Short answers, pulled from the story.
The word Kashmir is thought to have been derived from Sanskrit, yet a popular local etymology suggests it means land desiccated from water. The earliest text to directly mention the name Kashmir is in Ashtadhyayi written by the Sanskrit grammarian Pānini during the 5th century BC, who called the people of Kashmir Kashmirikas.
Kashmir became a Muslim-ruled state in 1320 when Rinchan Shah became the first Muslim ruler. The region remained under Muslim rule until 1819 when the Kashmir Valley passed from the control of the Durrani Empire of Afghanistan to the conquering armies of the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh of the Punjab.
The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was created by the British after the first defeat of the Sikhs in 1846 as a reward to Gulab Singh, a former official who had sided with the British. Gulab Singh became a wealthy and influential noble in the Sikh court and was anointed as the Raja of Jammu in 1822 before acquiring the Vale of Kashmir through treaties concluded in 1846.
The Kashmiri Pandits underwent a complete exodus in the 1990s due to the Kashmir insurgency. Approximately 100,000 of the total Kashmiri Pandit population of 140,000 left the valley during that decade, with other authors suggesting a higher figure ranging from the entire population of over 150 thousand to 300 thousand.
The Kashmir region is divided among three countries in a territorial dispute, with Pakistan controlling the northwest portion, India controlling the central and southern portion, and the People's Republic of China controlling the northeastern portion. India controls about half the area of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, which comprises Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, while Pakistan controls a third of the region, divided into two provinces, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated on the 5th of August 2019, when its limited autonomy was revoked. Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are now administered by India as union territories, having formed a single state until that date.