Kashmir: Rising to the Top of the American Muslim Agenda?

By Greg Noakes

For decades, Palestine has been the top foreign policy issue for millions of American Muslims. The blatant injustice of the Palestinians' plight, the Islamic connection to Jerusalem, and the importance of Palestine for the rest of the Muslim and Arab worlds ensured American Muslim interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

More recently, Bosnia has joined Palestine as a foreign policy priority for America's Muslims. Five years ago, few of them knew where Bosnia-Herzegovina was on the map. When they were discussed, Bosnian Muslims were simply an Islamic minority within largely non-Muslim Yugoslavia. When Yugoslavia fissioned and four of its six component republics, including Bosnia, chose separation and independence, the Muslim community in Bosnia found itself attacked from all sides—a European community being annihilated by other Europeans while still other Europeans stood by idly. Again it was the human tragedy, the emotional ties to their co-religionists in Bosnia and the symbolism of a large Muslim population isolated and under siege in the heart of Europe, which brought the Balkan conflict to the top of the American Muslim agenda, and which brought Muslims into the streets in protest.

Now, though, these conflicts appear to be limping toward some kind of resolution, no matter how messy and imperfect. The Palestinian National Authority and the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina both sat down across from their enemies at the negotiating table, bargained hard and walked away with fragile peace pacts which, while flawed, at least hold the prospect of an end to bloodshed. The Palestinians and Bosnians still need the active support of American Muslims to help rebuild their shattered communities, but the crises in both Palestine and Bosnia clearly have entered a new phase, characterized by uneasy cooperation rather than outright conflict.

One part of the Muslim world where conflict still rages, and has in fact intensified over the last several years, may therefore be poised to vault to the top of the North American Muslim foreign agenda, replacing Palestine and Bosnia as an emotional and political issue around which American and Canadian Muslims can rally. The elements of this conflict are dishearteningly familiar: a long-suffering, disenfranchised Muslim population at the mercy of a far stronger power; a lack of international resolve to halt the crisis; terrible human rights abuses; and unspeakable death and destruction. Is the conflict in Kashmir, then, destined to be the defining foreign policy issue for the American Muslim community in the second half of the decade?

The Conflict of Kashmir

The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is the only one in the country with a Muslim majority. Part of Kashmir, known as Azad Kashmir (Free Kashmir), is under Pakistani dominion, but most Kashmiris live under Indian control. This is because the state's then-ruling hereditary leader, a Hindu, ceded control of the territory to India at independence in 1947 without consulting the population. If there had been a popular referendum, allowing Kashmiris to accede either to India or to join the new Islamic nation of Pakistan, which comprised the Muslim-majority territories in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, Kashmir most probably would have chosen Pakistan.

The scenic land of Kashmir, with its high mountains, lush vegetation and clear lakes, has been the scene of dispute and conflict for nearly five decades. A constant source of tension between India and Pakistan, Kashmir has figured prominently in the periodic wars fought between those subcontinent powers. Now, with both India and Pakistan either in possession of nuclear weapons or of the ability to assemble them, the stakes have been raised even higher. For the last four years, Kashmir has been in the grip of devastating violence as Kashmiri insurgents battle Indian security forces against a backdrop of popular protests, human rights abuses and political stalemate.

For Pakistanis, Kashmir is an important foreign policy issue. No government in Islamabad can be seen as weak on the Kashmir issue, and the disputed state occasionally is dragged into domestic Pakistani politics when the opposition accuses the sitting government of selling out the Muslims over the border. Islamabad supports the integration of Kashmir into Pakistan, and has been accused of arming, training and supporting Kashmiri militant groups.

Kashmir is equally important to the politicians and generals in Delhi. The Indian establishment believes that a breakaway Kashmir would be the thin end of the wedge. Were the Muslims of Kashmir to split from the Indian federation, the argument goes, minority ethnic and religious populations in other parts of India quickly would follow suit and the vast, secular Indian state would collapse.

The next several years may prove decisive in the history of Kashmir and its neighbors.

Yet it is not simply a two-sided dispute. Many of the Kashmiri militants demand independence for the state, arguing that Kashmir constitutes a separate nation which should not be subsumed within either India or Pakistan. They demand that any international referendum on the future of Kashmir also should include the option of independence—an alternative that they claim would be favored by a clear majority.

The violence in Kashmir already has brought the conflict to the attention of the American Muslim community. Most politically active Muslims already are acquainted with the dispute, the players and the issues involved. In some parts of the community, Kashmir already is a high-profile cause. Groups like California's Kashmir Human Rights Foundation and the Washington, DC-based Kashmir-American Council have devoted years of work to a variety of educational and political activities. Among broad-based, national American Muslim organizations, the Islamic Circle of North America consistently has dealt with Kashmir in its fund-raising and educational work.

It seems certain the Kashmir issue will attract others in the community as well. The conflict in Jammu and Kashmir is at a fever pitch, and the next several years may prove decisive in the history of the state and its neighbors. For this reason the Kashmir dispute is likely to become the focus of American Muslim foreign policy activities—activities which will be shaped by lessons learned from the American Muslims' experience with Palestine and Bosnia.

However, those who want to see American Muslims take a more active interest in Kashmir have their work cut out for them. First of all, the prospects for quick success seem slim. Like the Palestinian conflict, pro-Kashmiri forces are opposed by a large, well-heeled, and influential domestic political lobby in Washington. While not packing the punch of the pro-Israel lobby (with which it is seeking to create an alliance), the Indian lobby far outweighs anything the Kashmiris and their supporters have been able to muster. Like Palestine, political courage on Kashmir is not a big vote-winner for congressmembers and presidential aspirants.

Kashmiri activists, like their Palestinian counterparts, also are hampered by a lack of international recognition and official status. Bosnians at least had a recognized national government, a state apparatus and the legitimacy of United Nations membership. Kashmiris, like the Palestinians, have had none of those things. Their only state ally in the region, Pakistan, is a vociferous advocate of Kashmiri rights, but not of Kashmiri independence, causing occasional strains between Islamabad and the militant groups. The absence of an independent Kashmiri state and government will make the task of American Muslims committed to Kashmir that much more difficult.

Kashmir also is far away, and despite the nuclear threat in the subcontinent, it will be difficult to convince ordinary Americans that the U.S. has a vital national interest in a fair settlement of the crisis. There is very little American print media coverage of the issue. Because the Indian government excludes most media representatives, there is even less of the kind of television footage that influenced American attitudes toward Bosnia and, to some extent, the Palestinian problem. Thus American supporters of Kashmiri rights have a gargantuan educational task ahead of them even before the real political work can begin.

Furthermore, Muslims have few natural allies elsewhere in the American political landscape when it comes to Kashmir. American Muslims could work closely with Arab-American organizations and interfaith church groups on Palestine. In dealing with Bosnia, the camp was even larger. On the Kashmir issue, though, American Muslims will have to go it alone, at least initially. Even support within the Muslim community could be jeopardized should the question of independence vs. accession come to a head. How will American Muslims of Pakistani or Indian descent line up in such a case? No one seems to know for sure.

Why a Foreign Policy Agenda?

Yet the biggest challenge to would-be Kashmiri activists may come from within the American Muslim community itself. Some American Muslims, both indigenous Muslims and immigrants, argue that their community spends too much time and effort on foreign policy issues to the detriment of domestic concerns. While tens of thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars are poured into foreign policy campaigns of one sort or another, issues like anti-Muslim bias in the media, schools and workplace; domestic economic concerns; local, state and national politics; drugs and crime; and declining standards in everything from education to the environment, get short shrift.

Some believe, therefore, that the community should commit itself first and foremost to internal issues. Few American Muslims would proclaim themselves satisfied with the current level of organization, communication and exchange within their community, or with the present financial health of many of their institutions. Why, they ask, should we be fooling around overseas when we have our own house to put in order?

The biggest challenge may come from within the American Muslim community itself.

There is validity in the question, but it overlooks the strong ties which bind the American Muslim community to the rest of the Muslim world. Roughly half of American Muslims are immigrants or the offspring of immigrants, and many retain firm bonds with their home countries. Many other American Muslims have lived, studied or worked in the Muslim world, and feel strongly about the role American Muslims can play internationally. Finally, all American Muslims feel a part of a larger whole: the worldwide Muslim umma, or community. 'Putting our own house in order' applies not just to American Muslim concerns, but to international Muslim concerns, since Muslims are, in a sense, their brothers' and sisters' keepers.

So, despite disagreements about the distribution of effort, few American Muslims contend that the community should ignore foreign policy objectives. Given the current state of unrest in the marches between Pakistan and India, therefore, observers should look for increased American Muslim activism on the Kashmir issue—no matter what the odds.

Greg Noakes, an American Muslim, is a former news editor of the Washington Report who now lives in the Middle East.