Despite historical , cultural and ethnic links between them , relations between India and Pakistan have been plagued by years of mistrust and suspicion ever since the partition of India in 1947 . The principal source of contention between India and its western neighbour has been the Kashmir conflict . After an invasion by Pashtun tribesmen and Pakistani paramilitary forces , the Hindu Maharaja of the Dogra Kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir , Hari Singh , and its Muslim Prime Minister , Sheikh Abdullah , signed an Instrument of Accession with New Delhi . The First Kashmir War started after the Indian Army entered Srinagar , the capital of the state , to secure the area from the invading forces . The war ended in December 1948 with the Line of Control dividing the erstwhile princely state into territories administered by Pakistan ( northern and western areas ) and India ( southern , central and northeastern areas ) . Pakistan contested the legality of the Instrument of Accession since the Dogra Kingdom has signed a standstill agreement with it . The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 started following the failure of Pakistan 's Operation Gibraltar , which was designed to infiltrate forces into Jammu and Kashmir to precipitate an insurgency against rule by India . The five-week war caused thousands of casualties on both sides . It ended in a United Nations ( UN ) mandated ceasefire and the subsequent issuance of the Tashkent Declaration . < ! -- Deleted image removed : In 1998 , India carried out the Pokhran-II nuclear tests which was followed by Pakistan 's Chagai-I tests . Following the Lahore Declaration in February 1999 , relations briefly improved . A few months later , however , Pakistani paramilitary forces and Pakistan Army , infiltrated in large numbers into the Kargil district of Indian Kashmir . This initiated the Kargil War after India moved in thousands of troops to successfully flush out the infiltrators . Although the conflict did not result in a full-scale war between India and Pakistan , relations between the two reached all-time low which worsened even further following the involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists in the hijacking of the Indian Airlines Flight 814 in December 1999 . Attempts to normalise relations , such as the Agra summit held in July 2001 , failed . An attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 , which was blamed on Pakistan , which had condemned the attack caused a military standoff between the two countries which lasted for nearly a year raising fears of a nuclear warfare . However , a peace process , initiated in 2003 , led to improved relations in the following years
Indian Airlines Flight 814
Indian Airlines Flight 814
Foreign relations of India