What is behind the Indian and Pakistan conflict about Kashmir?

The tensions between India and Pakistan intensified significantly last week, with neighboring countries exchanging fire for several days after the Indian missile attack against Pakistan.

While the two countries announced a full and immediate fire on Saturday, experts say that the dangers in the region remain.

The United States talked with Indian and Pakistani officials to negotiate the high fire, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

India on Saturday night he accused Pakistan of breaking the high fire, saying that he is responding to violations.

Recent attacks occurred after already increasing tensions when India continued to blame Pakistan for a deadly attack in April in the disputed Cashmira region, an affirmation that Pakistan denies. That militant attack, known as the Pahalgam incident, left 26 people dead in back controlled by India.

“This is the most recent in a series of conflicts between Pakistan and India,” said retired colonel Stephen Ganyard, ABC news collaborator and former state department official. “Since the formation of Pakistan in the mid or late 40s, these two countries have not taken.”

With both countries that have nuclear weapons, the threat of climbing is especially worrying.

“From anywhere in the world, the easiest to imagine a nuclear exchange is between Pakistan and India,” Ganyard said. “You have these two neighbors with so much hate, so much history and many and many nuclear weapons that exchange living fire.”

Kashmir in the conflict center

The origin of the recent hostilities between Pakistan and India dates back to 1947, when they obtained their independence from the British domain, according to Surupa Gupta, professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.

“When you think about the current conflict, it’s really backman,” Gupta told ABC News.

The sovereign and princescos states of the subcontinent had the option of accessing India or Pakistan at the time of independence, but Kashmir was among several who did not do it, he said. His ruler at that time finally agreed to sign an adhesion treaty with India after seeking his support against attacks against the State.

“Pakistan has never really recognized that adhesion treaty,” Gupta said. “Pakistan’s argument has always been that Cashmiro was, and remains, a Muslim majority region, while they see India as a state of Hindu majority. Which is, but its history of origin is like a secular state.”

A war between India and Pakistan exploded over the Himalayas region, and in 1949, the two countries agreed to establish a line of high fire that divided Kashmir, which is highly militarized and monitored by the United Nations.

Today, India controls the southern half of the Cashmiro and Pakistan region controls the northern and western portion, although both claim every back. China also controls a part of the northeast of Kashmir.

“It is one of the few places in the world where geography is very tight, where borders face each other, so tensions are often spill because they are still competing for several parts of Kashmir and Jammu,” Ganyard said.

Continuing feeding the conflict between India and Pakistan are strong nationalist feelings and religious fervor, Ganyard said.

“These are two countries with very strong religious feelings, and that religion is injected into the relationship between the two countries,” he said. “Very strong Muslim population and a very strong Muslim feeling within Pakistan’s policy. Prime Minister Modi in India has been a very burning Hindu nationalist.”

“Throughout humanity, the most horrible and bloody types of conflicts among human beings tend to be those who have religious fervor behind them. And that is part of what makes this so dangerous,” he continued.

Years of hostilities

In the following decades since they won Independence, India and Pakistan have fought against several wars and battles, including those of Kashmir.

In recent years, the conflict has “stated in the form of terrorist attacks against India,” said Gupta, including mortal attacks against military objectives in 2016 and 2019 and a siege aimed at Mumbai hotels and a railway station in 2008.

Since the end of the 1980s, “India accused Pakistan of supporting international Islamist terrorist groups that operate within Kashmir,” News Manjari Chatterjee Miller, the main member of India, Pakistan and Asia in the south of the Foreign Affairs Council, told ABC.

The tensions have calmed down a little in recent years, except for occasional clashes along the border areas, Ganyard said.

Tourism in Kashmiro has also increased in recent years, helping to boost the economy, and there was a “sense of normality,” Gupta said.

The April 22 attack near the tourist city of Pahalgam attacked Indian tourists, with the civil attack that marked a game of the most recent military attacks against military, said Gupta and Miller.

India’s missile attack on Tuesday, who said he went to “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir controlled by Pakistan and Kashmir, it was “very clearly a reaction to the massacre of the 26 tourists,” Ganyard said.

Before the high fire was announced, the world was “containing your breathing” and “hoping to see if the pressure is left a little,” he said, and pointed out that it is “in the best interest of both parties not to let this get out of control.”

Neighboring nuclear powers

Since 1998, both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, between 160 and 170 weapons each, Ganyard said.

The two are among a handful of countries that have never signed the Nuclear Non -Proliferation Treaty. India has a first level use policy for its nuclear weapons, which Pakistan no, Gupta said.

“That is why this is so critical. You have this religious fervor that divides the two countries. This anger. You have the nationalist pride of both sides. And then you have these two sides that have nuclear weapons. So, very, very dangerous cocktail, so he is so aware that he could get out of control,” Ganyard said.

Another aspect that could increase conflicts is water. After the April 22 attack, India suspended a key water treaty with Pakistan with respect to the Indo River.

“There have been many people who have predicted that the next war would be fought for water,” Ganyard said.

India had not previously suspended that treaty, which marked a “game,” Gupta said.

If India restricts the flow of water to Pakistan, “that could be a reason for war,” Ganyard said.

Both India and Pakistan “have incentives not to increase, but at the same time the risk of climbing, particularly through the calculation error, is real,” said Miller. “And every time you have conflict between neighbors with nuclear weapons, it is a serious problem.”

‘Things are never going to be good between these two countries’

Amid the concerns of a greater escalation in their last conflict, India and Pakistan announced on Saturday that they had agreed to a complete and immediate fire.

In the past, relations between India and Pakistan have been reduced with the help of the diplomacy of the channels back and international actors such as the United States have spoken with both of them, Gupta said.

“There have been cases in which military commanders have contacted,” he said. “Based on a shared interest in avoiding a large -scale war, both countries have reduced it.”

The high fire conversations were mediated by the United States, with Rubio in a statement recommending to the leaders of India and Pakistan for “choosing the path of peace.”

However, the broader problem about Kashmiro cannot be solved in the immediate future, Gupta said.

India has previously tried to negotiate a lasting peace with several Pakistani governments, but “the lack of stability in the WHO governs Pakistan is an important factor,” he said, and efforts have not gone anywhere.

“I think there is always the possibility of resolving conflicts, but it does not seem immediate. It does not seem likely in the short term, in the medium race,” he said. “It would require a lot of effort to do it, a lot of very sincere effort to do it.”

Given the variable stressors, “things will never be good between these two countries,” Ganyard said.

“Either water, whether religion, whether territory, geography: there are so many things that constantly and will continue to irritate the relationship between Pakistan and India that the best we can expect is some type of war of very low scale, or some type of very high tension ratio, but not the exchange of nuclear weapons,” he said.