India - Pakistan and Kashmir

by M.K. Teng

There is a risk of rep etition of what has been reported in the columns of the Sentinel about the nature of the Kashmir dispute, the state that Pakistan has claimed in it and the anomalous policy Indian has followed about the future of Jammu and Kashmir State.

However, the Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir cannot afford to be complacent about the developments in the state, the police action Pakistan has initiated against the Taliban and the increasing sense of self-abnegation which dominates the outlook of the Indian political class in respect of national unity.

The Indian interest in Kashmir is overwhelmingly deep and the future of the state is intimately connected with the unity of Indian the security of the Indian frontiers and the role of the Indian state in the changing balances of power in Asia.

Pakistan's Claims

Pakistan has incessantly claimed that the unification of Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan is a condition for the completion of the process of the partition of India. Pakistan has claimed that the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir constituting a majority of the population of the state, formed a part of the Muslim nation of Pakistan.

The dispute over Kashmir, Pakistan claimed has its roots in the Indian denial of the right of self-determination the Muslims of the Jammu and Kashmir acquired in consequence of the lapse of the British Paramountcy-the authority the British Crown exercised over the princely state of India.

The contention of Pakistan is deceptively simple.

Pakistan insists upon the responsibility of India, to find a settlement of the Kashmir dispute, which is acceptable to Pakistan and the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir.

However, the Kashmir dispute is not a legacy of the partition of India nor is the Kashmir dispute a creation of the Indian denial of the right of self-determination the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir acquired as a consequence of the lapse of the Paramountcy. The unification of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan, never formed a condition for the completion of the process of the partition of India. The partition of India did not apply to the princely states which were completely insulated from its operation on the insistence of the Muslim League and the British Government. There is no basis in the claim, Pakistan has persistently made, that the onus of responsibility to find a settlement of the Kashmir dispute, which is a accpetable to Pakistan and the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir, rests on India. India has never accepted any responsibility to find a settlement of the Kashmir dispute which is acceptable to the Muslims in Pakistan and the Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir.

Kashmir's accession to India dispute is an inseparable part of the Indian struggle for freedom from the British rule. It is a part of the commitment of the Indian people to preserve the unity of the Indian nation and its civilisational frontiers. It is a part of the Indian commitment to uphold the continuity of the history of India.

Kashmir dispute in fact, the last phase of the Indian resistance against the Muslims separatists movement, which culminated in the partition of India in 1947. The movement for secession in Jammu and Kashmir which Pakistan has been carrying on for the last six decades, is aimed to foist a second paritition on India, extend the Muslim power of Pakistan eastwards into the warm Himalayan uplands of Jammu and Kashmir and reopen the routes of invasion into the north India across the river Ravi.

The Indian princely states were a part of the Indian nation.

The people of the Indian states were always in the forefront of the Indian struggle for the unity of India and its liberation from the British rule. The insistence of the British Government and the Muslims League on the lapse of the Paramountcy was aimed to divide the princely states from the British Indian provinces and break up the states to bring about the vivisection of India. While the partition plan was on the anvil, Mountabatten and the British authorities secretly assured the Congress leaders that after the separation of the Muslims majority regions of the British India was accepted by the Congress leaders, the unity of the remaining provinces of the British Indian and the Indian princely states would not be allowed to be impaired.

Infact the Congress leaders among them mainly Nehru, expressed concern about the princely states, which they emphasised could not be left out of the future political organisation of an independent India. Mountabatten and the British authorities, quietly resiled from their commitments, after the Congress leaders endorsed the partition plan.

Self-Determination:

The princely states of India spread over one-third of the territory of the British Indian empire and constituted one-fourth of the population of India. The peoples' movements in the states were committed to the unity of the people in the British India and the Indian states and the freedom of India including the states from the British colonial rule. The creation of the Muslim homeland of Pakistan was confined to the partition of the British India and left the princely states out of its preview.

The Muslim League advocated the exclusion of the princely states from the constitutional organisation the British India, because it claimed the princely states which were populated by Muslim majorities as well as the princely states ruled by the Muslim rulers. Among the princely states very few states including Jammu and Kashmir were populated by Muslim majorities. The larger number of the princely states was populated by Hindu majorities and among them were the states ruled by Muslim princes, including Bhopal, Hyderabad and Junagarh, which had financially backed the Muslim struggle for Pakistan.

The Muslim League supported the lapse of the British Paramountcy to provide space for the Muslim ruled states to remain out of India and align themselves with the Muslim state of Pakistan.

Both the British and the Muslim League opposed the right of the peoples of the princely states to determine their future affiliations which the Congress leaders frantically pleaded for. The British and the Muslim League were aware of the commitment of the peoples' movement in the states to the freedom of India and the unity of the states with the British India.

The partition plan as well as the lapse of the Paramountcy the transfer of power in India, envisaged did not underline the right of selfdetermination of the Muslims  

 in the British Indian or the Muslims in the princely states, including the states where they formed a majority of the population. The Muslims League and the British persistently refused to recognise the right of selfdetermination in the British Indian provinces and the princely states. Both the British and the Muslim League sought to use the princely states, particularly the states ruled by Muslims Princes and the states populated by Muslim majorities, to Balkanise India.

Muslim League looked upto the Muslim rulers of the states to align themselves with the Muslim homeland of Paksitan. The British supported the League in its endeavour to bring about the fragmentation of the India.

Muslim League looked upto the Muslim rulers of the states to align themselves with the Muslims homeland of Pakistan. The British supported the League in its endeavour to bring about the fragmentation of the Indian States, for the British were keen to include a part of the northern frontier of India in the Muslim state of Pakistan which they believed would secure their interests in Asia. Jammu and Kashmir, formed the central spur of the northern frontier of India.

The northern areas of the North-West Frontier Province rimmed the Dardic dependencies of the Jammu and Kashmir state, and the Gilgit Agency which was fortified by the British grarrisons.

The Muslim rulers of Junagarh and Hyderabad played their part well. But the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir upset in British and the League plans. The ruler of Junagarh acceded to Pakistan and Hyderabad spared no efforts to align itself with that country.

Junagarh was located in the midst of the Kathiawad States, which formed a part of the Indian Dominion.

Hyderabad was situated deep inside south India. The subjects of both Junagarh and Hyderabad were predominantly Hindu. Hari Singh, right from the time he turned away the Viceroy, who flew into Srinagar, shortly after the June 3 Declaration to prevail upon him to come to terms with Pakistan, acted deftly to save his state from being used as a pawn. Mountabatten did not forgive the Maharaja, for how he had sent him back to Delhi.

The leaders and the cadres of the All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference were in jail, when the British quit India on 15 August 1947. They had been closed up for a year before on account of the "Quit Kashmir" movement they had launched in the spring of 1946. The National Conference supported the Indian struggle for freedom and was affiliated to the All India States People's Conference, which spearheaded the national movement in the princely states. The National Conference leaders were released from their incarceration after 6 September 1947, when the Maharaja proclaimed a general amnesty for the National Conference political prisoners. The National Conference leaders, though they demanded the transfer of power to the people, did not show any impatience with the accession of the State. Infact, after the working Committee of the National Conference decided to support the accession of the state to India in a secret meeting, they sent emissaries to Pakistan to open negotiations with the League leaders on the future of the state.

Dangers Ahead:

During the last six decades of the Indian freedom, Pakistan has maintained a high degree of military pressure on India, which that country has deftly used to perpetuate a sense of insecurity in Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan has waged a religious war against India, commencing with the invasion of the state in 1947 with its latest phase unfolding in the Jehad in 1990. Inside the state Pakistan has used the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir as a frontline of the Jehad for the liberation of the State from the Indian occupation.

Outside Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has alinged itself with the Anglo- American block of powers and joined China to form the China-Pakistan axis in the east, in order to confine. India into a pincer-hold along its northern frontier.

Pakistan is an ideological state committed to the Islamic order of society. The political class of Pakistan is committed to the unification of the Muslim Umah into a Muslim International. The civil society in Pakistan, inspite of the protestations on the contrary, is largely fundamentalised. Any compromise with Pakistan on Kashmir, contemplated by the Government of India, will drive India to a second partition.

Hussain Haqqani, now Ambassador of Pakistan in the United States, wrote in his book, which was published a few years ago. "Pakistan still has an unfinished agenda in Afghanistan and Kashmir." The Indian political class must take a note of the political agenda of Pakistan.

The Muslim struggle in India laid down the foundations of the Muslim power of Pakistan. Pakistan follows the agenda of extending the Muslim power eastwards into the north of India, to secure a hold on the Himalayas and eliminate India from any future balance of power in Asia and as an epicentre of the Islamic Revolution wage a Jehad against India.

Jamait-u-Dawa is ideologically committed to extend an invitation to the people of world to accept Islam. Its involvement in the terrorist attacks on Bombay, must open the eyes of the Indian policymakers.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh forged, to close the routes of invasion into India from the north. It was first breached, when the Indian government allowed the frontier regions of Jammu and Kashmir state, Baltistan and Gilgit, be integrated by Pakistan into its territories later known as a "Northern Region". Any changes in the configuration of power in the frontier regions of Kargil and Ladakh, will eventually lead to the demolition of the whole of the northern frontier of India.

The warm upcountry of Jammu and Kashmir, with the sprawling Shivalik plains between the river Chinab and river Ravi, are crucial to the security of the Himalayas.

Both Pakistan and China have their eyes on the Himalayas. Had India taken the warning, the Tibetan Delegate sounded, in the political committee of the United Nations General Assembly in 1950 when Britain and the United States let down Tibet on the issue of its appeal against the Chinese invasion, the Chinese army would not have swooped down across the Mc Mahan Line to occupy hundreds of miles of the Indian border and in 1962.

Source: Kashmir Sentinel