The 1987 Election and the Uprising of 1989
A widely rigged state election in 1987 convinces many young Kashmiris that politics is closed to them, and by 1989–90 an armed revolt for *azadi* sweeps the valley.
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
- Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War — Victoria Schofield, I.B. Tauris (2000)
- Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris — Christopher Snedden, Hurst (2015)
- Resisting Occupation in Kashmir — Haley Duschinski, Mona Bhan, Ather Zia and Cynthia Mahmood (eds.), University of Pennsylvania Press (2018)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
- Over 40,000 deaths in 27 years of conflict in J&K; confirms MHA — Kashmir Life, Kashmir Life (2017)
- 47 000 killed in Kashmir revolt — Agence France-Presse, News24 (2008)
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
The stolen vote
By the mid-1980s many Kashmiris were frustrated. Sheikh Abdullah had died in 1982 and his son Farooq Abdullah led the National Conference. In 1986 Farooq allied with Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress, the party many Kashmiris blamed for decades of interference. A coalition of opposition groups, the Muslim United Front (MUF), drew big crowds of young people for the March 1987 state election.
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
- Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War — Victoria Schofield, I.B. Tauris (2000)
The election was widely rigged: counting was manipulated, MUF agents were beaten and arrested, and the NC–Congress alliance won comfortably. Even many Indian commentators later accepted the fraud.
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
- Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris — Christopher Snedden, Hurst (2015)
Azadi
Through 1988 and 1989, young Kashmiris crossed the Line of Control for training and weapons in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The JKLF, which wanted an independent Kashmir, began a campaign of bombings and assassinations, and in December 1989 kidnapped Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of India’s home minister, freeing her in exchange for jailed militants. The release seemed to show that the state could be beaten.
- Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War — Victoria Schofield, I.B. Tauris (2000)
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
In January 1990 Delhi reimposed Jagmohan as governor. On 21 January, paramilitary troops fired on protesters at Gawkadal bridge in Srinagar, killing dozens. Over the following months hundreds of thousands marched for azadi, mosques broadcast slogans, and violence escalated on all sides. In this same season, most Kashmiri Pandits left the valley.
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
- Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris — Christopher Snedden, Hurst (2015)
- A Departure from History: Kashmiri Pandits, 1990–2001 — Alexander Evans, Contemporary South Asia (2002)
From uprising to proxy war
India poured in troops and paramilitary forces and gave them sweeping legal powers. Over the 1990s the JKLF, whose leaders declared a ceasefire in 1994, was eclipsed by pro-Pakistan Islamist groups, especially Hizbul Mujahideen and, later, Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, which brought in foreign fighters. Militants also killed many Kashmiris: political workers, alleged informers and members of rival groups. The government also armed surrendered militants, the Ikhwan, who were accused of many abuses.
- Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War — Victoria Schofield, I.B. Tauris (2000)
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
- Everyone Lives in Fear: Patterns of Impunity in Jammu and Kashmir — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2006)
The toll is disputed. Indian Home Ministry figures counted about 41,000 deaths from 1990 to early 2017, roughly 14,000 of them civilians, 5,000 security personnel and 22,000 militants. In 2008 the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, a Kashmiri rights group, put the toll at more than 70,000, counting about 8,000 people it says disappeared after arrest.
- Over 40,000 deaths in 27 years of conflict in J&K; confirms MHA — Kashmir Life, Kashmir Life (2017)
- 47 000 killed in Kashmir revolt — Agence France-Presse, News24 (2008)
Violence fell after the early 2000s, and peace talks between India and Pakistan in 2004–07 raised hopes. But mass protests returned in 2008, 2010 and 2016, the latter after the killing of the young Hizbul commander Burhan Wani, whose social-media fame symbolised a new, homegrown generation of militancy.
- Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir: Developments in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from June 2016 to April 2018, and General Human Rights Concerns in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2018)
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
When the vote was stolen in 1987, young people concluded that Delhi would never let Kashmiris choose peacefully. The uprising of 1989–90 was a mass popular movement for *azadi* (freedom), with huge crowds in the streets, not simply something exported from Pakistan; it was met with massacres, torture and disappearances.
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
- Resisting Occupation in Kashmir — Haley Duschinski, Mona Bhan, Ather Zia and Cynthia Mahmood (eds.), University of Pennsylvania Press (2018)
- Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris — Christopher Snedden, Hurst (2015)
Whatever the flaws of 1987, the insurgency was armed, trained and financed by Pakistan, whose intelligence services shifted support from pro-independence fighters to pro-Pakistan Islamist groups such as Hizbul Mujahideen and later Lashkar-e-Taiba. Security forces were defending India's territorial integrity and its citizens, including the Pandits who were driven out.
- Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War — Victoria Schofield, I.B. Tauris (2000)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
The uprising was an indigenous freedom struggle against Indian occupation, which Pakistan supports morally, politically and diplomatically in line with UN resolutions calling for a plebiscite. Pakistan denies directing militant groups.
- Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War — Victoria Schofield, I.B. Tauris (2000)
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
Most scholars, including Sumantra Bose and Victoria Schofield, see both a genuine popular revolt rooted in decades of political grievance and extensive Pakistani backing that armed it and, over time, changed its character towards Islamist and pro-Pakistan groups.
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
- Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War — Victoria Schofield, I.B. Tauris (2000)
- Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris — Christopher Snedden, Hurst (2015)
Why it matters today
Almost every Kashmiri family in the valley was touched by the years after 1989: a son who crossed the Line of Control, a relative killed or disappeared, a neighbour who left. The insurgency transformed the valley into one of the most militarised places on earth and left a generation that distrusts both Indian institutions and armed groups. "1987" is shorthand for broken faith in the ballot.