A border is a line drawn by politics and held in place by rote. Few are as blood-soaked and brittle as the one that runs down the spine of Kashmir, cleaving a valley into two, and history into a wound. Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is not just territory. It is the unfinished sentence of 1947, the jagged consequence of deceit, delay, and the tragic timidity of post-colonial diplomacy.
Pakistan has no moral or historical claim to PoK. It is stolen land, seized in the fog of Partition through the deployment of tribal militias backed by Pakistan, in direct violation of the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh in October 1947: an instrument recognised by India, the British Crown, and even the United Nations. In that moment, Kashmir legally became a part of India. We must step into the past, into the chaotic cartography of Mountbatten’s Radcliffe Line, which split not just the subcontinent but its conscience. The two-nation theory, the flawed seed from which the Partition bloomed, demanded division by religious majority. Kashmir was never just a demographic puzzle. It was, and remains, a civilisational keystone, historically connected more to the plains of Punjab and the bygone empires of Delhi than to the tribal badlands of Pakistan’s northwest.
The argument for PoK’s return to India is not only legal—it is cultural, philosophical, and spiritual. Kashmir is the cradle of Kashmiriyat—an idea far older than India and Pakistan. Kashmiriyat is a sublime amalgam of Shaivite mysticism, Buddhist gentleness, and Sufi grace. Lal Ded’s verses and Nund Rishi’s hymns. It is the belief that God resides not in temples or mosques, but in compassion. Under Pakistan’s administration, what survives of Kashmiriyat? Where are its Sufi dargahs? Where is the Shia identity of Gilgit-Baltistan? Where is the voice of the Balti and the Burusho? Instead, we find a fragile theatre of fake elections, a throttled press, police brutality and a militarised silence.
Contrast that with Jammu & Kashmir. Yes, India has made mistakes—political chicanery, dynastic deceit, heavy-handedness, state force—but it has also invested in inclusion: schools, universities, elections, and infrastructure. Kashmiris vote. PoK residents, in many areas, cannot. Ask the Shia Muslims of Gilgit-Baltistan about persecution. Ask the ethnic Balti about their erased identity. PoK is a cautionary tale of what happens when a land is used for propaganda, and not loved. And yet the world, especially the West, remains seduced by this false equivalence: two nations, one dispute, both equally at fault. This is moral laziness.
There’s also the cartographic elephant in the room: China. By ceding the Shaksgam Valley to Beijing in 1963, Pakistan effectively admitted it did not own PoK. You cannot gift what is not yours. Now, it’s a launchpad for jihadists, a corridor for Chinese interests, a fig leaf for internal discontent. A Kashmiri himself, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote “facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes”. The fact is: PoK is legally Indian, historically Indian, and deserves to be reunited with the motherland. Not by war, but by will. A free and fair plebiscite would vindicate the Kashmiri yearning for voice, dignity, and peace. India’s claim to PoK is about letting Kashmiriyat rise again; not as nostalgia, but as living practice. We owe it to the memory of those who still remember Srinagar’s road to Skardu. We owe it to the poets, the saints, the shepherds.
Let the map reflect the truth. Let the border stop bleeding. Let Kashmir come home.