Musings on the Kashmir dispute
A UN Trusteeship for a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Jammu & Kashmir, a la East Timor, under permanent Security Council member - China!
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - According to yesterdays Kashmir Times, Greater Kashmir, and other newspapers, Kashmir National Conference (NC) president, Omar Abdullah, (a former Minister of State in the External affairs ministry during the BJP raj; a grandson of Shaikh Abdullah and son of Dr. Farooq Abdullah) said in Srinagar yesterday that he was likely to visit Pakistan in near future and would take with him the pigeonholed Greater Autonomy Resolution, passed by the Kashmir Assembly in June 2000. He would ask Gen Musharraf if his recent self-government suggestion for Kashmir was a better and more practicable idea than the Kashmir assembly autonomy resolution, passed in June 2000, to solve the Kashmir dispute. Some solution!
According to a report in the HINDU newspaper of June 30, 2000, (www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2000/06/30/stories/05302523.htm) discovered while researching the issue, the Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) passed a `resolution' on `autonomy' for Kashmir by voice vote five years ago, in June 2000. The details of the resolution or the text of the resolution, the report in the Hindu said, are not known. Neither are the resolution's unknown supporters. The five year old report in the Hindu, written by Rajeev Dhavan, headlined, 'Autonomy not secession', goes on to say that, "The J & K Assembly's `resolution' has no special constitutional status. But it has a positive aspect which needs to be emphasised again and again. It is a demand for autonomy not secession. The Resolution wants to go back to the status quo of 1953. From this many implications follow. It follows that the J & K Assembly accepts the Instrument of Accession. Through this Resolution, the J & K Assembly confirms that all of Kashmir (including Pakistan- occupied Kashmir) is an integral part of India. By staying within Article 370, the J & K Assembly also accepts that Kashmir's merger with India is irrevocable. Such a strong political affirmation of Kashmir's status within India by its own duly-elected Assembly must be given due respect. Writ large over the Assembly's Resolution is not a message for India, but for Pakistan and the rest of the world." With political guile, the then Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, the Hindu reported, decided to duck even this 'diluted' and toothless suggestion.
After the recent terrible earthquake in Kashmir the political leadership of India and the small Indophile section of the Pakistani elite - mediocre, corrupt and ignorant by any measure - has not understand that the tragedy has brought about a big change among the Kashmiris of all creeds who now aspire for freedom more than ever. More than that, the Kashmiris have realized that the nuclear status does not empower India (or Pakistan for that matter) to ignore the aspirations of the fourteen million people of the former princely state of Kashmir populated by Muslims, Sikhs, Brahmins, Buddhists, Untouchables et. al. It is now commonly known in Kashmir that the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the princely state of Kashmir (total disputed area 69, 306 sq miles of which 38, 830 sq miles, population over ten million, are held by India and 32, 476 sq miles, population about four million, are under Pakistani control) want to be 'azad' - free and independent - with United Nations' help a la Indonesian-occupied East Timor, now called the Republic of Timor-Leste.
The Kashmiris understood the limitations of Indian military power when they launched their armed struggle against Indian rule, and its half million strong army of occupation, sixteen years ago. Nuclear weapons on the subcontinent, as everyone knows, emasculates India, the stronger and much larger party, which has more to lose as unfavourable meteorology/winds and its geographic depth are to Pakistan's advantage, the weaker party. India cannot Nuke Lahore without destroying Delhi whereas Pakistan can Nuke Chennai &/or Kolkatta, without fear of immediate radioactive fallout, just like the Americans in World War II who nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the main Japanese Island, on 6 and 9 August 1945 respectively, after American troops captured/ garrisoned Okinawa Island which was less than 500 miles from these two doomed cities.
In order to have a realistic and pragmatic view of the present struggle in Kashmir it is important to understand the legal position of all princely states, in mid-August 1947, when Imperial Britain, exhausted by World War 11, withdrew from the subcontinent after ruling some parts like Bengal and Madras for nearly two centuries and others like Punjab for about a hundred years.
The right of Kashmir or Hyderabad or Junagadh or Nagalim to determine their future (right of self-determination enshrined in the UN charter) was part of the Indian Independence Act, when one reads what Earl Mountbatten and Mr. M. A. Jinnah, later Governor Generals of India and Pakistan respectively, had to say in the first half of 1947. The last British Viceroy in India, Earl Louis Mountbatten, (1900-79) in his speech to the Chamber Of Princes in New Delhi, delivered on 25 June 1947, said that
"...... The Indian Independence Act releases the princely States from all their obligations to the British Crown. The States will have complete freedom - technically and legally they become independent."
The founding father of Pakistan Mr. Mohammed Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) during an interview, he gave on 17 June 1947, explained that:-
"After the lapse of paramountcy the Indian States would be constitutionally and legally sovereign States and free to adopt for themselves any course they wished. It is open to the States to join Hindustan, Pakistan or to decide to remain independent. In my opinion they are free to remain independent if they so desire." It is obvious that Mr. Jinnah, a brilliant constitutional lawyer and the President of Muslim League, believed that the 'Two Nations Theory' did not apply to the native Princely States. These quotes from two important leaders indicate that after the lapse of British Paramountcy on 15 August 1947, those States which did not accede to either India or Pakistan, became independent. The princely states of Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh come in this category.
The then Indian Prime minister, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, acknawledged the independence of Kashmir as such in a telegram he sent to British Prime minister Clement Atlee on October 26, 1947.
Excerpts of telegram dated 26 October, 1947 from Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee.
(www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kasnehru.htm)
For Prime Minister United Kingdom from Prime Minister India
.
We have received urgent appeal for assistance from Kashmir Government. We would be disposed to give favourable consideration to such request from any friendly State. Kashmir's Northern frontiers, as you are aware, run in common with those of three countries, Afghanistan, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and China. Security of Kashmir, which must depend upon control of internal tranquillity and existence of stable Government, is vital to security of India especially since part of Southern boundary of Kashmir and India are common. Helping Kashmir, therefore, is an obligation of national interest to India. We are giving urgent consideration to question as to what assistance we can give to State to defend itself. I should like to make it clear that question of aiding Kashmir in this emergency is not designed in any way to influence the State to accede to India. Our view which we have repeatedly made public is that the question of accession in any disputed territory or State must be decided in accordance with wishes of the people and we adhere to this view. It is quite clear, however, that no free expression of will of people of Kashmir is possible if external aggression succeeds in imperilling integrity of its territory. I have thought it desirable to inform you of situation because of its threat of international complications."
Readers should note the major error
of geography in the above telegram. The Indian Prime minister Nehru, and the hundreds of 'Babus' in the Indian External Affairs ministry, did not know that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had no common boudary with Kashmir as Tajikistan (a part of USSR at that time) was and is separated by the Pamir-a-Khurd mountains of Afghanistan in the Wakhan territory which narrow finger of Afghan territory reaches out to touch the Chinese border and separates, even today, Tajikistan from Kashmir and the North Western Frontier Province of Pakistan.
The next day October 27, 1947, after the return of V. P. Menon and Brigadier Sam Manekshaw from Kashmir, Indian Prime minister Nehru sent a telegram to the then Pakistani Prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan some relevant excerpts of which are:-
For Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaqat Ali Khan from Prime minister India
"I should like to make it clear that the question of aiding Kashmir in this emergency is not designed in any way to influence the State to accede to India. Our view which we have repeatedly made public
is that the question of accession in any disputed territory or State must be decided in accordance with the wishes of people and we adhere to this view."
Four days later,
on October 31, 1947, Indian Prime minister Nehru sent another telegram to Pakistani Prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan part of which reads as follows:-
" .... our assurance that we shall withdraw our troops from Kashmir as soon as peace and order are restored and leave the decision about the future of the State to the people of the State is not merely a pledge to your government but also to the people of Kashmir and to the world."
In a yet another telegram,
on November 03, 1947, to Pakistani Prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan, Pandit Nehru the Indian Prime minister wrote:-
"I wish to draw your attention to broadcast on Kashmir which l made last evening. Have stated our Government's policy and made it clear that we have no desire to impose our will on Kashmir but to leave final decision to people of Kashmir. l further stated that we have agreed on impartial international agency like United Nation', supervising any referendum."
Similar communication by letter were also addressed by the Nehru government to the United Nations an example of which is the Government of India's letter of December 31, 1947, addressed to the U.N. Security Council asking it to take up the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan. A relevant section of that letter to the UN reads as follows:-
" .... But in order to avoid any possible suggestion that India had utilised the State's immediate peril for her own political advantage, the Government of India made it clear that once the soil of the State had been cleared of the invader and normal conditions restored, its people would be free to decide their future by the recognised democratic method of plebiscite or referendum which, in order to ensure complete impartiality, might be held under international auspices of the U.N."
With this background the aspirations of the majority in Kashmir (Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Untouchables and Buddhists et. al.,) cannot be ignored. They have a right to determine their future - already enshrined in a number of UN Resolutions on the disputed territory of Kashmir, a la East Timor which was an identical international dispute with a happy ending.
The former Portugese colony of East Timor was occupied by Muslim-majority Indonesia after the Portugese Colonials fled in August 1975. The people, majority of them Christians, who wanted independence revolted against the oppressive Indonesian rule and after a long struggle of nearly twenty four years a UN interim administration formally took command on October 26, 1999. Pro-independence forces won elections for a constituent assembly August 30, 2001 and Mr. Xanana Gusmao, a former guerilla leader won the presidential elections on April 14, 2002. East Timor became the independent country of Timor-Leste on May 20, 2002. The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste located in the North Eastern half of Timor island (area 5, 794 sq miles, population a little over one million of whom 90% are Roman Catholics) about 400 miles North East of the Australian port city of Darwin, lies astride the oil/gas-rich Timor Sea. It entered the U.N. as a member on September 27, 2002.
A similar solution of the Kashmir dispute, in the current 'climate' would be a UN Trusteeship, a la East Timor, developing into an independent sovereign land-locked multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Kashmir which the majority of the Muslim, Sikh, untouchable and many Hindu Kashmiris want - an Asian Switzerland - a bridge of peace and commerce between India/Pakistan & South and Central Asia.
Another solution, a more practical variation to the above, from the Kashmiri point of view, could be a Hong Kong like status for ten years, under the supervision (under a UN Trusteeship) of a wealthy, muscular, 'rising' China which has historical ties with the princely mini-states of Gilgit, Hunza, Ladakh and Baltistan who used to pay an annual tribute to the Middle Kingdon. Such a development will bring great prosperity to the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious, fourteen million inhabitants of Kashmir, living on both sides of the Ceasefire Line, who will have a clear goal, of full independence as a sovereign state of Kashmir, a la Republic of Timor-Leste, a decade down the road.
The above would be a win-win situation for India and Pakistan which countries could then bury their nukes and reduce their wasteful military expenditure on obsolete weapons and engage in cross-border inter-continental trade, which will bring prosperity, in a hurry, to a billion and half South Asians, a vast majority of them living in squalor (at this point in time) after nearly sixty wasted and sad years of 'independence' from British Colonial rule.