With the birth of India and Pakistan in 1947, Kashmir, a region in the Himalayas located in the north, became the center of tension and conflict between the two countries. In 1947, Lord Mountbatten, the last British viceroy of India, obtained from Jawaharlal Nehru, the political leader of India, the opportunity for each princely state ruled by a Maharajah to autonomously choose whether to join India or Pakistan. In almost all cases, the decision was rather straightforward except for Kashmir. In this region, the majority of the population was Muslim, while the Maharajah governing it, Hari Singh, was Hindu. Additionally, there was a long-standing conflict between the Muslim peasant masses and the Hindu and Sikh aristocrats who owned the lands. Due to its strategic location, both India and Pakistan held great importance for this region. Furthermore, with a strong rivalry already existing between the two countries, the possession of Kashmir also became a matter of pride.

Hari Singh, caught between two fires, even began to lean towards establishing an independent state. However, numerous Pashtun guerrillas from Pakistan supported by the Pakistani government invaded the region to assist a peasant revolt caused by excessive taxation and authoritarianism of the Maharajah and nobles. Faced with this situation, Hari Singh, advised by Lord Mountbatten, sought India's intervention, promising them in return the annexation of Kashmir. The government of Delhi then sent soldiers to the region, which Pakistan did shortly after. The war in Kashmir lasted until 1949 when a ceasefire was reached thanks to the UN. Since then, given the refusal of both countries to withdraw their armies, making it impossible to hold a proper referendum, the territory of Kashmir remained divided between Azad Kashmir, occupied by Pakistan, and Jammu and Kashmir, occupied by India, being the only Muslim-majority state in the country. Furthermore, the Line of Control (LOC) imposed by the UN to delineate the border between the Pakistani and Indian occupation zones remained one of the hottest borders throughout the Cold War.