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Sep-10-2008
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(The author is a Professor in International Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan)
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Kashmir is burning once again and the renewed communal conflicts are coming back to haunt India. The Problem regarding the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir has recently provoked a possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan. The problem was originated in 1947 and there is no sign that it will be resolved given the rigid stand taken by both India and Pakistan. This paper has tried to analyze the problem to provide a realistic solution.
The problem has its origin in the partition of the British Empire in India along the religious line in 1947 between Muslims and non-Muslims. However, the fundamental premise of that partition, to separate out two warring factions, is yet to be fulfilled. The so-called Kashmir problem is the result of that unfulfilled task of the partition of the British India and the solution can only be found if that task can be taken up once again.
History of the Dispute:
The views of the Western observers on the Kashmir issue reflect the wide disinformation spread by the Western media in general about Kashmir (Lennox, 2002; Margolis, 2000; Schofield, 2003; Simons, 1999; Wirsing, 1997). The Western media and most of the Western countries consider India as the guilty party in Kashmir (Ganguly, 2001, 2002, Kumar, 2002; Srivastava, 2001), although the attitude is changing slowly since the 9/11 incident. Thus, it is important to know the facts correctly.
Kashmir valley is a part of the old princely state of the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh until 26 October 1947. Currently the state of J&K is divided up between three countries, India has 45 percent, Pakistan has 35 percent, and China has 20 percent. The population of the Indian part of Kashmir is about nine millions, six millions are Muslims, the rest are mainly Hindu and Buddhists. In the Indian part, there are three distinct valleys with different religious features: (a) Kashmir valley, which after the forcible expulsions of the Hindus in 1992 is almost 96 percent Muslim; (b) Jammu valley, which is 66 percent Hindu; and (c) Ladakh valley, which are 54 percent Buddhists.
Religious groups: Indian-administered Kashmir
REGION Buddhist Hindu Muslim Other
Kashmir Valley - 4% 95% 1%
Jammu - 66% 30% 4%
Ladakh 54% - 46% -
Religious groups: Pakistani-administered Kashmir
REGION Buddhist Hindu Muslim Other
Northern Areas - - 99% -
Azad Jammu and Kashmir - - 99% -
Source: Indian/Pakistani Government Censuses
At the time of the creation of independent India and Pakistan in August, 1947 the State of J&K has a "stand-still" agreement with the both governments to allow the Maharaja Hari Singh to make up his mind. However, Pakistan army and Pathan tribesmen had invaded the state on 20 October 1947. Lord Mountbatten, the Governor General of Indian Dominion, on 26 October 1947, has sent the Indian Army headed by General Boucher, a British officer, when the Maharaja had agreed to join India. The Indian Army had the order not to attack Pakistani position but only to defend the non-occupied parts of the state. As a result, Pakistan has absorbed a substantial part of the Kashmir valley. It has also occupied four small semi-independent kingdoms as well, which were parts of the State of the J&K, Baltistan, Skardhu, Gilgit, and Hunza, where very few Muslims used to stay in 1947. These areas are now incorporated into Pakistan as "The Northern Area Province".
U.N Resolution, of 13 August 1948, clearly asked Pakistan to vacate the areas it had occupied in October 1947, so that India can arrange a referendum. Pakistan did not abide by the UN Resolution and so far refused to withdraw its troops and infiltrators. To win Chinese support, Pakistan has gifted away 4853 sq km of the Kashmiri territory in the Shaksgam Valley to China in 1963, thus disrupting the territorial integrity of the State of J&K. Large number of Pakistanis came from Punjab and North-West Frontier Province to settle down in the Pakistan occupied areas of Jammu & Kashmir thus, changing the demographic pattern (Kotru, 1995; Sharma, 1967). For these violations, the UN could not impose sanctions on Pakistan, as the Resolution was not under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, thus, it is non-binding. China has occupied about 19 percent of the territory in 1962 and has obtained from Pakistan another 1 percent in 1963. It will be impossible for the UN to make China vacate the area.
The Treaty of Accession:
Pakistan denies that there was any agreement by which the Maharaja has agreed to join India. However, "the treaty of accession" is a legal document whose merit was accepted by the United Nations to whom India made a petition on 30 October 1947 to settle this matter. Legality of the accession was accepted by USA as well.
The U.S Permanent Representative in the U.N, Mr. Warren Austin, said, on 4 February 1948 to the Security Council, " The external Sovereignty of Kashmir is no longer under the control of the Maharajah. With the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India this foreign sovereignty went over to India and that is why India happens to be here (Security Council) as a petitioner." (www.indiaconsulate.org.br/comercial/ p_nao_residentes/LegalityoftheAccessionofKashmir.htm; Sharma, 1967)
I quote here some parts of the agreement, which according to Pakistan does not exist.
Instrument of Accession (The Treaty between the Maharaja of J&K and Lord Mountbatten)
....
1. I hereby declare that I accede to the Dominion of India with the intent that the Governor-General of India, the Dominion Legislature, the Federal Court and any other Dominion authority established for the purposes of the Dominion shall, by virtue of this my Instrument of Accession but subject always to the terms thereof, and for the purposes only of the Dominion, exercise in relation to the State of Jammu and Kashmir (hereinafter referred to as "this State") such functions as may be vested in them by or under the Government of India Act, 1935, as in force in the Dominion of India, on the 15th Day of August 1947, (which Act as so in force is hereafter referred to as "the Act").
.......
Given under my hand this 26th day of October, nineteen hundred and forty-seven.
Hari Singh,
Maharajadhiraj of Jammu and Kashmir State.
Acceptance of Accession by the Governor-General of India
I do hereby accept this Instrument of Accession.
Dated this twenty-seventh day of October, nineteen hundred and forty-seven.
Mountbatten of Burma,
Governor-General of India.
According to the international law, if the agreement does not exist or invalid, as Pakistan argue, then the State of J&K still belongs to the right-full owner Dr.Karan Singh, the son of the late Maharaja and therefore the inheritor of the state of J&K. If the agreement exist and is legally valid, then Pakistan or China cannot occupy any parts of the state of J&K. That was the reason Pakistan had put forward another argument, that the right of the self-determination of the people, not any royal ownership, should be the supreme.
UN Resolutions on Kashmir:
The view of Pakistan is that India disregarded the UN resolution of plebiscite on Kashmir and the right of the self-determination of the people of Kashmir, which according to the Pakistan are all Muslims (Schofield, 2003; Wirsing, 1997).
There are about 20 resolution passed by the UN security council on Kashmir from 1948 to 1971, the most important one is the Resolution no 47, all others are repeating the same points. I quote from the UN Resolution No 47, on April 1948:
21 APRIL, 1948
RESOLUTION 47 (1948) ON THE INDIA-PAKISTAN QUESTION ADOPTED BY THE SECURITY COUNCIL AT ITS 286TH MEETING HELD ON 21 APRIL 1948. (DOCUMENT NO. S/726, DATED THE 21ST APRIL 1948).
THE SECURITY COUNCIL
....
Recommends to the Governments of India and Pakistan the following measures as those which in the opinion of the Council and appropriate to bring about a cessation of the fighting and to create proper conditions for a free and impartial plebiscite to decide whether the State of Jammu and Kashmir is to accede to India or Pakistan.
A - RESTORATION OF PEACE AND ORDER
1. The Government of Pakistan should undertake to use its best endeavors:
a. To secure the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the State for the purposes of fighting, and to prevent any intrusion into the State of such elements and any furnishing of material aid to those fighting in the State;
b. To make known to all concerned that the measures indicated in this and the following paragraphs provide full freedom to all subjects of the State, regardless of creed, caste, or party, to express their views and to vote on the question of the accession of the State, and that therefore they should co-operate in the maintenance of peace and order.
.....
* The Security Council voted on this Resolution on 20-1-1948 with the following result: -
In favor: **Argentina, **Canada. China, France, **Syria, U. K, and U. S. A
Against: None
Abstaining: **Belgium, **Columbia, **Ukrainian S. S. R. and U. S. S. R.
----
The UN Resolution categorically says:
- Pakistan to withdraw all its troops from areas it had occupied in Kashmir.
- After Pakistan troops withdrawal, India to withdraw the bulk of its forces but to maintain a requisite strength for safeguarding the law and order in the state.
- Subsequently, the future status of the state was to be determined in accordance with the will of the people.
-
Pakistan never vacated the areas it had occupied. Thus, no plebiscite could take place. It makes no sense, after fifty years, according to India, to implement the UN resolution in only 45 percent of the original state of the Jammu and Kashmir, which is in India now.
Pakistan launched three large-scale wars on India in 1965, 1971 and in 1999 with an attempt to militarily change the territorial status of J&K. As soon as the Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, Islamic Muzzahadins who were fighting in Afghanistan came to Jammu & Kashmir, supported by Pakistan, to change the territorial status of J&K unilaterally (Blum, 1995, 2000). In 1992, all Hindus from the Indian part of Kashmir were forcibly expelled (Kotru, 1995; Goradia, 2002). There are large-scale infiltrations of Pakistanis in the Indian part of the state of J&K (U.S. State Department, 2005).
The percentage of the Muslim in Ladakh went up from about 10 in 1947 to 46 in 2001; in Jammu it went up from about 20 in 1947 to 30 in 2001. In the "Northern Area Province", there were hardly any Muslims in 1947, now there is no non-Muslims in either there or 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 (Kotru,1995; Mitra, 2001; Goradia, 2002).
In March 2001 in Islamabad, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said:" The UN resolutions that come under chapter seven 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 seven needed co-operation of the concerned parties for their implementation. The UN resolutions on Kashmir do not fall in the category of chapter seven and hence required cooperation of the concerned parties for their implementation and in this case it is lacking" (The Hindustan Times, 16 March 2001).
The 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 no third option for "the independence", which most Muslim Kashmiris, according to the western observers, possibly want (although it is not supported by the survey conducted by MORI in 2002).
If the Kashmiris wanted to join Pakistan, they could have done so in 1946 when Jinnah had invited Sheikh Abdullah to join Pakistan, he had refused. In January 29, 1994, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKIF) leader, Amanullah Khan, speaking in Muzaffarabad, reminded Pakistan 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" (Kotru, 1995). Pakistan has been harping about, a right which, he asserted, cannot be limited, conditioned or circumscribed.
Various Proposals so far:
India wants to convert the line of control in Kashmir as the international border and keep everything as it is. It was the basis of the Simla Conference in 1972, which took place after the defeat of Pakistan in its war against India in 1971. India is prepared to forgo the Pakistan occupied part of Kashmir. However this is not acceptable to Pakistan, as it has already gained that part, it wants additional land, which is the remaining part of the Kashmir valley. India will not agree with it, as it destroys the fundamental basis of the current constitution, secularism. If Kashmir cannot stay in India because it has a Muslim majority, it implies that India is accepting the "Two-Nation" theory propagated by the founder of Pakistan Muhhamed Ali Jinnah that Hindus and Muslims are separate nations and cannot live together.
An alternative solution was proposed by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) which is now gaining popularity among the Western countries, Pakistan and the Hurriyat, the political face of the Islamic Muzzahadins. It supports independence for the whole area of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The plan suggests, armies from both India and Pakistan should vacate the area, the UN would take over and run the administration for the next fifteen years and organize the referendum afterwards to decide whether the area will join India or Pakistan or to stay independent. It is silent about the area occupied by China (Kotru, 1995; Malik, 2002).
This is very similar to the plan made by the Australian judge Owen Dixon, the UN representative to India-Pakistan during the early 1950"s (Malik, 2002). According to his plan, Pakistan will take whatever it has occupied already. India will take Jammu and Ladakh valleys. A plebiscite will decide to which country Kashmir will go. Both the United States and Britain originally supported this plan. India had refused to accept it as it rewards Pakistan only. However, it is now revived by the Western analysts as the basis for any future negotiations. The plan is popular in Pakistan as it implies Pakistan may have Kashmir eventually.
Pakistan"s original proposal was to merge the valley of Kashmir into Pakistan, leaving Jammu and Ladakh in India. However, Pakistan is no longer insisting upon this plan by looking at its wider implications. This plan will eventually invites a radical solution of the "Exchange of population between India and Pakistan", as proposed by both Dr.B.R. Ambedkar and Dr.Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in 1947 (Ambedkar, 1945). The Ambedkar-Mukherjee plan was that: Pakistan (Bangladesh was not born then) will take all Muslims living in India; India will accept all non-Muslims from Pakistan. All migrants would be allowed to take away their respective assets; destitute would be compensated by the respective governments who are displacing them. Kashmir will go to Pakistan automatically. India had never accepted this plan, although in the 1943 plan of the partition of India prepared by Mahatma Gandhi and Rajagopalachari had, as one of its clause, the "voluntary exchange of population" (Ambedkar, 1945). As Pakistan did want to accept the Muslims of India, it has never supported this plan either. Strangely enough, just before the partition of India in 1947, the founders of Pakistan always demanded a full-scale exchange of population, but immediately after the partition, they only wanted one-way expulsions of the non-Muslims from Pakistan.
The problem of the "most favoured" solution of the Western countries and Pakistan, i.e., the eventual independence of Kashmir, would have exactly the same implication as the solution in terms of "the exchange of population". Independence of Kashmir, from where all the non-Muslims would be evicted, would initiate violent reactions in India, in which, ultimately an extremely violent exchange of population would take place, as it has happened in the former Yugoslavia recently. Just like Yugoslavia, it would mean the end of "secularism" in India.
Recent Proposal of General Musharaf:
The recent proposal of General Musharaf in November 2004 for the solution of the Kashmir problem was greeted with joy by the Muslims in both Kashmir and Pakistan. As the president put it, the old princely state of Jammu and Kashmir comprised seven regions different from each other based on religion, ethnicity, and geography. Two are now on the Pakistani side (Northern Area comprising of Skardhu, Gilgit, Hunza, Baltistan and the Pakistan held Kashmir or Azad Kashmir) and the other five (Ladakh, Kargil, Muslim parts of Jammu, Hindu parts of Jammu and the Indian administered Kashmir) are under the control of India (The Nation, 21 November, 2004).
. He has listed several options for a settlement: (a) the whole area could be demilitarized and made autonomous; (b) it could be put under the joint control of the two countries; (c) some parts could be divided between the two countries and the Kashmir Valley either would become autonomous or would be under UN supervision. The President has expressed the existing reality, while very strongly confirming that the issue can neither be resolved by declaring the Line of Control (LOC) as the permanent border nor can it be resolved by accepting the Indian stand of Kashmir being an integral part of India (The Nation, 21 November, 2004).
.
Given this new position of Pakistan, certain implications are very clear. First, Pakistan"s demand is now not restricted to the Indian part of Kashmir valley only, but it has extended to include Kargil of Ladakh Valley and Muslim inhabited districts of western Jammu as well. Before this declaration, there was a general impression that Pakistan will be happy if India will give up the remaining parts of the Kashmir valley, allowing Pakistan to have both Azad Kashmir and the Northern Area. That is no longer the case.
Second, Pakistan has clearly explained that the problem of Kashmir is religious and a partition along the religious line is the only acceptable solution for Pakistan.
Third, Pakistan does not want plebiscite anymore to solve the problem, as it has demanded since 1948. The reason is that there is no guarantee that the majority of the people in the old state of Jammu and Kashmir would like to join or even stay in Pakistan given the dismal record of Pakistan on every aspects of human life.
The fundamental question is what the vast majority of the Kashmiris want. Recently the British politician Lord Eric Avebury has asked a independent British market research company, MORI International, in April 2002, to conduct a survey in the Indian part of Kashmir (MORI, 2002; Hutton, Ilett and Vinter, 2003). On the issue of citizenship, overall, 61% said they felt they would be better off politically and economically as an Indian citizen and only 6% as a Pakistani citizen, but 33% said they did not know. It is sure General Musharaf is afraid that the majority will reject the option to join Pakistan. That is the very reason he is no longer interested in the plebiscite on Kashmir.
Implication of Musharaf"s Proposal:
If India accepts of the proposal of General Musharaf, demilitarization of the state of Jammu & Kashmir will invite both Pakistanis, both the terrorists and ordinary immigrants to change the demographic feature of the state further in favour of Pakistan. It also means non-Muslims will be totally evicted from the state, even from the Jammu and Ladakh area. UN controls would make no difference either. The recent experiences in both Kosovo and Bosnia shows that under the noses of the U.N and the NATO army, Muslims have evicted the non-Muslims Serbs from both these areas. That would be repeated in Jammu and Ladakh. The joint control of the state, given the degree of hate and antagonism between the two armies of India and Pakistan, would very soon be reduced to open warfare.
The real implication of the proposal means India without the Kashmir valley and Kargil would be unable to save Ladakh valley from the Chinese and Pakistani infiltrations and would have to be happy with the eastern Jammu and nearly 3 millions of non-Muslim refugees.
The increased appetite of Pakistan to include Kargil and western Jammu means Pakistan and Bangladesh both gradually demand inclusions of Muslim majority areas in India in their respective countries. In about six districts of Assam, Muslims are now in majority. The situation is the same in parts of West Bengal, north Kerala, and northwestern Uttar Pradesh. Pakistan and Bangladesh will not wait for a long time to demand these areas. Thus, acceptance of Musharaf"s proposal would imply fragmentation of India in future and open war between Muslim and non-Muslim communities as we have seen in the former Yugoslavia recently.
Reason for Pakistan"s increasing confidence:
The reason Pakistan is now so bold to demand practically the whole of the state of Jammu and Kashmir is because of its close association with the United States. The U.S has pressurized India, according to a recent statement by Colin Powell, the former U.S. secretary of state, to start the peace negotiations with Pakistan (The Tribune, 26 August 2005). Pakistan, since the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from Afghanistan in 1989, has organized continuous terrorists attacks on Jammu & Kashmir, in which at least 45,000 people were killed by the Islamic Muzzahadins (Kotru, 1995; Goradia, 2002). The primary aim of that insurgency was to create terror among the non-Muslim population and drive them out of the Kashmir valley. The process was completed in 1992, when more than 600,000 non-Muslim refugees came to Jammu, and the Kashmir valley became virtually free of non-Muslims (Kotru, 1995; Goradia, 2002). The U.S State department at the same time has declared that the whole of the state of Jammu & Kashmir is a disputed area, thus, does not belong to India. Robin Rafael, the special assistant of Clinton for South Asia has advised India to solve the problem of Kashmir, because insurgency according to her was homegrown. In 1995, Clinton administration has amended the Presser"s Law to start rearming Pakistan. The Pressler"s Law had deprived Pakistan of American military aid because Pakistan has taken delivery of nuclear weapons from China. Since 9/11, India has offered every facility in India, both civilian and military to the U.S. hoping to cement its relationship with USA. All these come to the end with the recent US declaration that Pakistan is now "non-NATO Ally" of the U.S, with the same standing as Australia, Japan, and Israel.
Since 1951, Pakistan"s main purpose has been to act as the U.S. government"s South Asian terrorist arm, serving to destabilize the former Soviet Union, India and Afghanistan, and crushing all attempts at domestic democracy. In 1947, the U.S. provided $411 million to establish its armed forces. When the country"s first democratic election, scheduled to be held in 1958, threatened to reduce the army"s power, General Ayub Khan, the commander-in-chief, took over the government in a military coup (Blum 1995, 2000). Pakistan became a U.S.-financed garrison state, spending 80% of its budget on the military. Ayub was an actual employee of the U.S. State Department, which paid him an annual salary of U.S.$ 16,000. A few years after the 1958 coup, Sardar Bahadur, Ayub"s brother, alleged that the CIA had "been fully involved" in the coup (Ismi, 2002).
John Foster Dulles, the U.S. Secretary of State (during the 1950s), called Pakistan "a bulwark of freedom in Asia". With U.S. arms, training, military aid, and encouragement, the Pakistan army butchered half a million to three million people in East Pakistan in 1971 when their popular, elected, left-wing leadership had the audacity to demand provincial autonomy. U.S. officials reacted to this slaughter by thanking General Yahya Khan, the Pakistani military dictator, for his "delicacy and tact". In 1971, the U.S has sent the 7th Fleet to attack India to rescue Pakistan from sure defeat in the Indo-Pak war in which Bangladesh was created (Blum, 1995). India was saved by the warning, from the Soviet Union to the U.S, not to interfere.
The Pakistan army has provided Washington with an instrument for crushing or hindering progressive social movements, not just inside Pakistan, but also in South Asia. Close relations of both India and Afghanistan with the Soviet Union were anathema to Washington, which deployed Pakistan against both countries.
When a socialist government came to power in Afghanistan in July 1978, the U.S. decided to overthrow it using Pakistan as an agent (Ismi, 2002). Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser in the Carter administration, knew that the policy to invade Afghanistan by Pakistani army would, as he put it, "induce a Soviet intervention in Afghanistan". Brzezinski stated in a recent interview: "That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap" (Gendzier, 2002). When the Soviets came in December 1979 to rescue Afghanistan from Pakistani invasion, the U.S. poured $6 billion in military aid to Pakistan. The ensuing war destroyed Afghanistan, ending all hope of any progressive reforms (Harman, 2002; Snyder, 1999).
With the withdrawal of the Soviets in 1989, Afghanistan became a centre for U.S. and Pakistani-backed international terrorism. Islamist fighters trained there poured into Central Asia and India, aiming to create a pan-Islamic state stretching from Kashmir to Kazakhstan. The Taliban was a CIA-ISI creation as well, and its relations with Washington only soured when the two failed to reach an accord on sharing the oil riches of Central Asia (Blum, 2000).
A 1997 document of the U.S. Congress reveals how the Clinton administration had "helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base," leading to the recruitment through the so-called "Militant Islamic Network" of thousands of Mujahedeen from the Muslim world. "The "Bosnian pattern" has since been replicated in Kosovo, Southern Serbia and Macedonia." (Baylan, 2001; Mervin, 2000)
In the 1980s, Pakistan trained and armed Sikh militants who fought for a separate homeland in Indian Punjab. Today, in the state of Indian Kashmir, Pakistan has been "sponsoring terrorism" for more than a decade. Islamic militants, trained and armed in Pakistan and Afghanistan, have been fighting for Kashmir"s integration with Pakistan, leading to about 45,000 deaths.
The rewards for being a U.S. terrorist arm in South Asia have been lucrative for the Pakistan"s military officers. The price for their country"s being a U.S. terrorist base has been paid by the Pakistani people, who for 55 years have been massacred, tortured, denied education, medical care, housing, adequate nutrition, and political rights. Pakistan ranks near the bottom of the UN"s list of countries by every measure of human development, including infant mortality, life expectancy, the poverty rate, and the population growth rate.
Pakistan, as "the non-NATO Ally", will now obtain priority delivery of defense material and the purchase, for instance, of depleted uranium anti-tank rounds; stockpile US military hardware; can participate in defense research and development programs; and benefit from a US Government loan guarantee program, which backs up loans issued by private banks to finance arms exports.
Already Pakistan has received about a billion-dollar aid for both civilian and military purposes. USA also has written off about $400 million of foreign debt Pakistan had with the US. More will follow in future, as Pakistan will be, like Israel and Egypt, one of the most favourite destinations of the US aid. Pakistan has paid to the US already, during the time Benazir Bhutto, for the supply of F-16 aircrafts, which can carry nuclear weapons. The U.S has decided previously not to supply these to Pakistan. Now there will be no restriction. As a result, along with the long-range ballistic missiles, already obtained from China and North Korea, Pakistan will have a formidable nuclear force outpacing that of India quite soon. It will automatically have the American nuclear umbrella. Already NATO forces are in Afghanistan. If the NATO forces come to the state of Jammu & Kashmir in the guise of U.N peacekeepers as they went to Yugoslavia, Pakistan will obtain the whole of the state of Jammu & Kashmir in no time. That is the real intention of General Musharaf when he has suggested that the U.N should take over after the state will be demilitarized by both India and Pakistan.
Plebiscite, Exchange of Population and the Origin of Pakistan:
The reason India is opposed to plebiscite is because, a plebiscite presupposes that India is for the non-Muslims only and Pakistan is for the Muslims, which is according to the so-called "Two-Nation Theory", propagated by the leader of the Muslim League Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1940 demanding a separate homeland for the Muslims by partitioning the British India. Otherwise India, with a Muslim population of 125 millions, has nearly as much right to have Kashmir valley as Pakistan with a Muslim population of 140 millions. If there is a plebiscite in Kashmir and if the Muslims want Kashmir to be a part of Pakistan, all Muslims from the rest of India, about 119 millions, will have to go to either Pakistan or Bangladesh. As a result, an exchange of population, as could have happened normally in 1947, would happen after the plebiscite.
Pakistan came into being because the leaders of the Muslims in British India had refused to live with the non-Muslims. In 1905, with the background of growing nationalist unrest in India Lord Curzon, the then Vice-Roy of India devised a cunning plan to set the Muslims against the nationalists by organizing a separate political party Muslim League with the help of Aga Khan and the Nawab of Dhaka (now the capital of Bangladesh). Lord Curzon also partitioned Bengal along the religious line, prohibited employments of Bengali Hindus in the government, and recruited large number of Muslims in the police and the army to suppress the independence movement. The pattern was followed by every successive British administration and the Muslim League was considered as the sole representative of the Muslims of British India by the British administration both in India and in Britain. In January 1933, Indian Muslim students in Cambridge University produced a pamphlet entitled "Now or Never", saying, "We do not inter-dine, and we do not intermarry. Our national customs and calendars, even our diet and dress, are different. Hence the Muslims demand the recognition of a separate national status." It was followed up by Jinnah, the president of the Muslim League, to declare in 1940 the aim of the formation of a separate homeland for Muslims of the British India (Butalia, 1998; Goel, 1995; Goradia, 2002).
In Kingsway Hall, London on December 13, 1946, Jinnah made a passionate plea for the Muslim State of Pakistan, which would be inhabited by "one hundred million people, all Muslims. There we can live according to our own notions of life. The differences between Hindus and Muslims are so fundamental that there is nothing that matters in life upon which we agree. It is well known to any student of History that our heroes, our culture, our language, our music, our architecture, our jurisprudence, our social life are absolutely different and distinct. Reviewing the whole position, there is no other way but to divide India. Give Muslims their homeland and give Hindus Hindustan." (Butalia, 1998; Goradia, 2002)
Earlier in August 1946, the Muslim League resorted to the "Direct Action" against the non-Muslims in British India to get the Muslim homeland. The result was a massacre on non-Muslims in Calcutta from 16 August 1946 in three days of violent orgy, followed by large-scale killings and expulsions of non-Muslims from East Bengal, North West Frontier Province, and Punjab (Goel, 1995; Butalia, 1998). Jinnah said, referring to the driving out of non-Muslims from East Bengal, that it was already the transfer of population in action, and some machinery should be devised for affecting it peacefully and on a large scale. At a press conference in Karachi on November 25, 1946, Jinnah had appealed to the central as well as provincial governments to take up the question of exchange of population based on religion (Goradia, 2002).
Exchange of population between the proposed state of Pakistan and India was mentioned in the plan of the partition of India made by Rajagopalacharya in 1943 in collaboration with Mahatma Gandhi. Dr.B.R.Ambedkar leader of the India"s untouchables and one of the writers of the Indian constitution made an elaborate plan of implementation of the exchange of population (Ambedkar, 1945).
However, the exchange of population was never implemented, as Britain has never included it in the Independence of India Act of 1947 as presented to the British Parliament. Pakistan went ahead to implement the expulsions of the non-Muslim population. In 1947, about 34 percent of the population of Pakistan was non-Muslim, in 2001 less than 3 percent of the population are non-Muslims and less than 1 percent of the population are Hindus in Pakistan. In India, the percentage of the Muslim population increased from 9 percent in 1947 to 14 percent in 2001(The Mille Gazette: 15 September 2001; http://www.islamicpopulation.com/asia_general.html). Thus, in the case of the partition of India, only one-way transfer of non-Muslims from Pakistan to India took place, but there was no proper exchange of population. That is the root of the Kashmir problem.
An Alternative Proposal:
The UN declaration did not say anything about the future of the minority non-Muslims in the state of the Jammu and Kashmir. Now there are three million non-Muslims, who cannot possibly stay in a Muslim country if Kashmir joins Pakistan given the record of Pakistan regarding its treatments of its minorities.
The most important issue is the question of accepting the theory that Muslims cannot stay with the people of other religions. If the UN accepts the demand of Pakistan and of the Muslims of Kashmir it implies acceptance of the "Two-Nation" theory put forward by the founding fathers of Pakistan that Muslims and Hindus are two different nations and must live separately. In that case there would be no justification for the presence of another 120 millions of Muslims in the rest of India, who according to the principle of the partition in 1947 should have left long ago, but are allowed to stay in India only because India does not accept the "Two-Nation" theory. Strangely, now Pakistan does not want to have the Muslims of India, although it was created because of the "Two-Nation" theory.
India"s position is equally illogical. It declared itself as the secular country, yet it had accepted the partition of India and it recognizes both Pakistan and Bangladesh. That logically means, India also believes in the "Two-Nation" theory, which is diametrically against the declared ideal of secularism of India.
If the principle of self-determination is valid for the Muslims, it should be valid also for the Buddhists in Chittagong Hill Area in Bangladesh, where 97 percent of the people were Buddhists in 1947, at the time of the partition. Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province wanted to be independent in 1947, but both were forced to join Pakistan. Both Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province were parts of Afghanistan but taken as lease by the British from 1893 to 1993. Thus, after 1993, these areas are supposed to go back to Afghanistan just as Hong Kong went back to China. Pakistan has refused so far to obey the international treaty made in 1893 between Britain and Afghanistan (Hyman, 2002). Thus, the legality of the Indian Independence Act of 1947 of the British Parliament is in question, as a leaseholder (Britain) cannot give away leasehold land (Baluchistan and North West Frontier) to a third party (Pakistan) without the consent of the lease (Afghanistan). However, the UN had never considered these issues. As a result, UN declaration of 1948 was unrealistic, one-sided and has lost all relevance after more than fifty years.
The problem between India and Pakistan (and Bangladesh) remains because what was natural after a partition of a country, the exchange of population, never took place. Pakistan and Bangladesh has driven out most of their non-Muslim population, but Muslims are still in India, even after their homelands were created. This is the most unnatural event in the world.
In other cases of partition elsewhere in the world, there were always exchange of populations. The cases of Greece-Turkey, Germany-Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria-Turkey, Poland-Germany, Bosnia-Serbia, Croatia-Serbia, are the recent examples where full-scale exchanges of population along with partition were organized under the administration of the League of Nations and the United Nations. Soviet Union immediately after 1945 has organized exchanges of populations between Germany and Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Poland and Germany, Ukraine and Poland, and between Bulgaria and Rumania. In 1989, the Soviet Union has organized an exchange of population between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well. In fact, it is unnecessary to partition a country if the populations are not to be exchanged.
A solution is valid if it can take into account of the existing reality and offer something to all sides. UN declaration has failed because it could not satisfy that criteria. The Proposed Solution should be a package with the following items:
1. Pakistan and Bangladesh will take all Muslims living in India (including Kashmir), India will accept all remaining non-Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
2. India will give up the Kashmir valley, excepting the link road to Ladakh valley; will keep only the Ladakh valley (all Buddhists) and Jammu valley (mainly Hindu) in India. The Pakistan occupied Skardhu, Hunza, Baltistan, and Gilgit, where very few Muslims used to live in 1947 should come to India.
3. Chittagong Hill District (which was 97 percent Buddhists in 1947) will have a referendum, to join either Burma (Myanmar) or India or to stay independent. Muslims population there will go back to Bangladesh.
4. Migrants will be allowed to take away their assets; destitute should be compensated by the government of the country displacing them.
5. In order to avoid the holocaust that took place in 1947-48, the whole of the subcontinent should be under the jurisdiction of the UN, for about one year, during which this exchange of population would take place.
The purpose of the partition was to create a homeland for the Muslims of the undivided India. When it was done, the logical question is: why are the Muslims still in India and if they really want that much to stay in India, why have they created Pakistan or Bangladesh at all as separate nations only for the Muslims? As it is unrealistic to think about the united India once again, as it was before 1947, the realistic solution is to exchange populations, which should have taken place in 1947 as a logical consequence of the partition.
One may be concerned to think about the vast number of people who will have to be shifted; but one should also remember that in 1947, at least a million people were killed and at least 17 million people became refugees when India was partitioned (Sharma, 1987; Goel, 1995; Goradia, 2002). If there will be another war between India and Pakistan, millions will be perished in the resultant nuclear exchanges.
There is no other solution, which can satisfy both sides. In a solution that can work, both sides have to gain something. In the proposed solution, everyone gains something. India gains in terms of reduced population and perhaps lasting peace. Pakistan gains Kashmir, what it always wanted. Bangladesh has still considerable number of non-Muslims who according this proposal will go away to India.
Conclusion:
India is suffering from a delusion that if it can have an alliance with the United States, pressures on India to compromise on Kashmir will evaporate. An alliance with the US may not be possible however much India wants it because the Middle-East, not India, has the supreme importance in the geopolitical strategy of the US. The Middle East is the major oil supplier for the western world. Given the religious affinity of Pakistan and the Middle-Eastern countries it is highly unlikely that the US will ever prefer India.
Furthermore, an alliance with the US does not provide any guarantee for India that the US will support India"s position on Kashmir. In 1974, neither Britain nor the US has supported Greece when Turkey had invaded and occupied north Cyprus. From 1995 to 1999, despite of strong opposition from Greece, Anglo-American and other NATO forces have destroyed Yugoslavia and handed over Kosovo to the Albanians, the mortal enemy of the Greeks. India should learn from that experience that an alliance with the US might give undue advantages to Pakistan, which already has alliance with the US.
The problem of Kashmir remains because none of the countries is arguing logically. If Pakistan only insists that, it has the right to absorb the rest of the Kashmir because of religion and if India insists on its secularism and as a result refuses to consider any alternative solution. There is no common ground where these two sides will meet. Thus, any discussions just like those before will be futile.
It is thus essential to change the mindset of these countries so that they can think about the "unthinkable" taboo that has prevented them to reach a logical compromise. That "unthinkable" taboo is the remains of the illogical and asymmetric system imposed by India on itself, by not going through the logical steps required at the time of the partition in 1947. If the exchange of population would have taken place in 1947, Kashmir problem could not have emerged. Just like Bengal and Punjab in 1947, Kashmir would have been partitioned long time ago.
Ambedkar (1945), Chairman of the drafting Committee of the Indian constitution in 1947, has suggested the exchange of population by saying,"To devise a solution for such a problem it might be well to begin by asking what are the possible difficulties that are likely to arise in the way of a person migrating from one area to another on account of political changes. The difficulties can be easily removed by the two States of Pakistan and Hindustan agreeing to a treaty".
Leslie Gelb, a former editor for the New York Times, has recently (New York Times, 23 November 2003) proposed a division of Iraq into three nations: "Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south"," which would be based on the partition of Iraq along ethnic and religious lines and populations will divided among these new states according to their religions. India is now partitioned into three nations; however, the shifting of the population is still incomplete and one-sided. This is the crux of the Kashmir problem.
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References & Notes:
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