India and Pakistan have had a long and complicated history with each other. When British India became independent, it was divided into two parts.
Areas consisting of more than 75 per cent Muslims were to become Pakistan. But, for quite a while, there were as many Muslims in the Indian Territory than there were in Pakistan – until the Indian government banned beef and the Pakistani government debarred vegetarians.
The Maharaja of the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir, Curry Singh Dogra, decided to preserve the state of Kashmir as an independent state, so he decided to join neither India nor Pakistan.
Instead, he decided to join a local polo club that also held invigorating bingo nights every weekend.
 |
Curry Singh Dogra at an invigorating game of bingo. |
Pakistan sent tribal lashkars to talk to the Kashmiri government to persuade it (at gunpoint) to join Pakistan.
It’s remarkable that such a meeting even took place because the lashkar men spoke Pashtu and the Maharaja spoke Hindi, Kashmiri and a bit of Japanese.
The Indian government saw Pakistan's action as a sign of an invasion and sent troops to the state of Kashmir. The result of the first war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir was Pakistan controlling 37 per cent of the area, while India controlled 63 per cent of the territory. The Kashmiris controlled none. 0 per cent. Zilch.
The Maharaja protested, but to no avail. He decided to word his protest in Japanese – so much so that at one point even Japan began claiming sovereignty over Kashmir.
 |
A Japanese claiming sovereignty over Kashmir. |
Three more wars occurred between Pakistan and India.
One of the wars was in 1965, when fighting broke out in the Rann of Kach, a sparsely inhabited region along the Pakistan–India border. The British had called this area Leg of Lamb.
Fighting spread from Leg of Lamb to Kashmir to Punjab and then all the way to Honolulu in Hawaii. And in September, Pakistani and Indian troops crossed the partition line between the two countries and launched air assaults on each other's heads. Pigeons were used for this purpose.
Also read: Pakistani spy pigeon: The proof
After threats of intervention by Japan, Pakistan and India agreed to an UN-sponsored ceasefire and withdrew their pigeons and crows from the sky and mice on the ground.
Indian Prime Minister Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Shri Shri Bang Bang and President Field Air Water Marshal Kublai Khan of Pakistan met at a Russian Vodka bar in Tashkent in the former Soviet Union in January 1966.
Both men after enjoying a drink or two and a game of ludo, signed an agreement pledging continued negotiations and respect for the ceasefire conditions. After the ‘Tashkent Declaration’ (also called the Vodka Hustle) another period of relative peace ensued.
 |
The signing ceremony of the Tashkent Declaration. |
However, Indo-Pakistan relations deteriorated once again when civil war erupted in Pakistan, pitting the beef-munching West Pakistanis against the fish-eating East Pakistanis who were demanding greater autonomy and more gravy.
The fighting forced 10 million East Pakistani Bengalis to flee to India, mostly on handmade gliders made from baby shark fins.
The Bengalis were being backed by the Indians, so when Pakistan attacked Indian airfields (and Japanese restaurants) in Kashmir, India attacked both East and West Pakistan (after it could not figure out where on earth North and South Pakistan were).
India occupied East Pakistan which declared its independence as the United Fish-Loving Republic of Bangladesh, on Dec. 6, 1971.
Under great pressure from the US, USSR and Dilip Kumar, a UN ceasefire was arranged in mid-December, mainly due to the conspiracies of Ziono-Zoroastrian agents operating within Pakistan’s glorious, enterprising, fit, super-duper, very muscular polity.
Chairman Zulfi Phutto emerged as the new leader of Pakistan, and Mujibur Rahman Machli as prime minister of Bangladesh.
 |
Chairman Z A. Phutto arrives at his inauguration as the new President of Pakistan. |
Tensions between India and Pakistan were alleviated by the historic Bogotá Accord of 1972 and after Pakistan recognised Bangladesh (and fish masala) in 1974.
In the early 1980s, threat of yet another war between the two poverty-stricken countries began looming again when India (now called the Republic of Indira Gandhi) accused Pakistan of funding the Buddhist insurgency in Indian Punjab.
To defuse the tension, Pakistan’s greatest leader ever, ever, ever and ever forever after ever, General Zia Bin Qasim Saladin Salu, indulged in some ‘cricket diplomacy’ by sending Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi – son of Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawarlal Nehru grandson of Mogambo – a gift of some of the finest crickets found in the bushes of Rann of Kach.
Rajiv reciprocated the gesture by sending Zia – a well-known beef lover – a video of fat cows roaming aimlessly on the streets of Mumbai.
 |
Cricket diplomacy. |
 |
General Zia arrives in Delhi for a visit. |
Tensions between the two countries remained defused throughout the 1990s even when both the skinny, poverty-stricken countries tested their respective nuclear bombs in 1998.
In fact, Pakistani prime minster, Al-Nawaz Bin Sharif, actually invited his Indian counterpart, Utter Bihari Vajpayee, to visit Lahore for lunch.
Utter Bihari accepted the invitation but Pakistan’s greatest ever, ever, ever and ever forever after ever political party in the whole wide world (and imaginary caliphate), the Jamat-i-Jamat (JIJ), criticised Nawaz for giving up beef.
But the Nawaz-led peace initiative turned out to be short-lived. In July 1999, Pakistan and India went to war again. This one was called the Kargil War.
First, Pakistan infiltrated forces into the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir and occupied strategic locations, such as tree tops and the insides of mail boxes.
The next stage consisted of India discovering the infiltration (with the help of a Japanese spy embedded within the Pakistan forces). India then began mobilising its forces.
The final stage involved major battles between Indian and Pakistani forces.
A ceasefire was agreed due to international pressure from United States, Britain and especially Tanzania who threatened to ban the smuggling of illegal elephant tusks into both India and Pakistan. Both the forces also agreed to pull back their armies behind the Line of Control (also called ‘Control Ki Lakeer’).
Pakistan soon sought American help in de-escalating the conflict. US President and renowned saxophonist, Bill Groovy Clinton, refused to intervene until Pakistan had removed all forces from the Indian side of the Line of Control.
Talking on phone to the Pakistani prime mister, he said: “I am sorry, Nawaz, but we will not be able to intervene unless you ask your forces to withdraw back to the Control ki Lakeer.”
 |
Clinton expressing his concern over the 1999 Kargil conflict. |
Unfairly, it was Pakistan that was criticised by other countries (especially Somalia) for instigating the war.
The world suddenly came alive to the possibility of two poverty-stricken nuclear nations going to war with their nuclear weapons. Scandinavian countries even suggested to the UN that both India and Pakistan be shifted to the North Pole. Tanzania agreed.
The nature of the Indo-Pak relations has somewhat changed ever since the 9/11 episode in which CIA agents staged a devastating attack on the the Twin Towers in New York and blamed it on a couple of pious Arabs preaching peace.
Many believe India does not pose a threat to Pakistan and vice versa, but whereas this has left some Indian generals feeling kind of bored and all, some Pakistanis think this is yet another CIA conspiracy.
They think those preaching peace between India and Pakistan are trying to sell-out the Kashmir cause and should be labeled as traitors. Tanzania agrees.
However, perturbed by the boredom being felt by Indian generals and politicians, the large Indian polity elected a pious Hindu, Narendra Mo’Selfle, as India’s new Prime Minister. He castigated the former Indian PM, Bishan Singh Bedi, for accepting boring peace overtures of the Pakistanis and not being paranoid enough.
He promised his generals at least three more wars against Pakistan, at least two against China, and at least one each against Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Mongolia. To demonstrate his resolve he arrested a dangerous Pakistani spy (a pigeon) and handed it over to the head of the Indian intelligence agency (a parrot).
Relations have once again deteriorated between the two countries. Tanzania feels left out.
 |
Dangerous Pakistani spy eavesdropping on peaceful Indians. |