Author: Dipak Basu
Publication: Organiser
Date: October 3, 2004
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=44&page=43
Introduction: Myths are: India had
invaded Kashmir in 1948; India had refused to obey the UN resolutions on
Kashmir to hold the plebiscite to give the opportunity to the people of
Kashmir to have their right of self-determination; the violence in Kashmir
is mainly home-grown and cannot be solved unless India would give freedom
to Kashmir.
European Union Parliament Committee
on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy which
was sent to both parts of Kashmir with a view to formulating inputs to
future EU policy on the region and on Jammu and Kashmir has recently asserted
that, "Human rights abuses by the Indian troops in the occupied Kashmir
continue to feed a cycle of violence and the average custodial killings
of innocent Kashmiris stands at 17 per day." The delegation,which was headed
by Mr John Cushnahan, presented its report at a press briefing in the presence
of representatives of the Brussels-based Kashmir Centre for Human Rights,
US Embassy and Charge d'affaires of Pakistan Embassy.
Mr Gahrton, a member of the delegation,
told newsmen that he was at a loss to understand the visible antagonism
on the part of Indian officials towards holding of plebiscite in Kashmir
and said that such a negative approach was not understandable as the plebiscite
was a part of the firm commitment given by the UN as well as late Indian
Prime Minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru. Mr David Bowe, another member of the
delegation who toured held Kashmir, was amazed at the concentration of
Indian troops in the Valley, which, he said, he had not seen anywhere in
the world. He also said that "Kashmir has been turned into the most beautiful
prison in the world".
The delegation, in its report to
the EU Parliament Committee, recommended that three parties are involved
in Kashmir and all must be fully associated to find out its resolution;
human rights abuses by the Indian troops must be stopped; ceasefire violations
by Indians must stop as there have been at least 1,000 deaths since early
2004; Kashmiris´ struggle is indigenous and must be respected; draconian
POTA law must be scrapped; and the UN be permitted entry into held Kashmir
through United Nations Observers Group in India and Pakistan.
These judgements of the Europeans
parliaments reflect the wide and large-scale disinformation spread by the
Western media in general about Kashmir. Indian media has so far failed
to educate the people, thereby enhancing certain myths propagated by the
Western media.
These myths are: India had invaded
Kashmir in 1948; India had refused to obey the UN resolutions on Kashmir
to hold the plebiscite to give the opportunity to the people of Kashmir
to have their right of self-determination; the violence in Kashmir is mainly
home-grown and cannot be solved unless India would give freedom to Kashmir.
No matter what the Indian Government says, the media outside India has
never accepeted the Indian story. The recent support of United States to
Pakistan is reflected in the Western media, which consider India as the
guilty party on Kashmir.
History and Geography
The Western media often say that
two-thirds of Kashmir is in India, Pakistan has one-third, and this is
not the case. Kashmir Valley is a part of the old princely state of the
Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), ruled by the Maharaja until October 26, 1947.
Currently this state is divided between three countries-India has 45 per
cent, Pakistan has 35 per cent and China has 20 per cent. The population
in the Indian part of Kashmir is about 9 million where 6 million are Muslims,
the rest are mainly Hindus and Buddhists. In the Indian part there are
three distinct parts with different political and religious features. Kashmir
Valley, after the forcible expulsions of Hindus in 1992 is almost 96 per
cent Muslim, Jammu is 66 per cent Hindu, and Ladakh is 54 per cent Buddhist.
Let us take up the issue of ´Indian
invasion and occupation of Kashmir´, as portrayed in the Western
media and in the Western academic circles. At the time of the creation
of independent India and Pakistan in August 1947, the state of J&K
had a ´stand-still´ agreement with both the governments to
allow the Maharaja to make up his mind. However, Pakistan army and Pathan
tribesmen invaded the state on October 29, 1947. Lord Mountbatten after
six days, on October 26, 1947 sent the Indian Army headed by a British
officer, when the Maharaja of the state of J&K agreed to merge with
India. The Indian Army had been ordered not to attack Pakistani positions
but only to defend; as a result Pakistan occupied a substantial part of
the Kashmir Valley. It has also occupied four small semi-independent kingdoms,
part of the state of J&K, Baltistan, Skardhu, Gilgit and Hunza, where
very few Muslims used to stay in 1947. These areas have now been absorbed
into Pakistan as the the Northern Area Province, which used to be called
Gilgit Agency.
Pakistan not only invaded Kashmir
against the will of the people of Kashmir, it has so far violated every
aspect of the UN resolutions; thus, it cannot ask India now, after fifty
years to implement the UN resolution in only 45 per cent of the original
state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan has so far built airfields
in the occupied territory, and imposed its full civilian and military control
while claiming the territory as Azad Kashmir. Pakistan by a constitutional
amendment has incorporated a part of Pakistan- occupied Kashmir (PoK),
that is, northern areas, in Pakistan, thereby changing the territorial
status of J&K and violating the UN resolutions. Pakistan launched three
large-scale operations on India in 1965, 1971 and in the recent Kargil
war in 1999 with an attempt to militarily change the territorial status
of J&K. Since 1988, Pakistan has sponsored cross-border terrorism in
J&K with the aim to change the territorial status of J&K unilaterally,
which is again violation of the UN resolutions.
For these violations the UN could
not impose sanctions on Pakistan, as the resolution was not under Chapter
VII of the UN Charter.
In March 2001 in Islamabad, UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan said: "The UN resolutions that come under Chapter VII
of the Charter were self-enforcing like those related to East Timor and
Iraq. The second type of resolutions which do not fall in the purview of
Chapter VII needed cooperation of the concerned parties for their implementation.
"The UN resolutions on Kashmir do
not fall in the category of Chapter VII and hence require cooperation of
the concerned parties for their implementation and in this case it is lacking."
China is illegally occupying Aksai
Chin area, which is 19 per cent of the territory. It will be next to impossible
for the UN to make China vacate the area. To win Chinese support, it gifted
4,853 sq km of the Kashmiri territory in the Shaksgam valley to China in
1963, thus affecting the territorial integrity of the state of J&K.
UN resolutions are for the whole
of the state of J&K. With Pakistan occupying 35 per cent and China
the rest, it is absurd to call for a plebiscite for only 45 per cent of
the state, which is now in India.
Pakistan has changed the demography
of the coccupied area (PoK) by resettling large numbers of Punjabi ex-
servicemen and Afghans from NWFP, thereby making plebiscite irrelevant.
In 1992, all Hindus from the Indian part of Kashmir were forcibly expelled.
There are large-scale infiltrations
of Pakistanis in the Indian part of the state of J&K. The percentage
of Muslims in Ladakh went up from about 10 in 1947 to 46 in 2001; in Jammu
it went up from about 20 in 1947 to 34 in 2001. In the Northern Area Province,
there were hardly any Muslims in 1947, but now there is no non-Muslim either
in the Pakistan- held Kashmir. The original people of Kashmir have long
since left, thus it would be next to impossible to determine who are now
eligible to vote in the plebiscite as real Kashmiris.
Right of Self-Determination
The UN resolutions have nothing
to do with the ´right of self-determination´ for the Kashmiris,
because there are only two obvious options: Join India or join Pakistan.
There is no third option for ´the independence´, which most
Muslim Kashmiris, according to the Western media, want. If the Kashmiris
wanted to join Pakistan, they could have done so in 1946 when Jinnah had
invited Sheikh Abdullah to join Pakistan; and he had refused.
In January 29, 1994, the Jammu and
Kashmir Liberation Front (JKIF) leader, Amanullah Khan, speaking at Muzaffarabad,
reminded Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto that Pakistan´s
persistent rejection of the third option of independence for Kashmir is
"tantamount to denying the very right of self-determination". Pakistan
has been harping about a right which, he asserted, cannot be limited, conditioned
or circumscribed. But Pakistan´s espousal of the right to self-determination
has always been self-servingly conditional and circumscribed.
The ´right of self-determination´
has many edges. Why should this right be only for the Muslim Kashmiris,
when no other people in united India in 1947 had that right?Ideally it
should be applicable to all religions, tribes, sub-tribes, linguistic groups,
etc. In that case, there will be hardly anything left in Pakistan (or in
India or Bangladesh).
Also where should it start-is it
for the whole country, every province of the British India, every princely
state, every district, every city, village? There is no clear limit, which
is not arbitrary. That is the reason that most countries do not want to
acknowledge the ´right of self-determination´ as a fundamental
right because it will destroy the foundations of all national States, including
Pakistan.
The Western media should ask Pakistan
to apply it first to the people of North-West Frontier Province, which
was forced to join Pakistan and when all its leaders fled to Afghanistan
in 1948. Bangladesh should apply it to the Chttangong Hill Area, where
97 per cent of the people were Buddhists in 1947. In 1947, Pakistan had
the opportunity to help the UN to implement the UN resolutions; now after
fifty years, it has lost all credibility.
What the People Want
What the vast majority of Kashmiris
want is the fundamental question. Recently a very pro-Pakistani British
politician, Lord Eric Avebury had asked an independent market research
company, MORI International, at the end of April (April 20-28, 2002), to
conduct a survey in the Indian part of Kashmir. According to the result,
a vast majority of Kashmiris opposed India and Pakistan going to war to
find a permanent solution to the situation in Kashmir and believe the correct
way is to bring peace to the region through democratic elections, ending
violence, and economic development. On the issue of citizenship, an overall
61 per cent said they felt they would be better off politically and economically
as Indian citizens and only 6 per cent as Pakistani citizens, while 33
per cent said that they did not know. A very clear majority of the population-65
per cent believes the presence of foreign militants in Jammu and Kashmir
is damaging the Kashmir cause, and most of the rest take the view that
it is neither damaging nor helpful.
Conclusion
The Western media, the Western academic
circle, and the European parliamentarians have some implicit bias against
India as they still hold the view that India attacked China in 1962. The
problem, according to them, exists, because India is not holding a plebiscite
in Kashmir. A significant number of Western (including Australian and Japanese)
politicians hold the same view. This is the exact reason that in the United
Nations, except for the Soviet Union, no other country in the past has
supported India´s position. The Western media does not want to understand
the logic of secularism-the reason why India cannot give up Kashmir to
Pakistan despite it being a Muslim majority state. Existence of Kashmir
in India is the guarantee that the Muslims in the rest of India can stay
in India which is a secular State. If India has to give up Kashmir under
international pressure, it would imply acceptance of the ´two- nation´
theory, the philosophical foundation of Pakistan. In that case, how can
Muslims stay on in the rest of India-a moot question, which the European
parliamentarians can never answer.
The Western media or the parliamentarians
do not care about ´secularism´ at all. A secular country like
Yugoslavia was divided up into different religious units under the administration
of NATO. Similar religious divisions can be imposed upon India if India
is unable to withstand diplomatic pressure, which will be forthcoming from
the Europeans countries and USA to resolve the issue of Kashmir. The support
from Western media to a plebiscite in Kashmir is the first step towards
that conspiracy.
(The writer is Professor in Economics,
Nagasaki University, 4-2-1 Katafuchi Machi, Nagasaki-851 8506, Japan, Email:
Bose66@hotmail.com)
