Question: On what legal grounds does India claim the region of Kashmir?
About the article "Pakistan", section "Kashmir conflict".

Candidate passages:
The proposed Kashmir state comprise the Kashmir region in Jammu & Kashmir 
The Kashmir conflict is a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, the most northwesterly region of South Asia.
The two countries have fought at least three wars over Kashmir—the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999—and several skirmishes over the Siachen Glacier.
India claims the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir and administers approximately 45.1% of the region, including most of Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, and the Siachen Glacier.
India's claim is contested by Pakistan, which controls approximately 38.2% of Kashmir, consisting of Azad Kashmir and the northern areas of Gilgit and Baltistan.
The conflict of Kashmir has its origin in 1947, when British India was separated into the two states of Pakistan and India.
As part of the partition process, both countries had agreed that the rulers of princely states would be allowed to opt for membership of either Pakistan or India, or in special cases to remain independent.
India claims Kashmir on the basis of the Instrument of Accession, a legal agreement with Kashmir's leaders executed by Maharaja Hari Singh, then ruler of Kashmir, agreeing to accede the area to India.
Pakistan claims Kashmir on the basis of a Muslim majority and of geography, the same principles that were applied for the creation of the two independent states.
India referred the dispute to the United Nations on 1 January 1948.
In a resolution in 1948, the UN asked Pakistan to remove most of its troops.
A plebiscite would then be held.
However, Pakistan failed to vacate the region.
A ceasefire was reached in 1949 and a Line of Control was established, dividing Kashmir between the two countries.
Pakistan's position is that the people of Jammu and Kashmir have the right to determine their future through impartial elections as mandated by the United Nations.
India has stated that it believes that Kashmir is an integral part of India, referring to the 1972 Simla Agreement and to the fact that elections take place regularly.
Certain Kashmiri independence groups believe that Kashmir should be independent of both India and Pakistan.
After the Partition of India in 1947, the princely states were given the option of joining either India or Pakistan.
However, Hari Singh, the Sikh maharaja of the princely state of Kashmir, wanted Kashmir to remain independent.
In order to buy some time, he signed a stand-still agreement, which sidestepped the agreement that each princely state would join either India or Pakistan.
Later there was a revolution by Kashmiri Muslims in the western part of the kingdom, and raiders from the North-West Frontier Province and the northwestern Tribal Areas in Pakistan feared that Hari Singh might join the Indian Union.
In October 1947, supported by the Pakistani Army, they attacked Kashmir and tried to take over control of Kashmir.
Initially Hari Singh tried to resist their progress but failed.
Hari Singh then requested the Indian Union to help.
India responded that it could not help unless Kashmir acceded to India.
On 26 October 1947, Kashmir's accession papers were signed (known as the Instrument of Accession) and Indian Army troops were airlifted to the capital Srinagar.
Fighting ensued between the Indian Army and Pakistani Army, leading to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, with control stabilizing more or less around what is now the "Line of Control".
Later, India approached the United Nations to solve the dispute and resolutions were passed to hold a plebiscite with regard to Kashmir's future.
However, this plebiscite has not been held on either side, since the legal requirement for the holding of a plebiscite was the withdrawal of the Indian and Pakistani armies from the parts of Kashmir that were under their respective control— a withdrawal that never did take place.
In 1949, a cease-fire line separating and demarcating the Indian and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir was formally put into effect.
Following the 1949 cease-fire agreement, the government of Pakistan divided the northern and western parts of Kashmir, which it held, into the following two separately-controlled political entities; together, both these territories form the Pakistan-administered Kashmir region:  Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) - the narrow southern part, long, with a width varying from .
Gilgit–Baltistan, formerly called the Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA) - is the much larger area to the north of AJK, ; it was directly administered by Pakistan as a "de facto" dependent territory, i.e., a non-self-governing territory.
However it was officially granted full autonomy on August 29, 2009.
An area of Kashmir that was once under Pakistani control is the Shaksgam tract—a small region along the northeastern border of the Northern Areas that was provisionally ceded by Pakistan to the People's Republic of China in 1963 and which now forms part of China's Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang.
The part of Kashmir administered by India meanwhile is Jammu and Kashmir.
In 1972, the then-current border between Pakistan and India, which held areas of Kashmir, was designated as the "Line of Control".
The Line of Control has remained unchanged since the 1972 Simla Agreement, which bound the two countries "to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations."
Some political experts claim that, in view of that pact, the only solution to the issue is mutual negotiation between the two countries without involving a third party, such as the United Nations.
A devastating earthquake hit Azad Kashmir in 2005. 
Akhand Bharat, literally Undivided India, is an irredentist call to reunite Pakistan and Bangladesh with India to form an "Undivided India" as it existed before partition in 1947 (and before that, during other periods of political unity in South Asia, such as during the Mauryan Empire, the Gupta Empire or the Mughal Empire).
The call for "Akhand Bharat" has often been raised by mainstream Indian nationalistic cultural and political organizations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Other major Indian political parties such as the Indian National Congress, while maintaining positions against the partition of India on religious grounds, do not necessarily subscribe to a call to reunite South Asia in the form of Akhand Bharat.
The region of Kashmir in northwestern India has been the issue of a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947.
Multiple wars have been fought over the issue, the first one immediately upon independence and partition in 1947 itself.
To stave off a Pakistani and tribal invasion, Maharaja Hari Singh of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir signed the instrument of accession with India.
Kashmir remains divided in three parts, administered by India, Pakistan and the People's Republic of China respectively, since then.
However, on the basis of the instrument of accession, India continues to claim the entire Kashmir region as its integral part.
All modern Indian political parties support the call for the return of the entirety of Kashmir to India, and all official maps of India show the entire Jammu and Kashmir state (including parts under Pakistani or Chinese administration after 1947) as an integral part of India. 
The territory of present-day Gilgit–Baltistan became a separate administrative unit in 1970 under the name "Northern Areas."
It was formed by the amalgamation of the former Gilgit Agency, the Baltistan District of the Ladakh Wazarat, and the hill states of Hunza and Nagar.
It presently consists of nine districts, has a population approaching one million, an area of approximately , and shares borders with Pakistan, China, Afghanistan, and India.
In 1993, an attempt was made by the High Court of Azad Jammu and Kashmir to annex Gilgit–Baltistan but was quashed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan after protests by the predominantly Shia population of Gilgit–Baltistan, who feared domination by the Sunni Kashmiris.
While administratively controlled by Pakistan since the first Kashmir war, Gilgit–Baltistan has never been formally integrated into the Pakistani state and does not participate in Pakistan's constitutional political affairs.
On August 29, 2009, the Gilgit–Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order 2009, was passed by the Pakistani cabinet and later signed by the President of Pakistan.
The order granted self-rule to the people of Gilgit–Baltistan, by creating, among other things, an elected Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly and Gilgit-Baltistan Council.
Gilgit–Baltistan thus gained "de facto" province-like status without constitutionally becoming part of Pakistan.
Officially, Pakistan has rejected Gilgit–Baltistani calls for integration with Pakistan on the grounds that it would prejudice its international obligations with regard to the Kashmir dispute.
Some militant Kashmiri nationalist groups, such as the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, claim Gilgit–Baltistan as part of a future independent state to match what existed in 1947.
India, on the other hand, maintains that Gilgit–Baltistan is a part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Because of human rights violations in the region, political parties in India have sought government intervention there.
On September 29, 2009, the Pakistani prime minister, while addressing a huge gathering in Gilgit–Baltistan, announced a multi-billion-rupee development package aimed at the socio-economic uplifting of the people of the area.
Development projects are slated to include the areas of education, health, agriculture, tourism, and the basic needs of life.