Kashmir factor, editorial Daily Times, February 06, 2015
Kashmir Day has become established
every February 5 to demonstrate our solidarity with and support for the long
struggle of the people of Kashmir for the exercise of their right of
self-determination. In Pakistan we tend to interpret that right according to
the provisions of the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions of almost 67 years
ago that accorded that right through a plebiscite but confined the choices
available to the people of Kashmir to join either Pakistan or India.
Since these resolutions were framed within the
context of the conflict that broke out in Kashmir soon after independence and
were rooted in the climate of partition, the third principle of
self-determination, i.e. the choice to opt for independence, was never on the
table. While the (circumscribed) right of self-determination of the people
of Kashmir remains the fulcrum on which Pakistan argues its case, this too is not
a consistent position in the almost seven decades of war and diplomacy that
Pakistan and India have gone through on this vexed issue. Whenever it
appeared in the past in this long saga that India was prepared to at least talk
about a peaceful political solution, Pakistan too showed flexibility. However,
when India assumes an intransigent attitude as the status quo power in
Indian-Held Kashmir (IHK), Pakistan too reverts to its ‘principled’ position of
relying on the UNSC resolutions to press its case.
While this happened in a milder version during the
last Indian government’s tenure, it has come back to haunt us with a vengeance
this Kashmir Day since the new Modi government in New Delhi has taken what can
only be described as an extraordinarily belligerent attitude and followed it up
with raising the ante on the Line of Control (LoC) by aggressive military
steps.
It should then come as no surprise that this
Kashmir Day we hear the prime minister, Senate and National Assembly issuing
the same formulations regarding the UNSC resolutions as the ‘only’ solution to
the Kashmir imbroglio. The Day has fallen over time into a ritualistic series
of seminars, rallies and other manifestations such as a human chain, etc, to
express our sentiments. These manifestations include the ritual appeals to the
UN and the international community to intervene and have the resolutions
implemented.
The only problem with this ‘principled’ reiteration
of our deepest hopes and desires is that no one out there is listening any
more. The world as a whole has tired of hearing our repeated pleas for a
resolution of the Kashmir dispute, not the least because over time, other, more
urgent problems have overtaken all this, but also because unfortunately
Pakistan does not pull the same weight as India any more, our protestations and
ambitions in this regard notwithstanding.
While we remain strong on rhetoric but with an
empty closet on practicable solutions to the conflict in today’s world, India
has decided as long ago as when the 1989 armed struggle against Indian
occupation began, to adopt a three-pronged approach: extreme repression,
ignoring the oppressed and alienated people of Kashmir, and the repeated farce
of elections under the shadow of the gun, participated in by parties and individuals
considered little more than collaborators of New Delhi in Kashmir.
To this long standing mix, India has now added
under Modi the doctrine of raising the threshold of pain on the LoC to
discourage any idea of infiltration of fighters into IHK to continue their
increasingly difficult struggle. New Delhi has made little if any effort to
alter this policy dynamic over the years, for example by engaging the genuine
leaders of the alienated people of Kashmir. Modi’s government is now taking
things one step further by importing the BJP’s Hindutva philosophy into the
coalition government it is becoming part of in Srinagar. That could raise the
level of internal conflict in IHK up another notch.
Since our leadership has now come out (in retaliation to Mr Modi’s hard line stance, as argued above) with the ‘no Kashmir in agenda, no talks’ mantra again, the prospects of a rational, negotiated solution to the Kashmir conflict have receded over the horizon even further.
The people of Pakistan and India, the region and
the world have every reason to be apprehensive of this development, given the
nuclear-armed status of both countries. This nuclear weaponisation is currently
conflating from ballistic missiles and aerial platforms to deliver nuclear
weapons, to tactical battlefield ones, which clearly lowers the barrier to
their potential use as the result even of a conventional armed conflict.
In the obtaining circumstances, and amid
Islamabad’s hopes that US nudging may bring India back to the table, perhaps
the only realistic option is that if both countries cannot achieve
normalisation and peace, at least they should learn to manage their mutual
mistrust to avoid war. *
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