ABSTRACT
The unresolved India-Pakistan conflict remains one of the major challenges in contemporary international relations. It remains an accusation against both India and Pakistan, the human rights violations record of which has seriously put to question their status as entities aspiring to be perceived as genuinely democratic states and exposes them rather as brute forces occupying the region of Kashmir 1 which they were once expected to judiciously administer until the future of the lands is determined. These are, as it transpires from this monograph, the forces interested in perpetuating the conflict out of their self-interest at any cost and viewing the population of Kashmir as a superfluous addendum to the territory being the only treasured asset. The abolition of Jammu and Kashmir's autonomy by India in 2019, which is expected to trigger similar steps by Pakistan (aided by China, which captured chunks of the former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir and has no interest in the resolution of the conflict), in many ways resembles the annexation of the West Bank by Israel, announced by Benjamin Netanyahu, or the complete dismantling of Hong Kong autonomy. And yet, what happens in Kashmir has not attracted the world's public opinion to a proportionate degree.
