The beginning of the conflict in Kashmir began when the King of Kashmir decided to join India rather than Pakistan in 1947. That is the definitive origin of the conflict.

The Pakistanis have hated the Indians since well before independance. Aside from the Bangladeshi war in 1971, there's been a constant war on the Kashimiri "line of control" for decades. The Sichan glacier in the Himilayas was the scene of what might be termed "live fire war games" between India and Pakistan during the 1980s and '90s. Every spring the two armies would shoot canon at each other. A couple of dozen people would get killed by the other side's live fire, but for the rest, it was good training.

There were two major crises, Kargil in 1999 and the 2001-02 mini-war. I still remember a report on MSNBC or CNN at the beginning of 2002 when they had an "expert" saying--while video of two side blasting away, mind you--"If things get worse, they might start shooting at each other." Had not Colin Powell and Richard Armitage conducted shuttle diplomacy, there would have been a nuclear war.

In 1999, while Prime Minister Nawaz Shariff was visiting Washington, Clinton learned that the Pakistani General Staff was planning to nuke Indian troops in Kashmir, which was succeeding in pushing the Pakistanis out of the Kargil plateau, which they had invaded a month before. There were already thousands of casulaties. Clinton got Sharif to force the GS to stand down.

Bill Clinton saved the world that day, and nobody knows it. Whatever you think of Bush (and it ain't much in any case) He also prevented a nuclear war in 2002.