A Hastily Drawn Border: The Indian-Pakistan Conflict Explained (Part 1)

From an unexpected conflict to an even more surprising ceasefire, the dispute between India and Pakistan has dominated the headlines for at least a week now.

However, why is there so much tension between the two countries? It turns out, it has a lot to do with not only the present but also the past. So after doing a thorough analysis on this topic, I wrote this two-part series. Here’s what I’ve learned.

The Situation

Let’s start with the facts. On April 22nd, 2025, there was an armed militant attack in the Pahalgam region of Jammu and Kashmir, India. This incident resulted in the death of 26 men, mostly Indian-Hindu. India claims this attack was backed by Pakistan, which Pakistan denies.

This particular incident escalated pretty quickly: India revoked visas to most Pakistani nationals, suspended the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (threatening a water shortage to roughly 90% of Pakistan) and retaliated with multiple precision airstrikes on militant camps in Pakistan, the last of which almost causing a full-blown war. Pakistan in turn suspended all trade to India, and both countries have closed their airspace to each other’s airlines.

The conflict has been somewhat mitigated with a ‘ceasefire’ mediated by the US, however, key issues are yet to be resolved. But that begs the question: why is there so much tension between the two states? To answer that, we’ll have to look at the deeply intertwined history of India and Pakistan.

About The Two Countries

Before we get into our historical recap, a brief overview of the two countries.

The Republic of India gained independence in 1947, is the world’s most populous democracy with a population of about 1.41 billion, occupies an area of approximately 3.287 million square kilometers, has a GDP of around $3 trillion and a growth rate of 6-7%, has an average life expectancy of 70 years, roughly 80% of the population identify as Hindu, and its capital is New Delhi. The country borders China, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan.

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan also gained independence in 1947, is the second-largest Muslim population, has a population of roughly 240 million, occupies 881,913 square kilometers of land, has a GDP of approximately $350 billion and a growth rate of 3-4%, has an average life expectancy of 67 years, 95-97% of the population identify as Muslim, and its capital is Islamabad. Pakistan borders China, India, Afghanistan, and Iran.

If you look closely at the independence days of the two countries, you’ll discover that they’re only a day apart. And that is no coincidence.

How India And Pakistan Came To Be

The short answer to how these two countries emerged is Britain. However, that answer certainly isn’t descriptive at all. So here’s an expanded ‘medium’ answer that will hopefully help you understand why India and Pakistan are mad at each other.

Once upon a time, Britain was a colonial empire that had colonies spanning across the globe.

However, after the United States gaining sovereignty in 1776, it was becoming apparent that colonial Britain was failing to maintain control over its colonies.

This was a result of a number of factors. Nationalistic sentiment was becoming popular in the colonies, leading to a rise in strong nationalist movements. Also, the financial cost to administer colonies was becoming a ‘pain in the neck’, considering the already heightened economic burden of Britain following two World Wars. Assessing the situation, the British government deemed holding onto these colonies unsustainable, and instead shifted their foreign policies towards establishing friendly diplomatic relations with former colonies.

Britain suffered the most economic and military weakening in the immediate aftermath of WWII, as the war had plunged Britain into debt and industrial decline. This strained its ability to hold onto its colonies further.

It was during this time that Indian independence movements gained substantial traction within India, lead by people like Mahatma Gandhi. They called for the establishment of India as a sovereign nation. However, these weren’t the only people who wanted independence.

You see, although the majority of the population was Hindu, British India was religiously diverse, home to significant populations of Sikhs, Muslims and other religions as well. And there was growing demand for a separate Muslim state (Pakistan). 1906 was the year the All-Indian Muslim League was formed, an organization aiming to represent Muslims within British India. One of the leaders of this organization, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, promoted the two-nation theory, arguing that Muslims and Hindus were distinct nations, justifying the existence of a separate Muslim state. In addition, many Muslims were afraid of a unified India where Hindus dominated.

Britain eventually gave in to the mounting pressure, and decided to grant the colony independence. However, there’s a problem: how do you deal with the All-Indian Muslim League and their separate demands? Diplomacy and negotiation was tried to no avail. So Britain had no choice but to partition (split) India.

The job of creating a whole new border is definitely an important one. And so the job was given to Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who just so happened to never have been to India and had no prior knowledge of the region (he was just a British lawyer). In addition to inadequate local knowledge, Radcliffe was also given a tight deadline of 5 weeks.

The border was drawn largely according to religious demographic majorities. The goal was to assign regions to either India or Pakistan depending on their religious majorities; Hindu-majority provinces were allocated to India, while Muslim-majority provinces to Pakistan. However, this seemingly logical and reliable metric proved to be sowing the seeds of a disastrous future.

Although the newly drawn borders aligned with the statistics, they significantly lacked local insight and perspective, a mistake that could be mainly contributed to the fast pace at which the project unfolded. The border cut through communities and divided families, bringing about more chaos and destruction instead of putting an end to it. In the chaotic days and weeks following the announcement of this new border and the official establishment of the two new countries, approximately 15 million people were displaced as Hindus and Sikhs rushed into India and Muslims into Pakistan; the largest forced migration in human history.

Despite the way the border played out, Sir Cyril Radcliffe shouldn’t be entirely blamed the matters that ensued. Drawing a border across the complicated and complex cultural makeup of India is an unfathomable task in itself, and coupled with factors like a tight deadline, it becomes a truly inexplicable feat.

Adding insult to injury, additional problems arose following the drawing of the border. Indeed, Pakistan and India were now officially completely sovereign nations outside the jurisdiction of any foreign government. Yet internal governance became a growing problem, as both states were struggling to establish solid new political systems. Meanwhile, the partition also triggered widespread communal violence, leading to the death of hundreds of thousands, injuries to countless others, and causing a huge humanitarian crisis.

However, these other issues were undeniably interconnected with one issue, an issue that continues to shape the dynamics of the region to this day: border disputes. Even though it may seem like these disputes were just another manifestation of Radcliffe’s border, it has more to do with the ‘princely states’.

Conclusion

But the story of the princely states, how they came to be, and the impact they have on the current Indian-Pakistan situation will have to wait until part 2.

And that is the end of this article, I hope you learned something new. If you did, please consider subscribing, liking, and sharing this article. Don’t forget to come back next week more.