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jaipur, rajasthan, India
retired Army Colonel

Monday, May 28, 2018

KASHMIR: A PERSPECTIVE

KASHMIR: A PERSPECTIVE

Kashmir, has been the bone of contention between India and Pakistan, since 1947, and remains to be an unfinished agenda of the great Partition. The Srinagar Valley is on a constant fire; consequent to Operation Tupac, unleashed in 1989, by General Zia-ul-Haq.  After losing Bangladesh, Pakistani urge to snatch remaining Kashmir from India was the strongest, for two reasons. One, to avenge the humiliation of 1971 war, and two, to settle score of the Partition as Kashmir rightfully, Pakistan believes, belongs to her, being a Muslim majority state; the very principle of the Partition. Every Pakistani General, harbours a life time ambition to capture Kashmir, and General Reheel Sharif called it even a Jugular’s vein.
The history of Kashmir is dead and buried, never to rise and influence its future ever. The erstwhile Princely State of J&K today lie trifurcated under different political controls. It includes, India, Pakistan and China. It’s unlikely that any kind of reunification would materialise ever in distant future. The reason lies in the history of Dogra expeditions in North and West to build over the real estate they bought from Sikhs, so that the latter could pay their war indemnity. The conquered lands remain ethically and geographically disjointed from a young unified state of Jammu & Kashmir. A kingdom bought, like Kashmir would have it’s subjects naturally more of slaves than citizens, and lands would be a private real estate. The people, the nation there in Kashmir remained a suppressed idea, and it waited for the day of judgement. We, even today deal with Kashmir more as real estate, than a federal dominion. Many takers fake two nation theory in Kashmir to pursue political aspirations, without seriously believing in it. It provides them a political platform to gather noise.
15 Aug 1947, dawned in Kashmir with bloodshed, state sponsored ethnic cleansing attempt in Jammu region, Raiders attack, the Dogra Rulers having acceded kingdom to India, the consent of it’s people never having considered necessary. The day of judgement had gone without delivering a judgement. The case of Kashmiri nation was dead, because it was not there in the first place. Aksai Chin in Tibet, Gilgit, Jammu all were neither geographically nor demographically a bound nation. It got splintered with ease.

The part of Kashmir held by India is vital for her strategic defence, and remains non negotiable both politically and militarily. The people of Kashmir, how so ever radicalised or alienated they may be, but India will never be compromising her existential imperatives. It also therefore, clearly dictates that Pakistan has no role to play hereafter, and it already has more than it’s share of contentious bone.
For Indian state to exercise it’s political will over Pakistan, there is only one option of formalising status quo.
More necessarily, immunisation of Indian held J&K from external Islamic overtures, flirting and subversion, must be first completed in all respects.
A realistic picture of Kashmir is necessary to be drawn so that our remedial strategy have right direction and pressure points to press.

Review of the Situation:
The voice of Kashmiri nationalism was first raised in 1931, led by Sheikh Abdullah, and people demanded freedom from oppression of Dogra rule, abetted by Kashmiri Pandits, the bureaucracy of that time leaving Muslims distressfully downtrodden. The movement got hijacked by the Independence of India form British Paramountcy, and subsequently accession to India. The movement never died though, but changed it’s political façade. And, of late manifested into a Islamic one.
Indian state promoted and patronised stooges and puppet Governments in J&K as a short cut, rather than engineering social and political integration with rest of the country.

The instrument of accession, by all virtues, has lost its legal status after 70 years of signing. The fact of the matter is that the Princely state never physically got acceded to India, except on paper. Therefore, all it’s constitutional bindings should rightfully stand annulled legally. What remains a ground reality today is, that India, like China and Pakistan also holds a portion of, splintered erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir; the fragmentation being the result of many evolutionary factors beyond the political control of sovereignties, emerging during that period.

The Kashmiri separatism, on Indian side, and it’s perpetrators had been weak and geographically confined to some four districts of the Valley only. These provided hot bed and opened gateway to Pakistani monster, the Operation Tupac. Indian sleeping Intelligence Agencies were caught with their pants down. Kashmir was flooded with AKs 47 during 1989, and formidable arsenal. How quickly it got cached is surprising.
The Indian Army redeployed, raised Rashtriya Rifles, mobilised para military, CPOs to fight the menace of Tupac, both on LOC and the hinterland. The Valley was infested with foreign mercenaries, mainly Afghans, Syrian, Arab Mujahideen, recently spared from Russian engagement in Afghanistan. Sallahuddin,(Yusuf Sheikh), raised his own Army, and had local Kashmiris,  considered weaklings, unradicalised, unmotivated, and timid in many cases.
During the next 30 years from 1989 onwards, the collateral damage due to Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorist Operations was enormous. More than physical loss of life &  material, the major impact was delivered on People’s psych, thinking and attitude. The mental stress on women, children, older men was unbearable. It lead to alarming levels of alienation, angst, anger and revengefulness, which in turn has manifested into a hydra with mainly three heads:  radicalisation, jihadism and Alienation. The insurgency got indigenous and we witness Burhan Wani, stone pelting, intifada, like Palestine, solidarity fight for insurgents, funerals as projection of strength. The political parties, in Kashmir fallen and stooped low to broker deals between separatists and Union of India. The elected Government runs it’s writ in shadow of the separatists and the Centre of gravity of J&K politics remain in South Kashmir, for some very strange reasons. Pakistan, can today reap it’s ROI, put the Kashmir burner on auto and sits back watching us muddling in blood and sweat.
Resolution

The resolution would be best found in reverse engineering.
Efface the ghost of erstwhile J&K State, denounce the instrument of accession and along with it, article 370 on the same plea to start with. The Centre of gravity of Kashmiri politics must shift south of Pir Panjal, Demography must change to fit into rest of India profile and thus completing the integration. The road would be steep, winding, meandering and tough. But, nations evolve with grit, determination and clarity.
There is a case for quasi state like Delhi, in Jammu and of a UT in Ladakh. The Kashmir valley can have special Administrative Zones(SAZ), leaving a 5 km belt along LOC as Military Protection Zone. The SAZs should have political bodies only upto Panchayats, empowered sufficiently to have people’s rule in spirit. The district administration could be placed under mature, acclaimed administrators of fame and proven records.
Covert Intelligence operations to root out radicalisation from Mosques and Madrassas, selectively banning religious organisations and overt separatists (Hurriyat) lobbies, would be needed with additional resources pooled in from rest of the country.
Education and mass recruitment of youth(both genders) into uniformed services with highly relaxed qualifications and dispersing in rest of the country, would extricate them from the black hole of insurgency.
Investment into infra structure, through Military and Defence budgets would pay more dividends, dual purpose as well.
A slow, genuine reconciliatory soothing approach would settle the fire and make headway for permanent peace.
All we need is a DOER and not the TALKER at the helm.


1 comment:

  1. Raj, actually, I have lost track of Kashmir Story as almost everything you see on every media(including this piece) is either one sided or totally away from reality. Not one, but two generations have passed since the founding of Muslim Conference by Sheik Abdullah. In short, very few people can comment or opine on what the conflict is doing to people. I love books and look at them as main source for pulse of the society rather than military reports or political analysis. here we go. one excellent book (very short novel) by Paro Anand https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5070965-weed . It gives a poignant picture of what makes a young-man turn to militancy or what makes a mother of a youngman and /or widow of a militant turn away from militancy. After all it is people who matter. if no one picks up weapons, there would be no war.

    Coming to a political solution, Instrument of accession is the only piece of document that provides legitimacy to Union of India over state of J & K. article 370 is a solemn word given by a head of Indian Union to the People of Kashmir. Such promise can only be taken back on concurrence by the People of kashmir. That's what ethics say.
    Which ever way , you look at it, the entire problem has been created or aggravated or kept on boil by firstly "Mis-governance and secondly Islamic militancy (Home grown version plus Imported version) So the solution also has to be through good-governance and curbing of Influence of Islam (Home grown or imported) I could be wrong , as I my inputs are mostly from books and talks with carpet sellers who are all over India. They love cantonments as mem saabs still love kashmiri Carpets, Baadaam and akrot.Yeah, they love Mhow. bought a few shawls myself, for two hours worth of stories from the valley. Stories were definitely worth the price and Shawls were just complementary gifts !

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