Solidarity with Kashmir

The conflict between India and Pakistan about where does the former princely state of Kashmir belong; if the Maharaja of Kashmir ever acceded to India and if this accession if it ever could lawfully happen in spite of Pundit Nehru himself agreeing with the UN Security Council to pass resolutions of withdrawal of Indian and Pakistani troops from Kashmir to facilitate to hold free and fair plebiscite under UN supervision and appointing US ex-admiral Chester Nimitz as plebiscite Administrator with all these measures of any accession claim can be valid or not is one of the core problems if not the core issue in the subcontinent.

This conflict is a result of hurried and thoughtless partition on part of the British whose Indian independence Act of 3rd June 1947 leaves the future of the princely states in doubt under a well planned scheme and a result of the double standards of Nehru and his Indian National Congress: on the one side they agreed to partition on the Muslims majority principle, on the other side they in violation of UN resolutions insist on the majority Muslim state of Kashmir occupation by India for whatsoever reasons, emotional ones of Nehru about whom his biographer Frank Morasse could not justify Nehru’s stand on Kashmir, he cursorily passed it over by saying that Kashmir has become an emotional issue and article of faith because Pundit Nehru belonged to Kashmir or strategic ones for the hawks like Patel and others.

As a matter of fact the maharaja himself would have opted for independence and refused accession to India when approached by V.P. Menon. The Kashmiri people then as much as now- were left in the lurch. When in early October 1947 negotiations between Jinnah and representatives of the Kashmir National Congress for acceptance of a people’s accession to Pakistan failed a military option was on the cards. But that was prevented by the fact that British had left the newly constituted Pakistani army under a British commander General Gracey whose loyalty was more towards the commander of the Indian army General Auchinleck rather than towards Pakistan and who refused to support the evolving Kashmiri Muslim uprising with regular troops. That was why Kashmiri’s had to be backed up with irregular’s fighters from the adjoining tribal areas of Waziristan under the command of Brigadier (later general) Akbar. On the 27th October India airlifted its troops into Srinagar, Mr. V. P. Menon writes that the first flight was dispatched to Srinagar with the instructions that if their was a single raider seen on the airfield you may return back without approaching/landing on Srinagar airfield, he writes that he was then glued to the radio till the time it boomed to announce that we have landed at Srinagar so he took a sigh of relief as if it was an act of dacoity, and then the first Indian-Pakistani war for Kashmir started leaving it divided among both countries the way it is until today while part of Laddakh - namely Gilgit, Baltistan were liberated by the local freedom fighters themselves. Until today, the 27th October is remembered by the Kashmiri Muslims as a ‘Black Day’ and 1st, November is celebrated as Liberation day in Gilgit and Baltistan, now enjoying provincial status.

The rest is history. India referred the conflict to the UN Security Council expecting to get a quick verdict in their favour. It was partly because of the weakness of the Indian position and partly because of the impressive pleading of this case by Pakistan ’s Foreign Minister Sir Zafarullah Khan exposing the Indian conspiracy that the UNSC adopted resolutions one after another demanding cease fire, withdrawal of Indian troops and plebiscite so as to ensure the will of the Kashmiri people. None of the 27 resolutions that were adopted by the UN until 1971 were ever implemented and no action was ever taken to pressurize India to respect the UN verdict which they had been asking for in the first place.

Sine October 1947 the Kashmir conflict is looming over the heads of South Asia . It has provided for India and Pakistan developing a strong military while depleting the national resources of their respective countries. India being so much larger could of course sustain this effort much more easily that Pakistan . Both went nuclear with the connivance of the rest of the world. Between the late fifties and 1989 India had an opportunity and missed it badly to prove to the Kashmiri people that it was good to be part of India . It was in 1989 that an armed intifada of the Kashmiri’s broke out which is going on until today. It is Indian wishful thinking that all this is a conspiracy hatched against them by Pakistan . People’s revolutions are not organized from the outside as the 1965 experience is showing. It is the rejection by the Kashmiri’s of a corrupt and undemocratic rule in Kashmir sustained by Delhi which made Kashmiri’s reject Indian rule of their country.

The 26th January 2011 the Indian Republic Day can serve as an eye opener in this regard. As it had been the case the years before this national day had to be forced upon the Kashmiri’s. The Indian government had to enforce a strict curfew in Muslim majority Kashmir . On a day when in the rest of India processions and meetings were going on celebrating this national day, while no processions and meetings were allowed in Indian Held Kashmir because the government knew that if taken out it would have been in protest against Indian occupation and not in favour of the Indian constitution. Local mobile phone networks were jammed and all roads leading towards Srinagar blocked. A procession of BJP nationalists from Jammu was prevented from entering Kashmir . This situation is ample proof that India has lost all support and the moral right to claim Kashmir as its own, one wonders the logic for not giving Kashmiri’s their promised right for self determination when Christian in East Timor and Sudan have won their freedom very smoothly. Indians are controlling the valley and Muslim majority districts by use of brutal force against civilian population. We can read endless records of Indian brutalities towards the civilian population, of rape, murder and other human rights violations on a daily basis in the media. The world is standing by and flattering India for access to their huge market while closing the eyes over this ongoing genocide in Indian Held Kashmir.

One of the most unfortunate outcomes of this looming conflict is the radicalization of Indian and Pakistani Muslims. The transnational solidarity of Islam has been resulting in Muslims from India , Pakistan , Afghanistan , but also from Egypt , Bosnia and other countries joining the fight against Indian oppression. Radicalization and militancy have made its worst impact on Pakistan itself. The same way as the ongoing unresolved Palestinian conflict has been radicalizing Arab Muslims the decades of Kashmir conflict have done the same in the region and beyond. In Kashmir itself a two generations of young people have been born and grown up while never experiencing peace and happiness. For them fighting and weapons, death and brutalities are day to day normality. How can they be peaceful and teach peace to their children?

The solution of the Kashmir conflict is one of the pre-conditions for improvement of the relations between India and Pakistan as well as for any meaningful fight against militancy. But we have to keep in mind that this conflict is not a bilateral one but it has a third party: the Kashmiri’s. They have been fighting and sacrificing their lives and their happiness. In any conflict resolution their input can not be neglected. Any calls of course for any other foreign intervention or mediation, be it the US or the UN, which has abundantly proven its incapacity or any support from the EU are out of question simply because majority of Kashmiri’s are Muslim. The West dominated by Christians has its own interests which they will further in the first place and they don’t want to know much about the ground realties in the subcontinent. A first half hearted step towards an easing of the situation if not towards a resolution has been taken by the last government by working for contacts between the two Kashmir ‘s through easing of visa restrictions and small border traffic along the Line of Control, which is only to deprive their birth right of freedom.

Therefore, solidarity with Kashmir today means in the first place keeping the interests of the Kashmiri’s in mind and may be even putting them above our own, only then we can justify our commitment with the cause of free, fair and just solution of Kashmir problem, because this is also the promise of our elders and it is time for the West to see the wind of change blowing in Middle East & Asia because history records that nowhere peoples uprising has been crushed or controlled take for example – Bangladesh, Korea, Vietnam, Germany, USSR and now Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Yemen. Earlier the Kashmir issue is resolved the better it will be for India and their supporters in the West.