India’s claim to POK is legal, moral, and unfinished—it's time to move beyond maps and pursue true reunification with conviction, strategy, and compassion.

For over 75 years, India has marked all of undivided Jammu and Kashmir—222,293 square kilometers, including Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) and Gilgit-Baltistan—as part of its sovereign territory. This territorial claim, rooted in the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh in 1947, has remained legally and symbolically unchallenged within India. Yet, despite this historic accession, roughly 91,000 square kilometers of that land remain under Pakistan’s control.

Successive Indian governments have treated this as a cartographic issue—ensuring that global institutions and publishers display the correct map—but have made no substantive effort to bring these regions back into Indian governance. The real question we must ask ourselves is this: Have we settled for symbolic victories, or is it time to pursue actual reunification?

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