in Earth's orbit, second only after India. She declared the "1990", an year of space in Pakistan and conferred national awards to scientists and engineers who took participation in the development of this satellite.

1989 military scandal[link]

In 1989, public media reported a sting operation and political scandal codename, ''Midnight Jackal'', when former members of ''ISI'' hatched to topple the government of Benazir. ''Midnight Jackal'' was a political intelligence operation launched under President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the Chief of Army Staff General Mirza Aslam Beg, and the objectives were to bring the Vote of no confidence movement in the Parliament by bribing the members of Benazir's own party. With the following revelation of ''Midnight Jackal'', Benazir had successfully undermined Khan's importance in national politics and his influence in government-ruling operations on the day-to-day basis. Benazir Bhutto began regularly to attend lunches at the Institute of Development Economics (IDE), a think tank founded in 1950s; she had been visiting IDE and reading its publications since the mid 1970s. During this time, the IDA launched a secret campaign against Benazir Bhutto's image to demoralized the party workers; this campaign brutally backfired on Nawaz Sharif when the media exposed the culprits and motives behind this plot. More than Rs. 5 million were spent on this campaign and it had undermined the credibility of Conservatives who also failed to resolve issues among between them.

Despite an economic recovery in the late 1993, the IDA government faced public unease about the direction of the country and a industrialization revolved and centered only in Punjab Province. Amid protest and civil disorder in Sindh Province, following the imposition of Operation Clean-up, the IDA government lost the control of the province. The Peoples Party attacked the IDA government's unemployment records, and industrial racism. However, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissal the conservatives government on same charges when Sharif attempted to revert the 8th Amendment but was unsuccessful, therefore he was forced to resign and his government was later dismissed. Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto united to oust the Conservative President who lost the control of the country in matter of weeks. Khan too was forced to resign with Nawaz Sharif in 1993, and an interim government was formed until the new government. A parliamentary election was called after the resignation of Nawaz Sharif and Ghulam Ishaq Khan by Pakistan Armed Forces. Both Sharif and Benazir Bhutto compaigned with full force, targeting each other's personalities. Their policies were very similar but saw a clash of personalities with both parties making many promises but not explaining how they were going to pay for them.

Sharif stood on his record of privitisations and development projects and pledged to restore his taxi giveaway program. Bhutto promised price supports for agriculture, pledged a partnership between government and business and campaigned strongly for the female vote.

Second term (1993–1996)[link]

Though the Pakistan People's Party won the most seats in the election at 86 but failed to gain a majority with the PML-N second with 73 seats in the Parliament. Benazir Bhutto performed extremely well on her native province, Sindh, and rural Punjab, while the PML-N was strongest in industrial Punjab and the largest cities such as Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. On 19 October 1993, Benazir Bhutto was sworn as Prime minister for second term allowing her to continue her reform initiatives. Her standing poll rose by 38% after she appeared and said in a private television interview after the elections: "We are unhappy with the manner in which tampered electoral lists were provided in a majority of constituencies; our voters were turned away." Though the operation was halted in 1995, Amid union and labor strikes began to take place in Karachi and Lahore, which were encouraged by both Altaf Hussain and Nawaz Sharif to undermined her authority. Benazir Bhutto responded by disbanding these trade union and issuing orders to arrest the leaders of the trade unions, while on other hand, Benazir Bhutto provide incentives to local workers and laborers as she had separated the workers from their union leaders successfully. Benazir Bhutto expanded the authoritative rights of Police Combatant Force and the provisional governments that tackled the local opposition aggressively. Benazir Bhutto, though her Internal Security Minister Naseerullah Babar, intensified the internal security operations and steps gradually putting down the opposition's political rallies, while she did not complete abandoned the reconciliation policy. In her own worlds, Benazir Bhutto announced: "There was no basis for (strikes)... in view of the on going political process...".

In August 1993, Benazir Bhutto narrowly escaped an assassination attempt near at the local hotel in the early morning. While no one was injured or killed, the culprits of this attempt were went into hiding. In December 1993, disturbing news began to surfaces in Swat valley when Sufi Muhammad, a religious cleric, began to mobilize the local militia calling for overthrow of Un-Islamic rule of [Iron] Lady. Bhutto was pro-life and spoke forcefully against abortion, most notably at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, where she accused the West of "seeking to impose adultery, abortion, intercourse education and other such matters on individuals, societies and religions which have their own social ethos." However, Bhutto was not supported by the leading women organizations, who argued that after being elected twice, none of the reforms were made, instead controversial laws were exercised more toughly. Therefore, in 1997 elections, Bhutto failed to secure any support from women's organizations and minorities also gave Bhutto the cold-shoulder when she approached them. It was not until 2006 that the Zina ordinance was finally repealed by a Presidential Ordinance issued by Pervez Musharraf in July 2006.

Bhutto was an active and founding member of the Council of Women World Leaders, a network of current and former prime ministers and presidents.

Economic issues[link]

Benazir Bhutto was an economist by profession; therefore during her terms, Benazir Bhutto had no Minister to lead the Ministry of Treasury. Benazir Bhutto herself appointed as Treasure Minister, taking the charge of economic and financial affairs on her hand. Benazir sought to improve the country's economy which was declining as the time was passing. Benazir disagreed with her father's nationalization and socialist economics. Soon after the collapse of Soviet Union, Benazir attempted to privatize major industries that were nationalized in 1970s. Benazir Bhutto promised to end the nationalization programme and to carried out the industrialization programme by means other than the state intervention. Benazir and Ghulam Ishaq Khan soon suffered a currency crises when the government failed to arrest the 30% fall in the value of the Pakistan Rupee from Rs. 21 to Rs. 30 to currency compare and contrast to US$. Soon economic progress became her top priority but her investment and industrialization programs faced major setbacks due to conceptions formed by investors based upon her People's Party nationalization program in 1970s. By the 1990s, Khan and Benazir Bhutto's government had also ultimately lost the currency war with the Indian currency and Indian Rupee beat the value of Pakistan rupee for the first time in 1970s. Benazir Bhutto's denationalization program also suffered from many political setbacks, as many of her government members were either directly or indirectly involved with the government corruption in major government-owned industries, and her appointed government members allegedly sabotaged her efforts to privatized the industries.

Overall, the living standard for people in Pakistan declined as inflation and unemployment grew at an exponential rate particularly as UN sanctions began to bite . During her first and second term, the difference between rich and poor visibly increased and the middle class in particular were the ones who suffered from the major economic inequality. According to a calculation completed by the Federal Bureau of Statistics, the rich were statistically were improved and the poor were declined in terms of living standards. Benazir attributed this economic inequality to be a result of ongoing and continuous illegal Bengali immigration. Benazir Bhutto ordered a crackdown on and deportation of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. Her action strained and created tensions in Bangladesh–Pakistan relations, with Khaleda Zia, who was in power in Dhaka during the time. He refused to accept the deportees and reportedly sent two planeloads back to Pakistan. Religious parties also criticized Bhutto and dubbed the crackdown as anti-Islamic.

This operation backlashed and had devastating effects on Pakistan's economy. Ghulam Ishaq Khan who saw this as a major economic failure despite Khan's permission was required by Benazir Bhutto for the approval of her economic policies. Khan blamed Benazir for this extensive economic slowdown and her policy that failed to stop the illegal immigration. Khan attributed Benazir Bhutto's government members corruption in government-owned industries as the major sink hole in Pakistan's economy that failed to compete with neighboring India's economy.

Privatization[link]

During her second term, Benazir Bhutto continued to follow former Prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Privatization policies, which she called "disciplined macroeconomics policy". After the 1993 elections the sale of state-owned banks and utilities accelerated; more than Rs.42 billion was raised from the sale of nationalized corporations and industries, and another $20 billion from the foreign investment made the United States.

Furthermore, Benazir denied the privatization of the Pakistan Railways despite the calls were made in Pakistan, and was said to have told to Chairman of the Planning Commission Naveed Qamar, "Railways privatization will be the "blackhole" of this government. Please never mention the railways to me again". Benazir Bhutto always resisted to privatized the UBL, but UBL management sent the recommendation for the privatization which dismayed the labor union. The United Group of Employees Management (UGEM) asked the Madame Prime minister for issue of regulation sheet which she denied. The holding of UBL in government control turned out to be a move that ended in "disaster" for Benazir Bhutto's government.

Foreign policy[link]

Benazir Bhutto's foreign policy were controversial and difficult for experts to describe. As for her second term, Benazir Bhutto expanded Pakistan's relations with the rest of the world. As before like her father, Benazir Bhutto sought to strengthen the relations with socialist states, and Benazir Bhutto first visit Libya to strengthened the relations with then-Socialist Peoples Republic of Libya. Benazir also thanked Muammar al-Gaddafi for his tremendous efforts and support for her father during the 1977. Ties continued with Libya but deteriorated after Nawaz Sharif became Prime minister in 1990 and again in 1997. In Pakistan, Qaddafi was said to be very fond of Benazir Bhutto and was a family friend of Bhutto family, but disliked Nawaz Sharif due to his ties with General Zia in the 1980s. Benazir Bhutto is said to have paid a state visit to North Korea in early 1990 and in 1996, and according to journalist Shyam Bhatia, Bhutto smuggled CDs containing uranium enrichment data to North Korea on a state visit that same year in return for data on missile technology. According to the expert, Benazir Bhutto acted as female "James Bond", and left with a bag of computer disks to pass on to her military to North Korea.

Major-General Pervez Musharraf closely worked with Benazir Bhutto and her government in formulating the foreign strategy with Israel. In 1993, during Benazir Bhutto's state visit to the United States, Major-General Pervez Musharraf who was tenuring as the Director-General of the Pakistan Army's Directorate-General for the Military Operation (DGMO), was ordered by Bhutto to join this state visit. As unusual and unconventional it was for the Director of the Directorate-General for Military Operations (DGMO) to join this trip, Benazir Bhutto and her DGMO had chaired a secret meeting with Israeli officials in New York in 1993 who especially flew to Washington. Under her guidance, General Musharraf had intensified the ''ISI'''s liaison with Israel's Mossad. A final meeting took place in 1995, and General Musharraf had also joined this meeting with Benazir Bhutto after she ordered General Musharraf to fly to New York immediately. Benazir Bhutto also strengthened relations with communist state Vietnam and visited Vietnam to sign the mutual trade and international political cooperation between both countries. She was successful in getting the United States to pass the Brown Amendment which released Pakistani government funds which had been frozen after the Pressler Amendment, However the arms exports ban remained.

During her second term, the relationship with P. V. Narasimha Rao of India further deteriorated. As like her father, Benazir Bhutto used the rhetoric opposition to India, campaigning international community against the Indian nuclear programme. On May 1, 1995, Benazir Bhutto used harsh language and publicly warned India for her "continuation of [Indian] nuclear programme would have terrible consequences". When the news reached to Benazir Bhutto, she responded by high-alerting the Air Force Strategic Command which, heavily armed ''Arrows'', ''Griffins'', ''Black Panthers'' and the ''Black Spiders'' (all of these squadrons are part of the Strategic Command) began to take the air sorties and patrol the Indo-Pakistan border on day and night regular missions. It was a highly controversial agreement, but it had tripled the Pakistan's naval capabilities that later posed a substantial threat to Indian Navy to launch a naval adventure against Pakistan.; Benazir Bhutto later deployed the Pakistan Navy's ''Mu-90'' torpedo, and authorized an submarine operation to patrol the vicinity of Pakistan naval borders in order to keep Indian Navy away from the economical ports.

In 1995, the ''ISI'' reported to the Madame Prime minister that P.V. Narasimha Rao, Indian Premier had given an authorization for nuclear tests, and the tests could be conducted any minute. emergency preparations were made by the government, and Benazir Bhutto ordered the Pakistan Armed Forces to stay on high-alert. Benazir Bhutto, accompanied by her then-Speaker of the National Assembly Yousaf Raza Gillani (now Prime minister) at the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting at the United Nations, gave a vehement and intensified criticism to India which frustrated, upsat and angered the Indian delegation headed by Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Benazir Bhutto criticized Indian held-Kashmir and described it as the worst example of ''Indian intransigence''. In 1988, Benazir Bhutto appointed General Hakimullah as the Chief of Air Staff and Admiral Jastural Haq as the Chief of Naval Staff. In 1988, shortly after assuming the office, Benazir Bhutto paid a visit to Siachen region, to boost the moral of the soldiers who fought the Siachen war with India. This was the first visit of any civilian leader to any military war-zone area since the country's independence in 1947. In 1988, Benazir appointed Major-General Pervez Musharraf as Director-general of the Army Directorate General for Military Operations (DGMO); and then-Brigadier-General Ishfaq Pervez Kayani as her Military-Secretary. In 1989, the Pakistan Army exposed the alleged ''Operation Midnight Jackal'' against the government of Benazir Bhutto. When she learned the news, Benazir Bhutto ordered the arrest and trial of former ''ISI'' officer Brigadier Imtiaz Ahmad and Major Amir Khan, it was late revealed that it was General Beg who was behind this plot. She continued her father's policy on Afghanistan taking aggressive measures to curbed down the anti-Pakistan sentiments in Afghanistan. During this time, many in international community at the time including the United States government, viewed the Taliban as a group that could stabilize Afghanistan and enable trade access to the Central Asian republics, according to author Stephen Coll.

He claims that her government provided military and financial support for the Taliban, even sending a small unit of the Pakistan Army into Afghanistan. and later assisted Benazir Bhutto to help the regime of Taliban she established the Taliban's Afghanistan.

Coup d'état attempt[link]

In 1995, Benazir Bhutto's government survived an attempted coup d'état hatched by renegade military officers of the Pakistan Army. The culprit and ringleader of the coup was a junior level officer, Major-General Zahirul Islam Abbasi, who had radical views. Others included Brigadier-Generals Mustansir Billa, and Qari Saifullah of Pakistan Army. The secret ''ISI'' learned of this plot and tipped off the Pakistan Army and at midnight before the coup could take place, it was thwarted. The coup was exposed by Lieutenant-General (retired) Ali Kuli Khan, at that time Major-General and head of the Military Intelligence, and Lieutenant-General (retired) Jehangir Karamat, Chief of General Staff. The Military Intelligence led the arrest of 36 army officers and 20 civilians in Rawalpindi; General Ali Kuli Khan reported to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto early morning and submitted his report on the coup. After learning this, Benazir was angered and dismayed, therefore a full-fledged running court martial was formed by Benazir Bhutto. Prime Minister Benazir issued arrests of numbers of religiously conservatives leaders and therefore denied the amnesty and clemency calls made by the Army officers. By the 1996, all of the dissident officers were either jailed or shot dead by the Pakistan Army and a report was submitted to the Prime minister. As in return, General Kuli Khan and General Karamat received wide appreciation from the Prime minister and were decorated with the civilian decorations and award by her.

Death of younger brother[link]

In 1996, the Bhutto family suffered another tragedy in Sindh Province, Benazir Bhutto's stronghold and political lair. Murtaza Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto's younger brother, was controversially and publicly shot down in a police encounter in Karachi. Since 1989, Murtaza and Benazir had a series of disagreements on formulating the Pakistan Peoples Party's policies and Murtaza's opposition towards Benazir's operations against the Urdu-speaking class. Murtaza also developed serious disagreement with Benazir's spouse Asif Ali Zardari, and unsuccessfully attempted to remove his influence in the government. Benazir and Murtaza's mother, Nusrat Bhutto, sided with Murtaza which also dismayed the daughter. In a controversial interview, Benazir declared that Pakistan only needed one Bhutto, not two, though she denied giving or passing any comments. Her younger brother increasingly made it difficult for her to run the government after he raised voices against Benazir's alleged corruption. Alone in Sindh, Benazir lost the support of the province to her younger brother. At the political campaign, Murtaza demanded party elections inside the Pakistan Peoples Party, which according to Zardari, Benazir would have lost due to Nusrat backing Murtaza and many workers inside the party being willing to see Murtaza as the country's Prime minister as well as the chair of the party. More problems arose when Abdullah Shah Lakiyari, Chief Minister of Sindh, and allegedly her spouse created disturbances in Murtaza's political campaign. On 20 September 1996, in a controversial police encounter, Murtaza Bhutto was shot dead near his residence along with six other party activists. As the news reached all of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto hurriedly returned to Karachi, and an emergency was proclaimed in the entire province. Benazir Bhutto's limo was stoned by angered PPP workers when she tried to visit Murtaza's funeral ceremonies. Her brother's death had crushed their mother, and she was immediately admitted to the local hospital after learning that her son had been killed. At Murtaza's funeral, Nusrat accused Benazir and Zardari of being responsible, and vowed to pursue prosecution.

President Farooq Leghari, who dismissed the Bhutto government seven weeks after Murtaza's death, also suspected Benazir and Zardari's involvement. Several of Pakistan's leading newspapers alleged that Zardari wanted his brother-in-law out of the way because of Murtaza's activities as head of a breakaway faction of the PPP. In all, after this incident, Benazir Bhutto lost all support from Sindh Province. Public opinion later turned against her, with many believing that her spouse was involved in the murder, a claim her spouse strongly rejected.

Dismissal[link]

In spite of her tough rhetorical actions to subdue her political rivals and neighboring India and Afghanistan, the government corruption heightened and exceeded its limits during her second regime by her appointed government members and cabinet ministers, most notable figures were both Asif Ali Zardari and Admiral Mansurl Haq. Soon after the death of her younger brother, Benazir Bhutto widely became notorious and public opinion turned against her government. In Sindh Province, Benazir Bhutto lost all the support from the powerful feudal lords and political spectrum that turned against her. In 1996, the major civil-military scandal became internationally and nationally known when her spouse Asif Ali Zardari (now the current President of Pakistan) was linked with then-Chief of Naval Staff and former Admiral Mansurol Haque. Known as Agosta class scandal, many of higher naval admirals and government officials of both French and Pakistan were accused to have get paid heavy commission while the deal was disclosed to sell this sensitive submarine technology to Pakistan Navy.

In November 1996, Bhutto's government was dismissed by Leghari primarily because of corruption and Murtaza's death, who used the Eighth Amendment discretionary powers to dissolve the government. Benazir was in shocked when she discovered that it was not the military who had dismissed her but her own hand-picked puppet President who had used the power to dismiss her, therefore backed by military, she turned to Supreme Court hoping for gaining Leghari's actions unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court justified and affirmed President Leghari's dismissal in a 6–1 ruling. Many military leaders who were close to Prime minister rather than the President, did not wanted Benazir Bhutto's government to fall, as they resisted the Nawaz Sharif's conservatism. When President Leghari, through public media, discovered that General Kakar (Chief of Army Staff), General Khattak (Chief of Air Staff), and Admiral Haq (Chief of Naval Staff) had been backing Benazir to come back in the government; President Leghari aggressively responded by deposing the entire military leadership by bringing the pro-western democracy views but neutral military leadership that would supervised the upcoming forth elections. This was the move that Prime minister Nawaz Sharif (elected in 1997) did repeat in 1999, when Nawaz Sharif had deposed General Jehangir Karamat after developing serious disagreements on the issues of national security. (see Dismissal of General Jehangir Karamat).

Criticism against Benazir Bhutto came from the powerful political spectrum of the Punjab Province and the Kashmir Province who opposed Benazir Bhutto, particularly the nationalization issue that led the lost of Punjab's privatized industries under the hands of her government. Bhutto blamed this opposition for the destabilization of Pakistan. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Jehangir Karamat at one point intervened in the conflict between President and the Prime minister, and urged Benazir Bhutto to focus on good governance and her ambitious programme of making the country the welfare state, but the misconduct of her cabinet ministers continued and the corruption which she was unable to struck it down with a full force. Her younger brother's death had devastating effect on Benazir's image and her political career that shrunk her and her party's entire credibility. At one point, Chairman of Joint Chiefs General Jehangir Karamat noted that:

Soon after her government was ended, the Naval intelligence led the arrest of Chief of Naval Staff and acquitted him with a running court-martial sat up at the Naval Judge Advocate General Corps led by active duty 4-star admiral. Many of her government members and cabinet ministers including her spouse were thrown in jails and the trials were sat up at the civilian Supreme Court. Faced with serious charges by the Navaz Sharif's government, Bhutto flew to Dubai with her three young children while her spouse was thrown in jail. Shortly after rising to power in a 1999 military coup, General Pervez Musharraf characterized Bhutto's terms as an "''era of sham democracy''" and others characterized her terms a period of corrupt, failed governments.

Parliamentary opposition (1996–1999)[link]

Benazir Bhutto suffered wide range public disapproval after the intense corruption cases were made public, and it was clearly seen after Benazir Bhutto's defeat in 1997 parliamentary elections. Soon, Benazir left for Dubai taking her three children with her, while her husband was set to face trial.

Bhutto assumed the position of Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament despite living in Dubai, working to enhance her public image whilst being supportive of public reforms. In 1998, soon after the Indian nuclear tests, Benazir publicly called for the tests, rallying and pressuring the elected Prime minister Nawaz Sharif to take the decision. Benazir had political intelligence from within close circles of the Prime minister that the elected Prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, was reluctant and hesitated to give authorization to the tests. Therefore, it was felt, her public call for the Test would increase her popularity. Benazir criticized Sharif for violating the Armed Forces's code of conduct when the Prime minister illegally appointed General Pervez Musharraf as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Senior scientist, dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, also criticized the Prime minister for making this move and rendered as Prime minister's unforgettable and biggest mistake, though he traced his remarks later.

In early months of 1999, Sharif remained widely popular while Sharif took initiatives to make peace with neighboring India. However, this all changed when Pakistan became involved with unpopular and undeclared war with India. This conflict, known as Kargil war, brought international embarrassment for the country, and the Prime minister's public image and prestige was destroyed in matter of two months. Benazir gave rogue criticism to the elected Prime minister, and called the Kargil War, "''Pakistan's greatest blunder''"

Lieutenant-General (retired) Ali Kuli Khan, Director-General of ''ISI'' at that time, also publicly criticized the Prime minister and labeled this war as "''a disaster bigger than East-Pakistan''". Benazir Bhutto, now joined by religious and liberal forces, made a tremendous effort to destroy the prestige and credibility of elected Prime minister, according to south Asia expert William Dalrymple. In August 1999, Sharif soon suffered another military disaster that completely shattered the Prime minister's image and mandate. In August, two Indian Air Force's MiG-21FL shot down the Pakistan Navy's reconnaissance plane killing 16 naval officers. Benazir Bhutto criticized the Prime minister for having failed to gather any support for the navy and publicly marks the comments on the Prime minister's declining of support of Navy. Sharif's relations with the Pakistan Armed Forces deteriorated as the Armed Forces began to criticized the Prime minister for causing the military disasters. During this time, Benazir's approval ratings were favorable and received a wide range of positive approvals in civil society. The Armed Forces Chiefs remained sympathetic towards Benazir as she continued to criticize the elected Prime minister.

}}

Benazir Bhutto was highly confident that her party would secure an overwhelming victory in the coming Senate elections on 1999 on Navaz Sharif's party in the Senate secretariat due to wide disapproval of the Prime minister. Controversially, when the coup d'état was initiated by Pakistan Armed Forces, Benazir Bhutto did not issue any comments or criticism, rather remaining silent in the support of General Pervez Musharraf, as noted by south Asia expert William Dalrymple.

Benazir remained supportive towards General Musharraf's massive arrests of Nawaz Sharif's workers in Pakistan. Ultimately, General Musharraf had destroyed and shattered Nawaz Sharif's political presence in Sindh and Kashmir Provinces. Many political offices of Sharif's constituency were forcefully closed and Sharif's sympathetic elements were forcefully jailed. In 2002, Benazir Bhutto and the MQM made a side-line deal with General Musharraf that allows both to continue underground political activities in Sindh and Kashmir Provinces and to fill the gap after Musharraf had destroyed Sharif's presence in the both provinces. It was seen clearly in 2008 parliamentary elections, when Nawaz Sharif failed to secure any vote back in Sindh and Kashmir Provinces. As aftermath of 2008, the PPP and the MQM formed the coalition government in Sindh and Kashmir Provinces and strongly opposed Nawaz Sharif in both provinces.

Charges of corruption[link]

After the dismissal of Bhutto's first government on 6 August 1990 by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan on the grounds of corruption, the government of Pakistan issued directives to its intelligence agencies to investigate the allegations. After fourth national elections, Nawaz Sharif became the Prime Minister and intensified prosecution proceedings against Bhutto. Pakistani embassies through western Europe, in France, Switzerland, Spain, Poland and Britain were directed to investigate the matter. Bhutto and her husband faced a number of legal proceedings, including a charge of laundering money through Swiss banks. Though never convicted, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, spent eight years in prison on similar corruption charges. After being released on bail in 2004, Zardari suggested that his time in prison involved torture; human rights groups have supported his claim that his rights were violated.

A 1998 ''New York Times'' investigative report claims that Pakistani investigators have documents that uncover a network of bank accounts, all linked to the family's lawyer in Switzerland, with Asif Zardari as the principal shareholder. According to the article, documents released by the French authorities indicated that Zardari offered exclusive rights to Dassault, a French aircraft manufacturer, to replace the air force's fighter jets in exchange for a 5% commission to be paid to a Swiss corporation controlled by Zardari. The article also said a Dubai company received an exclusive license to import gold into Pakistan for which Asif Zardari received payments of more than $10 million into his Dubai-based Citibank accounts. The owner of the company denied that he had made payments to Zardari and claims the documents were forged.

Bhutto maintained that the charges leveled against her and her husband were purely political. An Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) report supports Bhutto's claim. It presents information suggesting that Benazir Bhutto was ousted from power in 1990 as a result of a witch hunt approved by then-president Ghulam Ishaq Khan. The AGP report says Khan illegally paid legal advisers 28 million rupees to file 19 corruption cases against Bhutto and her husband in 1990–92.

Yet the assets held by Bhutto and her husband continue to be scrutinized and speculated about. The prosecutors have alleged that their Swiss bank accounts contain £740 million. Zardari also bought a neo-Tudor mansion and estate worth over £4 million in Surrey, England, UK. The Pakistani investigations have tied other overseas properties to Zardari's family. These include a $2.5 million manor in Normandy owned by Zardari's parents, who had modest assets at the time of his marriage. Bhutto denied holding substantive overseas assets.

Despite numerous cases and charges of corruption registered against Bhutto by Nawaz Sharif between 1996–1999 and Pervez Musharraf from 1999 till 2008, she was yet to be convicted in any case after a lapse of twelve years since their commencement. The cases were withdrawn by the government of Pakistan after the return to power of Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party in 2008.

Early 2000s in exile[link]

The end of 1999s, the one-time populist prime minister Nawaz Sharif had became widely unpopular, and following the military coup, Sharif's credibility, image, and even his career was destroyed by General Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Musharraf formed the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) in order to politically vanished the former prime minister's party in Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber, and Kashmir Provinces. The Pakistan Muslim League (Q) had consisted of those who were initially part of the former prime minister's party but then moved with Musharraf in order to avoid prosecution and going to jail. The year of 2000 brought positive changes for Benazir Bhutto who widely became unpopular in Pakistan in 1996. In 2000s, following the declassification of secret Hamoodur Rahman Commission's papers and other secret documents of 1970s, Benazir Bhutto's support in Pakistan began to take place. Her image in the country widely became positive and People's Party seemed to be coming back in the government soon the new elections were scheduled to take place. Amid fear of coming back of Benazir Bhutto threatened Pervez Musharraf, therefore, Musharraf released many of the political prisoners of the liberal-secular force, the Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM). Musharraf saw MQM as the vital political weapon of holding back of Pakistan Peoples Party. But, MQM had only support in Karachi at that time, and lacked its support to urban areas of Sindh, which remained a vital threat for Musharraf.

Therefore, in 2002, Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf amended Pakistan's constitution to ban prime ministers from serving more than two terms, fearing the comeback of Benazir Bhutto. This disqualified Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif from ever holding the office again. This move was widely considered to be a direct attack on former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. On 3 August 2003, Bhutto became a member of Minhaj ul Quran International (an international Muslim educational and welfare organization).

Public life[link]

While living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, she cared for her three children and her mother Nusrat, who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, traveling to give lectures and keeping in touch with the PPP's supporters. They were reunited with her husband in December 2004 after more than five years. In 2006, Interpol issued a request for the arrest of Bhutto and her husband on corruption charges, at the request of Pakistan. The Bhuttos questioned the legality of the requests in a letter to Interpol. On 27 January 2007, she was invited by the United States to speak to President George W. Bush and Congressional and State Department officials. Bhutto appeared as a panellist on the BBC TV programme ''Question Time'' in the UK in March 2007. She has also appeared on BBC current affairs programme ''Newsnight'' on several occasions. She rebuffed comments made by Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq in May 2007 regarding the knighthood of Salman Rushdie, citing that he was calling for the assassination of foreign citizens.

Intention to return to Pakistan[link]

Bhutto had declared her intention to return to Pakistan within 2007, which she did, in spite of Musharraf's statements of May 2007 about not allowing her to return ahead of the country's general election, due late 2007 or early 2008. It was speculated that she may have been offered the office of Prime Minister again.

Attitudes toward Urdu-speaking class[link]

In 1980s, Benazir Bhutto removed the Urdu-speaking Dr. Mubashir Hassan, co-founder of Pakistan People's Party and close friend of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto some attribute this is her dislike of "muhajirs" whilst others attribute it to Dr Hasan was unhappy with PPP's move away from traditional socialism and anti US spirit. From the inception of the party, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had enjoyed a strong relations with Urdu-speaking communities and ''muhajirs'' had strong base in People's Party of Pakistan, and remained supporter of her father till the end. Many attribute Benazir's hatred towards Muhajir, was the imposition of martial law and then hanging of her father by General Zia-ul-Haq, a Punjabi ''muhajir'' from Jalandhar.

U.S. attempt for a Musharaff-Bhutto deal[link]

By mid-2007, the U.S. appeared to be pushing for a deal in which Musharraf remained president and step down as military head, and either Bhutto or one of her nominees became prime minister.

On 11 July 2007, the Associated Press, in an article about the possible aftermath of the Red Mosque incident, wrote:

Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister and opposition leader expected by many to return from exile and join Musharraf in a power-sharing deal after year-end general elections, praised him for taking a tough line on the Red Mosque.

"I'm glad there was no cease-fire with the militants in the mosque because cease-fires simply embolden the militants," she told Britain's Sky TV on Tuesday. "There will be a backlash, but at some time we have to stop appeasing the militants."

This remark about the Red Mosque was seen with dismay in Pakistan as reportedly hundreds of young students were burned to death and remains are untraceable and cases are being heard in Pakistani supreme court as a missing persons issue. This and subsequent support for Musharraf led Elder Bhutto's comrades like Khar to criticize her publicly.

Bhutto however advised Musharraf in an early phase of the latter's quarrel with the Chief Justice, to restore him. Her PPP did not capitalize on its CEC member, Aitzaz Ahsan, the chief Barrister for the Chief Justice, in successful restoration. Rather he was seen as a rival and was isolated.

2002 election[link]

The Bhutto-led PPP secured the highest number of votes (28.42%) and won eighty seats (23.16%) in the national assembly during the October 2002 general elections. Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) managed to win only eighteen seats. Some of the elected candidates of PPP formed a faction of their own, calling it PPP-Patriots, which was being led by Faisal Saleh Hayat, the former leader of Bhutto-led PPP. They later formed a coalition government with Musharraf's party, PML-Q.

Return to Pakistan[link]

Possible deal with the Musharraf Government[link]

In mid-2002 Musharraf implemented a two-term limit on Prime Ministers. Both Bhutto and Musharraf's other chief rival, Nawaz Sharif, had already served two terms as Prime Minister.

In July 2007, some of Bhutto's frozen funds were released. Bhutto continued to face significant charges of corruption. In an 8 August 2007 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Bhutto revealed the meeting focused on her desire to return to Pakistan for the 2008 elections, and of Musharraf retaining the Presidency with Bhutto as Prime Minister. On 29 August 2007, Bhutto announced that Musharraf would step down as chief of the army. On 1 September 2007, Bhutto vowed to return to Pakistan "very soon", regardless of whether or not she reached a power-sharing deal with Musharraf before then.

On 17 September 2007, Bhutto accused Musharraf's allies of pushing Pakistan into crisis by their refusal to permit democratic reforms and power-sharing. A nine-member panel of Supreme Court judges deliberated on six petitions (including one from Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest Islamic group) asserting that Musharraf be disqualified from contending for the presidency of Pakistan. Bhutto stated that her party could join one of the opposition groups, potentially that of Nawaz Sharif. Attorney-general Malik Mohammed Qayyum stated that, pendente lite, the Election Commission was "''reluctant''" to announce the schedule for the presidential vote. Bhutto's party's Farhatullah Babar stated that the Constitution of Pakistan could bar Musharraf from being elected again because he was already chief of the army: "As Gen. Musharraf was disqualified from contesting for President, he has prevailed upon the Election Commission to arbitrarily and illegally tamper with the Constitution of Pakistan."

Musharraf prepared to switch to a strictly civilian role by resigning from his position as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He still faced other legal obstacles to running for re-election. On 2 October 2007, Gen. Musharraf named Lt. Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, as vice chief of the army starting 8 October with the intent that if Musharraf won the presidency and resigned his military post, Kayani would become chief of the army. Meanwhile, Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed stated that officials agreed to grant Benazir Bhutto amnesty versus pending corruption charges. She has emphasized the smooth transition and return to civilian rule and has asked Pervez Musharraf to shed uniform. On 5 October 2007, Musharraf signed the National Reconciliation Ordinance, giving amnesty to Bhutto and other political leaders—except exiled former premier Nawaz Sharif—in all court cases against them, including all corruption charges. The Ordinance came a day before Musharraf faced the crucial presidential poll. Both Bhutto's opposition party, the PPP, and the ruling PMLQ, were involved in negotiations beforehand about the deal. In return, Bhutto and the PPP agreed not to boycott the Presidential election. On 6 October 2007, Musharraf won a parliamentary election for President. However, the Supreme Court ruled that no winner can be officially proclaimed until it finishes deciding on whether it was legal for Musharraf to run for President while remaining Army General. Bhutto's PPP party did not join the other opposition parties' boycott of the election, but did abstain from voting. Later, Bhutto demanded security coverage on-par with the President's. Bhutto also contracted foreign security firms for her protection.

Return to Pakistan and the assassination attempt[link]

Bhutto was well aware of the risk to her own life that might result from her return from exile to campaign for the leadership position. In an interview on 28 September 2007, with reporter Wolf Blitzer of CNN, she readily admitted the possibility of attack on herself.

After eight years in exile in Dubai and London, Bhutto returned to Karachi on 18 October 2007, to prepare for the 2008 national elections.

En route to a rally in Karachi on 18 October 2007, two explosions occurred shortly after Bhutto had landed and left Jinnah International Airport. She was not injured but the explosions, later found to be a suicide-bomb attack, killed 136 people and injured at least 450. The dead included at least 50 of the security guards from her PPP who had formed a human chain around her truck to keep potential bombers away, as well as six police officers. A number of senior officials were injured. Bhutto, after nearly ten hours of the parade through Karachi, ducked back down into the steel command center to remove her sandals from her swollen feet, moments before the bomb went off. She was escorted unharmed from the scene.

Bhutto later claimed that she had warned the Pakistani government that suicide bomb squads would target her upon her return to Pakistan and that the government had failed to act. She was careful not to blame Pervez Musharraf for the attacks, accusing instead "certain individuals within the government who abuse their positions, who abuse their powers" to advance the cause of Islamic militants. Shortly after the attempt on her life, Bhutto wrote a letter to Musharraf naming four persons whom she suspected of carrying out the attack. Those named included Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, a rival PML-Q politician and chief minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, Hamid Gul, former director of the Inter-Services Intelligence, and Ijaz Shah, the director general of the Intelligence Bureau, another of the country's intelligence agencies. All those named are close associates of General Musharraf. Bhutto had a long history of accusing parts of the government, particularly Pakistan's premier military intelligence agencies, of working against her and her party because they oppose her liberal, secular agenda. Bhutto claimed that the ISI has for decades backed militant Islamic groups in Kashmir and in Afghanistan. She was protected by her vehicle and a "human cordon" of supporters who had anticipated suicide attacks and formed a chain around her to prevent potential bombers from getting near her. The total number of injured, according to PPP sources, stood at 1000, with at least 160 dead (''The New York Times'' claims 134 dead and about 450 injured).

A few days later, Bhutto's lawyer Senator Farooq H. Naik said he received a letter threatening to kill his client.

2007 State of Emergency and response[link]

On 3 November 2007, President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency, citing actions by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and religious extremism in the nation. Bhutto returned to the country, interrupting a visit to family in Dubai. She was greeted by supporters chanting slogans at the airport. After staying in her plane for several hours she was driven to her home in Lahore, accompanied by hundreds of supporters. While acknowledging that Pakistan faced a political crisis, she noted that Musharraf's declaration of emergency, unless lifted, would make it very difficult to have fair elections. She commented that "The extremists need a dictatorship, and dictatorship needs extremists."

On 8 November 2007, Bhutto was placed under house arrest just a few hours before she was due to lead and address a rally against the state of emergency.

The following day, the Pakistani government announced that Bhutto's arrest warrant had been withdrawn and that she was free to travel and to appear at public rallies. However, leaders of other opposition political parties remained prohibited from speaking in public.

Preparation for 2008 elections[link]

On 2 November 2007, Bhutto participated in an interview with David Frost on Al Jazeera, stating Osama Bin Laden had been murdered by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is one of the men convicted of kidnapping and killing U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. Frost never asked a follow up question regarding the claim that Bin Laden was dead. Her interview could later be viewed on BBC's website, although it was initially distorted by the BBC as her claim about Bin Laden's death was taken out. But, once people discovered this and started posting evidence on YouTube, the BBC replaced its version with the version that was originally aired on Al Jazeera.

This led to conspiracy theories which conveniently ignore the fact that Bhutto referred to Osama Bin Laden as being alive after the David Frost interview.

On 24 November 2007, Bhutto filed her nomination papers for January's Parliamentary elections; two days later, she filed papers in the Larkana constituency for two regular seats. She did so as former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, following seven years of exile in Saudi Arabia, made his much-contested return to Pakistan and bid for candidacy.

When sworn in again on 30 November 2007, this time as a civilian president after relinquishing his post as military chief, Musharraf announced his plan to lift the Pakistan's state of emergency rule on 16 December. Bhutto welcomed the announcement and launched a manifesto outlining her party's domestic issues. Bhutto told journalists in Islamabad that her party, the PPP, would focus on "the five E's": employment, education, energy, environment, equality.

On 4 December 2007, Bhutto met with Nawaz Sharif to publicize their demand that Musharraf fulfill his promise to lift the state of emergency before January's parliamentary elections, threatening to boycott the vote if he failed to comply. They promised to assemble a committee that would present to Musharraf the list of demands upon which their participation in the election was contingent.

On 8 December 2007, three unidentified gunmen stormed Bhutto's PPP office in the southern western province of Balochistan. Three of Bhutto's supporters were killed.

Assassination[link]

On 27 December 2007, Bhutto was killed while leaving a campaign rally for the PPP at Liaquat National Bagh in the run-up to the January 2008 parliamentary elections. After entering her bulletproof vehicle, Bhutto stood up through its sunroof to wave to the crowds. At this point, a gunman fired shots at her and subsequently explosives were detonated near the vehicle killing approximately 20 people. Bhutto was critically wounded and was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital. She was taken into surgery at 17:35 local time, and pronounced dead at 18:16. The cause of death, whether it was gunshot wounds, the explosion, or a combination thereof, was not fully determined until February 2008. Eventually, Scotland Yard investigators concluded that it was due to blunt force trauma to the head as she was tossed by the explosion.

Al-Qaeda commander Mustafa Abu al-Yazid claimed responsibility for the attack, and the Pakistani government stated that it had proof that Baitullah Mehsud, affiliated with Lashkar i Jhangvi—an al-Qaeda-linked militant group—was the mastermind. However this was vigorously disputed by the Bhutto family, the Pakistan Peoples Party that Bhutto had headed, and by Mehsud. On 12 February 2011, an Anti-Terrorism Court in Rawalpindi issued an arrest warrant for Musharraf, claiming he was aware of an impending assassination attempt by the Taliban, but did not pass the information on to those responsible for protecting Bhutto.

After the assassination, there were initially a number of riots resulting in approximately 20 deaths, of which three were of police officers. President Musharraf decreed a three-day period of mourning.

Bhutto's 19-year-old son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari succeeded his mother as titular head of the PPP, with his father effectively running the party until his son completes his studies at Christ Church, Oxford.

Controversies[link]

Nuclear proliferation with North Korea[link]

Shyam Bhatia, an Indian journalist, alleged in his book ''Goodbye Shahzadi'' that in 1993, Bhutto had downloaded secret information on uranium enrichment, through Pakistan's former top scientist dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, to give to North Korea in exchange for information on developing ballistic missiles (Rodong-1) and that Bhutto had asked him to not tell the story during her lifetime. Nuclear expert David Albright of the Institute of Science and International Security said the allegations "made sense" given the timeline of North Korea's nuclear program. George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace called Bhatia a "smart and serious guy." Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy called Bhatia "credible on Bhutto." The officials at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C. denied the claims and a senior U.S. Department of State officials dismissed them, insisting that Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who had been earlier accused of proliferating secrets to North Korea (only to deny them later, prior to Bhatia's book), was the source. In spite of Pakistan Government's denial.

Position on 1998 Tests[link]

In May 1998, India detonated its five nuclear devices in Pokhran Test Range, and established itself as the sixth nuclear power. Benazir and the top members of the Pakistan Peoples Party's Central Executive Committee publicly called for Pakistan's nuclear tests in response. Bhutto maintained that the "''eat grass''" statements – used by former prime ministers Zulfikar Bhutto and Navaz Sharif – have been used to assure people of Pakistan that austerity measures would be adopted but ''national security'' would not be compromised.

Legacy[link]

Commenting on her legacy, the acclaimed south Asia expert William Dalrymple commented that "It's wrong for the West simply to mourn Benazir Bhutto as a martyred democrat since her legacy was far murkier and more complex". Despite her western and positive image in the world, Bhutto's controversial policies and support have made her legacy more complicated. Benazir Bhutto failed to revert the controversial Hudood Ordinance — a controversial presidential ordnance enforced which is criticized for to subordinate and suppressing woman's rights.

Domestic challenges[link]

Original cabinet members of Zulfikar Bhutto did not join Benazir's government, most notably Dr. Mubaschir Hassan who declined to work with Benazir Bhutto supposedly due to disagreement with her policies, notably the issue nationalization. Critics accused Benazir Bhutto of sidelining Urdu-speaking sentiment in the party, feudal leaders, and notable Sindhi nationalists from her party during both terms in government.

Assessment of 1997 elections[link]

For some observers, it was the worst parliamentary defeat of People's Party and Bhutto since the party's inception where People's party secured only 21.8% of the vote.

Honors and eponyms[link]

In spite of criticism, Benazir Bhutto, the Iron Lady, remains respected among her rivals, and is often remembered with good wishes. Her rivals always referred to her as B.B. and have never called her by her actual name in accordance to her respect. Benazir Bhutto is often seen as a symbol of women empowerment and participation in national politics as many parties ranging from Liberal-secular, national conservatives to the religious society have now allowed women to be part of their political ideology and fully participate in elections.

Her efforts and struggle to save her father and democracy remain a lasting legacy that is deeply respected among in her rivals. The Pakistan government honored Bhutto on her birthday by renaming the Islamabad International Airport as Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Muree Road of Rawalpindi as Benazir Bhutto Road and Rawalpindi General Hospital as Benazir Bhutto Hospital. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, a member of Bhutto's PPP, also asked President Pervez Musharraf to pardon convicts on death row on her birthday in honour of Bhutto. The city of Nawabshah in Sindh was renamed Benazirabad in her honor. A university in the Dir Upper district of NWFP was founded in her name.Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), a program which provides benefits to the poorest Pakistanis, is named after Bhutto.

Benazir Bhutto's books[link]

''Daughter of the East'' was also released as:

At the time of Bhutto's death, the manuscript for her third book, to be called ''Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West'', had been received by HarperCollins. The book, written with Mark Siegel, was published in February 2008.

See also[link]

Politics of Pakistan

Asif Ali Zardari

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

Benazirabad

International reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto

Mausoleum of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

References[link]

; Notes

Books about Benazir Bhutto[link]

W.F.Pepper, (1983), ''Benazir Bhutto'', WF Pepper, ISBN 978-0-946781-00-3

M. Fathers, (1992), ''Biography of Benazir Bhutto'', W.H. Allen / Virgin Books, ISBN 978-0-245-54965-6

Benazir Bhutto Selected Speeches 1989–2007, 600 Pages

Articles written to pay tribute to Benazir Bhutto; Sani Panhwar, (2010) 247 Pages

Other related publications[link]

Abdullah Malik, (1988), ''Bhutto se Benazir tak: Siyasi tajziye'', Maktabah-yi Fikr o Danish, ASIN B0000CRQJH

Bashir Riaz, (2000), ''Blind justice'', Fiction House, ASIN B0000CPHP8

Khatm-i Nabuvat, ASIN B0000CRQ4A

Mujahid Husain, (1999), ''Kaun bara bad °unvan: Benazir aur Navaz Sharif ki bad °unvaniyon par tahqiqati dastavez'', Print La'in Pablisharz, ASIN B0000CRPC3

Ahmad Ejaz, (1993), ''Benazir Bhutto's foreign policy: A study of Pakistan's relations with major powers'', Classic, ASIN B0000CQV0Y

Lubna Rafique, (1994), ''Benazir & British Press, 1986–1990'', Gautam, ASIN B0000CP41S

Sayyid Afzal Haidar, (1996), ''Bhutto trial'', National Commission on History & Culture, ASIN B0000CPBFX

Mumtaz Husain Bazmi, (1996), ''Zindanon se aivanon tak'', al-Hamd Pablikeshanz, ASIN B0000CRPOT

Unknown author, (1996), ''Napak sazish: Tauhin-i risalat ki saza ko khatm karne ka benazir sarkari mansubah'', Intarnaishnal Institiyut af Tahaffuz-i

External links[link]

Urdu Articles About Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto

Story of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto Pictures

Pakistan Peoples Party

Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto All about Benazir Bhutto

Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto from Pakistan People's Party

Benazir Bhutto CNN topic

Benzir Bhutto New York Times topic

Bhutto, ''PBS Independent Lens'' 2011 documentary film

;Media coverage

The death of Benazir Bhutto from BBC News

Returning to Benazir (2008) from Dawn (Pakistan)

Life in Pictures 1953–2007, Inside Bhutto's 'Prison' Photo Essay and The Aftermath of an Assassination from Time

Photo Diary of Benazir Bhutto from AOL Benazir Bhutto 3-part interview on Indian Television

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto – responses at The Immanent Frame, a blog hosted by the Social Science Research Council

Fatima Bhutto discusses Benazir Bhutto's legacy in a podcast

Remembering Benazir Bhutto from ''Daily News'' (Sri Lanka) 27 December 2008

Pakistan remembers Benazir Bhutto In Pics from Arabian Business

Or Zanjeer Toot Gaie Collection of Articles, Columns, and Essays on the Life and Death of Benazir Bhutto Shaheed

; Articles The Political Situation in Pakistan (audio) – Benazir Bhutto on Capitol Hill in September 2007

News & Videos about Benazir Bhutto CNN, 2007

Timeline shows conflicting reports on cause of Bhutto's death, 2007

In pictures: Bhutto laid to rest, BBC News, 28 December 2007

Life in pictures: Benazir Bhutto, BBC News, 27 December 2007

Bhutto murder: the key questions 31 December 2007

Medical report of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, ''Washington Post'' (27 December 2007)

Facts on Pakistan's ex-PM Benazir Bhutto 31 December 2007

Bhutto's deadly legacy from the International Herald Tribune, 4 January 2008

|- |- |- |- |- |- |-

Category:1953 births Category:2007 deaths Category:Alumni of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Category:Alumni of St Catherine's College, Oxford Category:Assassinated activists Category:Assassinated Pakistani politicians Category:Attempted assassination survivors Benazir Bhutto Category:Bhutto family Category:Convent of Jesus and Mary, Karachi alumni Category:Female heads of government Category:Filmed assassinations Category:First Ladies of Pakistan Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Islamic democracy activists Category:Karachi Grammar School alumni Category:Leaders of the Opposition (Pakistan) Category:Pakistan Peoples Party politicians Category:Pakistani exiles Category:Pakistani expatriates in the United Arab Emirates Category:Pakistani Muslims Category:Pakistani people of Iranian descent Category:Pakistani people of Kurdish descent Category:Pakistani politicians Category:Pakistani Shi'a Muslims Category:Pakistani women in business Category:Pakistani women in politics Category:People from Larkana District Category:People murdered in Pakistan Category:People of Sindhi descent Category:Presidents of the Oxford Union Category:Prime Ministers of Pakistan Category:Radcliffe College alumni Category:Shi'a politicians Category:Sindhi people Category:Sindhi Rajputs Category:Terrorism deaths in Pakistan Category:Zardari family

ar:بينظير بوتو an:Benazir Bhutto ast:Benazir Bhutto az:Bənazir Bhutto bn:বেনজীর ভুট্টো be:Беназір Бхута bcl:Benazir Bhutto bg:Беназир Бхуто bs:Benazir Buto br:Benazir Bhutto ca:Benazir Bhutto cs:Bénazír Bhuttová cy:Benazir Bhutto da:Benazir Bhutto de:Benazir Bhutto dv:ބޭނަޒީރު ބުއްޓޫ et:Benazir Bhutto el:Μπεναζίρ Μπούτο es:Benazir Bhutto eo:Benazir Bhutto eu:Benazir Bhutto fa:بی‌نظیر بوتو fr:Benazir Bhutto fy:Benazir Bhutto ga:Benazir Bhutto gu:બેનઝિર ભુટ્ટો ko:베나지르 부토 ha:Benazir Bhutto hi:बेनज़ीर भुट्टो hr:Benazir Bhutto io:Benazir Bhutto id:Benazir Bhutto is:Benazir Bhutto it:Benazir Bhutto he:בנזיר בהוטו kn:ಬೆನಝೀರ್ ಭುಟ್ಟೊ ka:ბენაზირ ბჰუტო kk:Бенәзир Бһутто sw:Benazir Bhutto ku:Benazir Bhutto la:Benazir Bhutto lv:Bēnazīra Bhuto lb:Benazir Bhutto lt:Benazir Bhutto hu:Benazír Bhutto ml:ബേനസീർ ഭൂട്ടോ mr:बेनझीर भुट्टो arz:بينظير بوتو ms:Benazir Bhutto my:ဘနာဇီယာဘူတို nl:Benazir Bhutto ne:बेनजिर भुट्टो ja:ベーナズィール・ブットー no:Benazir Bhutto nn:Benazir Bhutto oc:Benazir Bhutto uz:Benazir Bhutto pnb:بینظیر بھٹو km:បេណាហ្សៀរ ប៊ូតូ nds:Benazir Bhutto pl:Benazir Bhutto pt:Benazir Bhutto ro:Benazir Bhutto qu:Benazir Bhutto ru:Бхутто, Беназир sq:Benazir Buto scn:Benazir Bhutto simple:Benazir Bhutto sk:Bénazír Bhuttová sl:Benazir Buto sr:Беназир Буто sh:Benazir Bhutto su:Bénazir Bhutto fi:Benazir Bhutto sv:Benazir Bhutto tl:Benazir Bhutto ta:பெனசீர் பூட்டோ te:బెనజీర్ భుట్టో th:เบนาซีร์ บุตโต tg:Беназир Бҳутто tr:Benazir Butto uk:Беназір Бхутто ur:بینظیر بھٹو vi:Benazir Bhutto wuu:贝拉齐尔‧布托 yi:בענאזיר בוטא yo:Benazir Bhutto zh-yue:貝娜齊爾 zh:贝娜齐尔·布托