A ceasefire was announced on Saturday between India and Pakistan, after talks mediated by Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Based on reports on Monday, both sides seem to be observing it.

India recently attacked alleged terrorist training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (also known as Azad Kashmir) and in Pakistan, as retaliation for the April 22 massacre of 26 civilians in Pahalgam on the banks of the Lidder River in Jammu and Kashmir, Indian union territory. Survivors of the attack have reported that the gunmen were singling out Hindus. (RELATED: Two Forever Wars)

India has blamed an affiliate of Lashkar-e-Taiba, as well as Jaish-e-Muhammad, continuing to charge that it is supported by Pakistan. L-e-T has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. Department of State, as has Jaish-e-Mohammad. India has not published evidence of Pakistan’s responsibility for the massacre, but to do so would likely compromise sources and methods of intelligence.

Conflict between India and Pakistan is particularly alarming, since according to the Federation of American Scientists, each country possesses nearly 200 nuclear weapons.

Given the claims and counterclaims, it has been difficult for Western observers to confirm losses on both sides. Pakistan maintains that it shot down five Indian aircraft, three of which were Dassault Rafale, considered a Generation 4.5 fighter delivered to India several years ago from France.

This present conflict needs to be viewed in context. President Trump recently stated that India and Pakistan have been fighting each other for 1,500 years. While this is not factually possible, since Pakistan was partitioned out of India in 1947 when the British departed from India, there is nonetheless much substance to it.

There are historical, religious, and political causes over centuries that prevent India and Pakistan from normalizing relations. It is naïve to believe that rapprochement is possible: The U.S. diplomatic approach over the years has been to nudge each side to de-escalate and moderate the rhetoric. (RELATED: The Terrifying Campaign Against Christians in India)

The historical enmity between Hindus and Muslims extends to the early 7th century, with the first Arab raids into the Indian subcontinent originating from the Gulf states. Conquests continued in the early 8th century by the Umayyad caliphate based in what is now Syria. The Turkic Mahmud of Ghazni ruled parts of north India in the late 10th and 11th centuries. The Delhi Sultanate spanned the 13th to 16th centuries, run by Turkic and Pashtun sultans.

As an interlude, the Mongol Tamerlane invaded India about 1400 A.D. and pillaged Delhi. The Afghan (Pashtun) Lodi dynasty was replaced in 1526 at the first Battle of Panipat by the Mughals, also of Mongol antecedents, who came from what is today Uzbekistan. After a short interlude of Afghan authority in the mid-16th century, the Afghans later returned in the 18th century after the Third Battle of Panipat as the Durrani Empire, shortly after the Persian ruler Nadir Shah invaded North India and attacked Delhi.

As the prominent late historian, Percival Spear of Cambridge University and St. Stephen’s College in Delhi, has written with British understatement, for centuries a Muslim aristocracy was imposed on rural India, which was mainly Hindu.

Today, the Hindu-Muslim divide is the fundamental fault line in Indian society, and from time to time, flashpoints have caused extensive communal violence. India’s Muslim population of 200 million is mainly secular, although ISIS and Al-Qaeda have been known to be interested in imparting their ideology there. (RELATED: The UN Won’t Stop a Real Genocide)

There are numerous differences between the religions of Islam and Hinduism, giving rise to suspicion and a lack of integration. Islam may be considered fundamentally structured and monotheistic, with the Prophet and the Koran as the ultimate authorities. Polytheistic Hinduism could be described as relativist and personal, without a similarly recognized authority. Islam deals with absolute behaviors, while Hinduism has a multiplicity of styles and cultural attributes. While Islam may be described as linear, Hinduism is like a wide matrix with numerous different practices and deities.

The Kashmir dispute is a political question. Due to a quirk of history, there was a Hindu maharaja in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, which acceded to the Dominion of India after independence and partition in 1947. Since that time, both India and Pakistan have claimed Jammu and Kashmir, in its entirety — the Kashmir region is almost entirely Muslim, while Jammu is mostly Hindu.

After the 1947-1948 war between India and Pakistan, a ceasefire line was established nearly 500 miles long. India and Pakistan fought again, mainly over Kashmir, in 1965. After the 1971 war fought over the liberation of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan), the ceasefire line was formalized as the Line of Control. The Kargil conflict of 1999 was fought in Ladakh along the Line of Control, ultimately without change in territorial possession, at a time when both countries possessed nuclear weapons.

The enmity continued. India charged L-e-T and Jaish-e-Mohammad for the attack on the Parliament of India in 2001. Pakistan was held responsible by India for the 2008 Mumbai attacks on high-visibility targets, some Western, with India advising that L-e-T was the perpetrator. Further, for years, Pakistan has blamed India for fomenting secessionism in the Pakistani province of Balochistan, a thinly populated area with known oil and gas resources. In 2019, India attacked Pakistani targets in Balakot in northwestern Pakistan, following a suicide bombing in the Kashmir Valley that killed 40 Indian soldiers.

Given their nuclear arsenals, fortunately, both India and Pakistan appear to recognize the need to avoid a catastrophe. We should not expect that this ceasefire will result in a more permanent lowering of hostility, in view of the extensive historical, religious, and political causes of enmity — damage control should be the approach.

So what do the experts think? A former Indian cabinet minister who served in various ministries once told this writer, “If you can find an expert on India, show me.”

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Frank Schell is a business strategy consultant and former senior vice president of the First National Bank of Chicago. He was a lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago and is a contributor of opinion pieces to various journals.