It is the not an accident that India and Pakistan,
housing 22 percent of the world population, host 44 percent of the world
poverty yet they are amongst the top five buyers of military hard ware
The
killing of five Indian military personnel in firing across the Line of Control
(LoC) in Kashmir yet again lays bare the festering wound Kashmir has become
over the last sixty-six years.
After
every such incident accusations, denials and counter-allegations are traded
between the two sides. It has become a monotonous routine. Most people are
bored by this rhetoric. In the recent instance, Indian army accused that
Pakistani troops ‘entered the Indian area and ambushed’ an army patrol in the
Poonch sector. The Prime Minister of the Pakistani controlled Kashmir accused
the Indian army of abducting four citizens from Mirpur.
The
latest incident comes as the two sides are preparing for peace talks, the first
since a new Pakistani government took office. The chief minister of the Indian
administered Jammu and Kashmir state, Omar Abdullah, says such incidents ‘don't
help efforts to normalize or even improve relations with Pakistan and call into
question the Pakistan government's recent overtures’. The Indian Defense
Minister, A. K. Antony, told the Indian parliament that the New Delhi ‘has
lodged a strong protest with the government of Pakistan through diplomatic
channels’.
A
top Indian army officer told the BBC that a group of ‘elite commandos’ from
Pakistan army breached the Line of Control on August 6 and ambushed an Indian
army patrol in the Poonch sector of Jammu region. The officer said one Indian
soldier was also injured in ‘unprovoked firing’ by Pakistani soldiers in a
separate incident in Udhampur region a day before. A Pakistani military
official described the Indian allegations as ‘baseless’ and claimed there was
no firing from the Pakistani side.
Earlier
in January this year, incident of beheadings and cross-border attacks triggered
a diplomatic crisis and media-war.
India
and Pakistan agreed upon a ceasefire along the Line of Control, which divides
Kashmir, in November 2003. However, both sides keep violating it and blaming
each other. Meantime, several soldiers and civilians have been killed or
wounded on both sides. After the January episode, claiming the lives of three
Pakistani and two Indian soldiers, relations between the two sides deteriorated
so sharply that the fledgling peace process under way since February 2012 was
threatened. Eventually, both India and Pakistan agreed to de-escalate the
tensions.
There
have been three-and-a-half major wars between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir
question ever since the Partition in 1947. At the time of Partition, the rules
worked out by the British and the leaders of the local ruling classes were not
implemented. It was a bloody Partition leaving almost 2.7 million innocent
people dead. However, Kashmir’s division was provoked by a war. The present
Line of Control is based on the position where the Indian and the Pakistani
forces stood at the time of the ceasefire introduced by the United Nations in
1948.
Despite
three wars, dozens of UN resolutions and innumerable negotiations between the
rulers of the two countries the situation has hardly changed. Nor has the
plight of the oppressed masses of Kashmir. Besides oppression, they suffer
poverty and misery. Ironically, Indo-Pak establishments and military hierarchies
use and abuse the Kashmir issue to justify hefty military budgets besides perks
and privileges of the military’s top brass.
The
imperialist military-industrial complexes also benefit. It is the not an
accident that India and Pakistan, housing 22 percent of the world population,
host 44 percent of the world poverty yet they are amongst the top five buyers
of military hard ware and sophisticated arms. At the same time, in the guise of
national security both these countries have become nuclear powers. To maintain
their huge nuclear arsenals, the rulers on both sides have consigned the
toiling masses to absolute poverty.
Paradoxically,
neither the imperialists nor the Indo-Pakistani ruling classes can afford an
all out war between the two nuclear South Asian states. The destruction to be
wreck by any such war would not spare either the investments made by the
imperialists or the assets built by the local elites.
This
vicious cycle consisting of peace gestures followed by intermittent LoC
violations engendering war hysteria without an actual war will continue.
Among
various calls for re-starting the peace talks the recent LoC firing incident
fits pretty well into the scheme of things that the ruling classes have
established. As the tensions rise, both sides exploit national and religious
chauvinism to curb class struggles and stall prospective mass revolts against
the structured oppression. The Safron brigade in India while Islamic
fundamentalists in Pakistan play upon these prejudices to gain political mileage.
Meantime,
the Kashmiris continue suffering. Their dream of a national liberation is as
distant as half a century ago
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