Moment of Truth for Kashmir

By Hasan Zillur Rahim

The moment of truth for Kashmir is nearing. Unless the international community, led by the United States, convinces India to end its brutal occupation of Kashmir, another war between Pakistan and India is inevitable, according to Sardar Qayyum Khan, prime minister of Azad (liberated) Kashmir. The 70-year-old leader of the Pakistani-occupied portion of Kashmir warned during a recent visit to California that a military solution to this problem that has festered for almost half a century could lead to a nuclear holocaust. Sardar Qayyum's visit was organized by the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), a grassroots national organization with chapters in 17 states, dedicated to increasing Muslim political participation in the American political system and to enhancing awareness among Americans of critical issues threatening world peace in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.

The prime minister visited nine California cities including Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Berkeley, Union City and Sunnyvale, all of which have large Muslim communities. He met with concerned citizens and editorial boards of major newspapers and, in Los Angeles, he inaugurated a photo exhibition by free-lance journalist/photographer Martin Sugarman that provided wrenching evidence of the suffering of Kashmiri men, women and children.

Addressing a large and mainly Muslim gathering of Americans of African, Bosnian, Palestinian, Kashmiri, Pakistani and Indian heritage in Sunnyvale, the prime minister pointed out that with the end of the Cold War, the focus seemed to be shifting from political to religious confrontation. To make matters worse, he said, unacceptable Muslim behavior is giving Islam a bad name. "Your first duty," he told his audience, "is to be exemplary Muslims. The essence of Islam is to wish others well." If Muslims can, through personal example, demonstrate this fact to their fellow Americans, the fight for truth and justice for oppressed Muslims, whether they are Palestinians, Kashmiris or Bosnians, will gain legitimacy, he said.

Sardar Qayyum asserted that if Kashmir were lost to India, Pakistan would lose its viability and the whole region would become dangerously unstable. India has no moral or legal case to continue its occupation of Kashmir, he said, but through false propaganda has succeeded in keeping the world in the dark about its brutal suppression of Kashmiris. To counter this, he challenged his audience to become fully aware of what is at stake in Kashmir and to educate Americans about its worldwide implications.

The prime minister emphasized that he would only support a political, and never a military, solution to the problem. If all the Muslim organizations in the United States were to present a unified case on behalf of Kashmir to the American government, he said, it would go a long way toward achieving a solution. "Don't support us on the basis of religion or culture," he told his American listeners. "Support us only if you are convinced we are right." He said he is certain once Americans know the truth, they will support a plebiscite in Kashmir, as agreed upon by India, Pakistan and the U.N. in 1948 and 1949. Any proposal that would lead to a withdrawal of Indian troops from Kashmir, he said, would be a step toward ending this critical threat to world peace.

A Candid Interview

Earlier, in a candid private interview, I asked Sardar Qayyum about the prospect for an independent Kashmir. "There are many Americans," I told him, "who feel that Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris, that the whole of Kashmir should become an independent nation. They find the idea of accession to either Pakistan or India anachronistic or unworkable in modern times."

An independent Kashmir, the prime minister replied, is less acceptable to India than to Pakistan. He quoted the late Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as saying: "Better a Kashmir as part of Pakistan than an independent Kashmir." Nehru feared that an independent Kashmir would spawn centrifugal forces that would tear India apart. "It's India that went to the United Nations in 1947 asking for a plebiscite, not me," Sardar Qayyum said. "India has continuously reneged on that promise. That is the root of the problem."

The prime minister identified the three groups in Kashmir who preferred independence to accession to Pakistan as the frustrated; those inspired by the recent emergence of several independent nations around the world; and those motivated by religious and cultural considerations. The idea of Kashmiri independence looks good on paper, he said, but it isn't practical. It would be a serious proposal if it came from India, but that would never happen.

It is instructive to compare Sardar Qayyum's response with that of Pakistan's Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whose interview with Claudia Dreifus appeared in The New York Times Magazine of May 15, 1994.

"Q: Will Pakistan accept an independent Kashmir?

Bhutto: When people raise the question of an independent Kashmir, we feel this is a ploy to divide the Kashmiri vote...The Hindus are going to vote for accession to India because they are the minority. If you are talking about the Muslim majority deciding between accession to Pakistan or an independent Kashmir, the Muslim vote could get fractured and we could find ourselves with the status quo, where the Hindu minority accepts Indian rule and the Muslim majority does not accept it.

The people of Kashmir have always felt one with Pakistan. The British built the infrastructure in such a way that all the roads, the rails, run from Kashmir throughout Pakistan. So it's like Kashmir is the head of Pakistan. Kashmiris have a strong identification with Pakistan, not as a federated unit but as an autonomous unit within Pakistan...

Nobody had the right at the time of independence to choose to be independent. They had to accede to either India or Pakistan. If we now say that people have the right to decide for independence, then we are arguing against the raison d'étre of India and Pakistan...

Q: So your position isn't all that different from India's?

Bhutto: Kashmir was forcibly taken over by India, and India agreed to hold a plebiscite under U.N. auspices to determine whether Kashmir should accede to Pakistan or India...According to the U.N., it's very clear it's a disputed territory. It's not part of India.

Q: But it's not part of Pakistan either?

Bhutto: Well, it is a disputed territory, in which the people have to determine whether they wish to accede to India or Pakistan."

Sardar Qayyum said that if the majority of Kashmir's accredited political parties opted for independence, he would not stand in the way. "It's just that I am personally committed to the original plebiscite where Kashmiris, under U.N. supervision, would vote to accede either to Pakistan or India. I have staked my entire political career on it. How can I change my agenda at this late stage of my life? It would destroy my credibility."

Deep sorrow etched the prime minister's face as he recounted the atrocities taking place in Kashmir now. "There is violence only on the Indian side of Kashmir, not on the Azad side. And Indian troops are not killing freedom fighters. They are killing children and women, raping young girls...The world must wake up to the Indian genocide in Kashmir."

India has consistently treated the Kashmir problem as a domestic political issue. But Kashmir, according to Dr. Agha Saeed, the national coordinator of the American Muslim Association and its prime mover, is an international issue. India's policy is or was like the Israeli policy of "privatizing" the Palestinian issue by directing the U.S. to veto U.N. Security Council resolutions dealing with the problem. Until Israel agreed to meet with the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people last year, the road to peace was nowhere in sight.

Dr. Saeed lamented, however, that in the case of Kashmir, Muslims have failed to internationalize the issue. Quite aside from the rest of the world, he pointed out, some Islamic countries sided with India in treating Kashmir as a bilateral issue involving only Pakistan and India. His observation underscored Sardar Qayyum's appeal for unity among Muslims themselves on urgent issues facing the Islamic world.

An Articulate and Persuasive Champion

Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai is the executive director of the Kashmiri-American Council, based in Washington, D.C. An articulate and persuasive champion of the Kashmiri cause in the United States, he elaborated on the prime minister's observations when I spoke with him over the phone.

Kashmiri resistance to India is not a secessionist movement as Indian propaganda would have it, according to Dr. Fai. "How can we secede from what we never acceded to in the first place?" he asked. Nor, he said, is the Kashmir conflict solely a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan. It is about the life and future of the 13 million people of Kashmir. He summed up the Kashmiri situation as follows:

The question of nuclear proliferation in South Asia cannot be solved without simultaneously addressing the regional conflict in Kashmir. The United States must recognize this fact.
Any talks between India and Pakistan must also include legitimate representatives from Kashmir. The talks must be tripartite.
The United States must bring pressure on India, by linking foreign assistance and trade benefits to India's record on human rights, for example, to stop its campaign of terror in Kashmir.
The people of Kashmir must have the final say in their status. Their wishes, determined by a majority of the population through a free and democratic plebiscite, must be respected. There is no other way to lasting peace.
The U.N. resolutions of 1948 and 1949, which called for the holding of a national plebiscite, must remain the guiding principles to any settlement.
Just as it has in the Middle East, the U.S. must work pro-actively to bring the disputing parties to the negotiating table.

"My own family was split up when we were forced to flee Indian occupation of Kashmir in 1947," Fai explained. "I was separated at birth from my older sister, and met with her in Azad Kashmir upon my first visit in 1979, when I was 30 years old. My personal Diaspora is the Diaspora of thousands of Kashmiris around the world today."

The State Department's Human Rights Report, issued last February, states that in Kashmir "beatings, rape, burning with cigarettes and hot rods, suspension by the feet, crushing of limbs with heavy rollers, and electric shocks is widespread...there is no evidence that any member of the security forces has been punished for an incident of custodial death or custodial torture in Jammu and Kashmir." The Congressional Human Rights Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives reported in September 1993: "The regular use of torture by Indian occupying forces is a fact of life in Kashmir today. Indian forces, under the current law, can pick up anyone they please and hold them without charge or due process."

London-based Amnesty International has issued one shocking report after another of Indian human rights violations in Kashmir. In its 1994 report, Amnesty reported that "in Jammu and Kashmir, torture by the security forces was reported daily." The annual report chronicles such abuses by Indian security personnel as: detention of political prisoners without charge or trial; torture of detainees, including beatings, electric shock and rape; custodial deaths; "disappearances"; and extrajudicial executions. The report details instances of abuse. In one case, "Mansoor Ahmed Ganai, a farmer, had to have both legs amputated after prolonged torture by the army's Bihar regiment. This reportedly included hanging him upside-down by his ankles for several days and burning the back of his thighs with lighted paraffin. He died in February, apparently as a result of the injuries he had sustained under torture."

It's no wonder India has recently refused to allow Amnesty observers into Kashmir to investigate continuing human rights abuses by Indian security forces there.

I asked Dr. Fai to explain the official U.S. position on Kashmir. He referred to the Question for the Record submitted to Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel by Senator Paul Coverdell (R-GA) during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Feb. 4, 1994:

"Senator Coverdell: Please clarify the Clinton administration's policy regarding Kashmir. Does this administration view Kashmir as a legal, integral part of India?

Robin Raphel: U.S. policy toward Kashmir remains unchanged. As we have noted consistently since 1947, the U.S. believes the entire geographic area of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir is disputed territory. The U.S. believes the best way to resolve the dispute over Kashmir is through direct discussions between the governments of India and Pakistan as envisaged in the Simla Agreement, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people."

"That last clause," said Dr. Fai, "'taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people,'" represents a positive change by the Clinton administration from previous U.S. positions. It gives me hope that the current U.S. government is serious about solving the Kashmir issue."

But time is running out. There is a growing militant movement in Kashmir which, given India's intransigence, sees no hope of India peacefully agreeing to a just settlement. Dr. Fai fears that the longer the status quo persists, the stronger the militants will become, dashing all hopes for peace in the region.

The Clinton administration should urgently initiate an intra-Kashmir dialogue.

Although the Clinton administration has in theory made the wishes of Kashmiris an integral part of any agreement in the region, the U.S. president barely raised the issue during Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao's visit to the United States in May.

This did not keep 10,000 Kashmiris and their supporters from protesting in front of the White House during the prime minister's visit. Addressing the crowd, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) said, "I am looking forward to the day when I can walk down the streets of...Kashmir where there will be freedom, democracy and human rights. I promise you, as long as I am in Congress, I will not rest until this happens."

In his own speech at that rally, Dr. Fai evoked the image of Nelson Mandela to emphasize the indomitable will of Kashmiris.

"Prime Minister Rao can chain every single soul on the streets of Kashmir," he said. "I assure you, Mr. Rao, you cannot crush the freedom movement of the people of Kashmir and their leaders...It was possible for the government of South Africa to jail Mr. Mandela for 27 years but they could not crush the struggle for freedom in South Africa."

The recent formation in Kashmir of the All Parties Hurriyet (Freedom) Conference (APHC), representing 34 political parties, has brought all Kashmiri political groups under a single umbrella. It is a legitimate representative body which speaks and is authorized to speak on behalf of Kashmiris. However, India already has imprisoned three of its leaders, retained for the expression of peaceful political views in opposition to the Indian government, On July 8, chairman Edward Kennedy (D-MA) of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee issued a letter to India's Human Rights Commission calling for the immediate release of Abdul Gani Lone, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Syed Shabir Shah, all of whom Amnesty International has deemed "prisoners of conscience," and whose release has also been ordered by India's Supreme Court. Senator Kennedy stated that "their participation in Kashmir's political process is critical in bringing a resolution to this conflict, and their detention without trial is a serious violation of their fundamental human rights."

Trying to resolve the Kashmir issue without including the legitimate representatives of Kashmiris is like trying to stage "Hamlet" without the prince of Denmark. It just wouldn't make sense. The Clinton administration should urgently initiate an intra-Kashmir dialogue, preferably outside the subcontinent, that includes the APHC, the Kashmiri Pandits, the Dogras, the Laddakhi Buddhists, and recognized representatives from Azad Kashmir, including Gilgit and Baltistan. Out of this dialogue should emerge leaders representing Kashmir who could negotiate a peaceful settlement with the governments of India and Pakistan.

At the same time, the world must note that a serpent is relentlessly devouring what was once called a "paradise on earth." Even before the holocaust in Bosnia is over, another Bosnia is in the making, with rape and torture as instruments of war. Already more than 30,000 Kashmiris have lost their lives in repression led by half a million Indian troops. Will the world take the easy way out by remaining indifferent, only to pay terribly later, or will it take a stand now and avert the catastrophe before it has had a chance to strike?

Millions of Kashmiris desperately want to know.

Hasan Zillur Rahim is editor of the quarterly magazine IQRA, published in San Jose CA.