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By Dr. M.K. Teng
April 2011
Now that the Government of India has repeated its Sharam-ul-Sheikh
performance at Thimpu and offered to resume the composite dialogue with
Pakistan, virtually jumping over the stand it had taken in the aftermath of the
terrorist attack on Mumbai, there is much more that the Indian Government has to
explain about what it intends to do in Jammu and Kashmir. Evidently the
climb-dam by the Government of India on crucial issues involved in its policy in
respect of Jammu and Kashmir, reflects a willful surrender. This perhaps
eminates from its inability to face political blackmail and pressure brought to
bear on the Indian leaders in the name of economic development and under the
cover of peace and security of the region.
The Indian policy reflects a strange sense of helplessness, which pervades
the outlook of the Indian political class and which acts as an impelling force
to drive those in power to invite Pakistan to the conference table again and
again, after every small and major misdemeanor Pakistan has committed. Every
time, Pakistan has returned to the conference table, grumbling and growling at
the inability of the Indian Government to make the composite dialogue purposeful
and result oriented. The cause of concern is not the abrasive attitude of
Pakistan, but the uneasiness with which the Indian political class reacts to it.
The Indian Government has rather, with deliberate intent, tried to play down
the way Pakistan has expressed its dissatisfaction with the purpose and the pace
of the peace-process. It is mainly because the Indian leadership has shown
reluctance to face the prospect of laying down a baseline of its policy on the
Kashmir issued In fact, the Indian political class has sofar evaded the crucial
decision of fixing the “irreducible minimum”, beyond which it would not go
to reach a settlement with Pakistan on Jammu and Kashmir. Its exhortations to
urge upon the Indian Government” to walk an extra-mile” from its “stated
positions” in order to be able to reach an “out of the box” solution of
the Kashmir problem and its extravagant eagerness to nudge the Indian Government
“to go far enough in its engagement with Pakistan, to reach, a settlement on
Kashmir”, are idle expressions used to camouflage the subterfuge it has
indulged in so far. The truth is that the Indian political class has never
mustered courage to stand up to its neighbours. In fact, the Indian political
class has never shared with the Indian people the import of defending their
borders.
Muslim outlook
The Government of Pakistan, its military establishment as well as the civil
society in Pakistan, are, all agreed upon the baseline of their stand on Jammu
and Kashmir. The civil society in Pakistan has, on no occasion, found it
necessary to urge upon the Government of Pakistan, “to walk an extra-mile”
in order to reach an “out of the box settlement” on Kashmir. Pakistan has
stuck to its stated position that : (a) the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir are a
part of the Muslim nation of Pakistan (b) the Muslims of the state of Jammu and
Kashmir acquired the right to unite the State with the Muslim homeland of
Pakistan from the partition of India, (c) the Muslims of the State were denied
their right to unite the state with Pakistan in 1947, when the ruler of State
Maharaja Hari Singh acceded to India, against their wishes and (d) India, which
pledged itself to implement the United Nations resolutions, envisaging a
plebiscites to enable the Muslims of the State exercise their choice to
determine the final disposition of the State in respect of accession, has not
redeemed its promise.
From the very inception of the peace-process, which was primarily an Indian
initiative, Pakistan has unflinchingly stuck to its self-righteous commitment
that its claim to Jammu and Kashmir, based upon the Muslim majority composition
of the population, is non-negotiable. Pakistan has stressed time and again that
its claim to Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of the Muslim majority composition
its population underlines the principle on the basis of which India was divided
in 1947 and the Muslim homeland of Pakistan was created. Pakistan has repeatedly
stated that the partition of India marked the culmination of a historical
process which underlined the Muslim struggle for a separate Muslim homeland in
India, comprising the provinces and the regions of the British India populated
by the majority of Muslims and Muslim princely states. Pakistan has consistently
held that the partition of Indian recognized the Muslim majority composition of
the population of the British India and the princely States as the basis on
which the territorial jurisdiction of the Muslim homeland was determined. The
Kashmir dispute, Pakistan has claimed in unequivocal terms, is a manifestation
of the unfinished agenda of the partition of India.
The Muslim League laid claim to the Muslim ruled princely states as well, on
the basis of prescription and conquest because it could nor bring itself round
to accept the exclusion of the Muslim ruled states from the Muslim homeland of
Pakistan. The Muslim League leaders considered the Muslim ruled princely states
to be the citadels of the Muslim power in India, which had survived the
establishment of the British rule in India. The insistence of the Muslim League
on the lapse of the Paramountcy was used by it to isolate the Muslim ruled
states. Except that the lapse of the Paramountcy caused the Muslim League some
tactical disadvantage in the Jammu and Kashmir, its acceptance by the Congress
brought India to the verge of disintegration. Were it not for the people of the
Muslim ruled States, who defeated the designs of the Muslim League and the
Muslim rulers, India would have been divided further. The ideological commitment
of the Muslim struggle for a separate Muslim homeland in India to secure the
Muslims in India, a separate freedom which ensured them the realisation of their
Islamic destiny was fundamentally Muslim in outlook. The territorial claim to a
Muslim India, comprising the Muslim majority provinces of the British India and
the Muslim ruled States the Pakistan Resolution envisaged, was also Muslim in
outlook. The claim that the unification of Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan is
the unfinished agenda of the partition of India is also Muslim in outlook.
Irreducible Minimum
Pakistan has not allowed its stand on Jammu and Kashmir to be wrapped in any
ambiguity. In fact it has spelt out the baseline of its stand on Jammu and
Kashmir in unmistakeable terms. It has refused to deviate from its stated
position that the Muslim majority composition of the population of the State is
basic to any settlement on Jammu and Kashmir. It has refused to delink the
Muslim majority composition of the state from the right of self-determination,
which it has consistently maintained, flowed from the partition of India.
Exactly, as the Muslim League agreed to divide the Muslim majority provinces of
the Punjab and Bengal and the Hindu majority provinces of Assam, on the basis of
population, Pakistan has offered to accept the division of the State on the
basis of population, as a basis for a settlement on Jammu and Kashmir. It has
proposed the separation of the Muslim majority regions of the State, comprising
the Muslim provinces of Kashmir, the Muslim majority districts of the Jammu
province and the Muslim majority district of Kargil in the frontier division of
Ladakh and their unification with the Muslim homeland of Pakistan, as the
irreducible minimum which it is ready to accept as the basis of a solution of
the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir. The participation of Pakistan in the
peace-process, in the ultimate analysis, is aimed to persuade the Indian people
to accept the application of the principle which underlined the partition of
India, as a basis of a settlement on Kashmir.
Interestingly the peace-process carried on between the Bajpai Government and
the Government headed by Nawaz Sherrif; followed by negotiations between the
Bajpai Government and the military regime headed by General Musharraf; the long
and atrocious talk held at the Track Two level, largely a framework of conflict
resolution, fabricated by the American diplomacy and the Manmohan Singh-Musharraf
parleys leading to the so-called “non-territorial settlement” on Kashmir;
reveal a continuity in the stand taken by Pakistan. The stand taken by Pakistan
has underlined; the separation of the Muslim majority regions of the State, on
the Indian side of the Line of Control with their eventual disengagement from
the Indian Union and their re-integration within a framework of political
imperatives evolved by the two countries India and Pakistan, with the consent of
the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Musharraf plan lay bare the perfidy. It recognized the separation of the
Muslim majority regions of the State and their reorganisation into a new
political entity on the territories of India which was governed by Pakistan. The
Musharraf plan envisaged the division of the State into six geographical zones
of which five were Muslim majority zones, the transfer of power in the state to
the Muslim separatist regimes under the garb of self-rule; withdrawal of the
Indian armed forces from the State in the name of demilitarization; the
unification of the Muslim majority zones situated on the Indian side of the Line
of Control with the occupation territories of Azad Kashmir under the cover of
“irrelevant borders” and the placement of the State under the joint-control
of India and Pakistan. Manmohan Singh cried aloud, undoubtedly to attract the
attention of the Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir and perhaps, the Muslims in India,
to the historical task, he had accomplished by putting Jammu and Kashmir on a
ten year long journey to join Pakistan. The Musharraf plan provided for the
revaluation of the arrangements made in accordance with its provisions after ten
years a stipulation which the Indian Government tried to underplay.
Greatest Betrayal
Pakistan appears to have convinced itself that India has finally accepted the
principle of the partition of India as the basis of a settlement of Jammu and
Kashmir. Evidently the impatience and the urgency, the Foreign office of
Pakistan has exhibited about the progress of the peace-process, arises out of
its eagerness to evolve a procedure for the separation of the Muslim majority
regions of the State, their disengagement from the Union of India and their
eventual integration with the Islamic power-structure of Pakistan.
The territorial boundaries of Pakistan, laid down by the partition of India
in 1947, were confined to the territories of the British India. The Indian
princely states were not brought within the scope of the partition of India. The
claim Pakistan has laid to Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of the Muslim majority
composition of its population did not from a part of the process of the
partition and the transfer of power in India. The right of the
self-determination of the colonial peoples was an expression of the historic
process of decolonisation, the second world war set into motion. The right of
self-determination was never conceived as an instrument of any religious war.
India was not divided to ensure the Indian people their right of
self-determination.
Jammu and Kashmir forms the most crucial part of the northern frontier of
India. It continues to be central to the security of the Indian borders in the
north. Any prescription for a second partition of India, to disengage the State
from the Indian Union will not usher in a State of peace between India and
Pakistan. Peace between the two countries will always depend upon the mutual
respect they have for each other’s strike capabilities. The Indian political
class, whatever, the nature of its commitment to the Indian unity, cannot ignore
the hard fact that Pakistan has a stockpile of nearly two hundred nuclear
weapons in its basement. Pakistan is an ideological state-a fact, which the
Indian people can overlook at their own peril.
Source: Kashmir
Sentinel
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