What India Needs to Do in Kashmir
By Aakar
Patel
February 11, 2012
In 1960,
Pakistan under Ayub Khan and India under Nehru signed the Indus Waters Treaty.
This
cemented the division of Jammu & Kashmir. After this the United Nations
lost interest in pursuing the matter of plebiscite. The wars in 1965, when
Pakistan meddled in India, and in 1971, when India meddled in Pakistan, focused
the world on keeping the neighbours apart. The Simla Accord of 1972 signed by
Indira and Bhutto stressed a bilateral solution. India believed that this again
reduced the parties in the dispute to two, ejecting the people of Jammu &
Kashmir, and eclipsing the Security Council’s resolutions. Indira rehabilitated
Sheikh Abdullah two years later and believed that the issue was now behind
India.
This
strategy did not work because the fundamental problem remained unresolved. The
larger part of Jammu & Kashmir’s Muslim population, and perhaps a majority
as a whole, did not want to live under the Indian constitution.
This
resentment had been checked by New Delhi, from the time of Nehru’s jailing of
Sheikh Abdullah, by fixing politics in the state. In Benazir Bhutto’s first
term the state exploded with its demand for freedom. India was taken aback by
the ferocity and persistence of the call in Srinagar. Private television came
to India in the same period and the visuals alarmed Indians who had been led to
believe something else by state propaganda. The stern and insistently Islamic
nature of the Kashmir movement disturbed a nation whose textbooks had
consistently stressed secularism (Muslim Indians are absolved of responsibility
for demanding Partition, which is blamed on one man, Jinnah). Pakistan brought
the sword to the Kashmiris’ call with the introduction of the Mujahideen, who
were motivated and well trained. Naturally, they were Islamic and their names —
Harkatul Mujahideen, Harkatul Ansar, Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the
Jaish-e-Muhammad — reflected this. With the exception of a couple of groups,
like Amanullah Khan/Yasin Malik’s JKLF (about which more next week), even
political resistance was coloured in religion. Kashmiri Muslims responded, and
packed off their Hindu neighbours, who have not yet returned home. The
Deobandi/Salafi orientation of the warriors put off Kashmir’s Shias.
The
introduction of foreigners gave India the justification to send the army into
Srinagar, and the occupation began. The jihad burned through the 1990s. It
ended immediately after Musharraf blocked Lashkar and Jaish, the two dominant
groups, from cross-border activity. Today there is little violence in Jammu
& Kashmir. This demonstrated to Indians that the problem was entirely the
product of Pakistan. However, the army has remained in Srinagar. The question
is why.
The answer
is that India had two problems. The military problem was the Mujahideen, now
called back home by Musharraf. The second problem is unresolved. Many if not
most Kashmiri Muslims want independence or accession to Pakistan. India’s
response to this was to stop meddling in the state’s politics. Through the last
12 years, the population has been allowed to elect whoever it wanted. The army
did not need to force people to vote any longer, and the numbers of those who
voted rose. As part of this change, India began talking to the group that was
pushing the plebiscite. This was the Hurriyat Conference, a body of mostly
Sunni groups like the modernist Jamaat-e-Islami under Ali Shah Geelani and the
traditionalists under Umar Farooq. It has been trying to get these groups to
participate in the elections as they had in the past. New Delhi says the
separatists must demonstrate their popularity. It has not had success in this
to any great measure, though some people have begun contesting like Abdul Ghani
Lone’s son Sajjad.
Meanwhile
external events have favoured India. After 9/11, the tolerance of the world to
cross border mischief is low, and in that sense Pakistan’s options are now
limited.
The only
problem for India appears to be to convince Jammu & Kashmir’s Muslims to
fully accept the Indian constitution.
Next week, we’ll look at why that has been
difficult to do.
Source: The
Express Tribune, Lahore
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/india-needs-kashmir/d/6642