ABSTRACT
The dispute between India and Pakistan over the state of Jammu & Kashmir has been an unusually complex, and often bloody, problem since partition. Against the backdrop of growing communal violence accompanying the partition, many Kashmiris, led by the Muslim Conference, sought accession to Pakistan. Neither the Congress nor the Muslim League found this acceptable. Both considered the accession of Kashmir to their respective new state fundamental to the latter’s raison d’etre. In the early 1950s, Washington was able to push its two recalcitrant South Asian allies to try and approach the Kashmir dispute in a rational and peaceful manner. Following major military manoeuvres along their common borders by both neighbours during much of 1950 and 1951 and part of 1952, Prime Ministers Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammad Ali corresponded with each other for much of 1953 on ways of breaking the deadlock over Kashmir.
