[4][5][6] The princely state was created after the First Anglo-Sikh War, when the East India Company, which had annexed the Kashmir Valley,[7] from the Sikhs as war indemnity, then sold it to the Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh, for rupees 75 lakhs.

However, an uprising in the western districts of the state followed by an attack by raiders from the neighbouring Northwest Frontier Province, supported by Pakistan, forced his hand.

On 26 October 1947, Hari Singh acceded[8] to India in return for the Indian military being airlifted to Kashmir, to engage the Pakistan-supported forces.

[9] The western and northern districts now known as Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan passed to the control of Pakistan after it occupied it,[10] while the remaining territory stayed under Indian control, later becoming the Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir.

[11] India and Pakistan defined a cease-fire line dividing the administration of the territory with the intercession of the United Nations which was supposed to be temporary but still persists.