Kashmir Cauldron Threatens Political and Economic Stability

By M. M. Ali

Nature has probably drawn very few masterpieces as exquisite and beautiful as Kashmir. By contrast, history, in our century, has seldom been more unkind. To the cultured and sophisticated, "Cashmere"' stands for quality and authenticity in silks, wools and handicrafts. To diplomats and UN peacekeepers, the Kashmiris are a forsaken people desperately struggling for the national and human rights many others take for granted. The Kashmiris merely seek redemption of a promise made to them by the international community some 40 years ago.

Kashmir is remembered by tourists of previous generations as a "paradise on earth, " with its fields of saffron, jasmine and roses and floating gondolas and houseboats, all nestled in the foothills of the majestic Himalayas. It now is a tragic valley reverberating with the sound of high-powered weapons, rebounding bullets and the wails of fleeing men, women and children. Dreams have been transformed into nightmares.

When the British role in the Indian subcontinent was changing from that of traders to rulers, they embarked on a policy of setting up pliable princes, rulers and rajas. The current impasse had its origins after the 1845 defeat of the Sikhs by the British that caused the Sikhs to hand over the territory of Jammu and Kashmir as part of the war reparations. The British in turn sold the area, plus Ladakh and Skardu, to the Dogra chief Gulab Singh for services rendered to the British in the Anglo-Sikh war. In the treaty of Amritsar, signed March 18, 1846, the British recognized Gulab Singh as the ruler of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Victorious but economically drained and politically humbled by World War II, the British agreed to withdraw from the subcontinent in 1947. By this time, there were directly administered provinces and 565 princely states under British paramountcy. The subcontinent was divided in mid-August 1947 between India and Pakistan, the latter to comprise areas where Muslims were in the majority. Rulers of the princely states were offered the option of joining India or Pakistan or of remaining independent.

The Hindu Dogra ruler of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, vacillated as unrest grew among the predominantly Muslim population of Kashmir. Violence that erupted in the Poonch area of the state was suppressed forcibly. Then tribesmen from the Pakistani side rolled down into Kashmir to help liberate their co-religionists. Driven by religious zeal, they were undisciplined and not fully controlled by the infant state of Pakistan.

Disregarding the wishes of the majority of the Kashmiris, Hari Singh rushed to New Delhi for rescue and signed the Instrument of Accession on Oct.26, 1947, as an interim arrangement until, as Prime Minister Nehru put it, "the future of the State shall be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir." Indian troops rushed to Kashmir and pushed back the tribesmen.

On Dec. 31, 1947, India took the issue to the United Nations. The UN Security Council called for the dispute to be resolved through a UN-supervised "plebiscite." Hostilities between the feuding parties did not end completely until a cease-fire was agreed to and a UN monitored truce-line was drawn by the UN Resolution of Aug. 13, 1948. Since then, there have been repeated violations of the cease-fire and India and Pakistan have fought two major wars over the Kashmir issue.

The fact remains, however, that neither India nor Pakistan has legal claim to Kashmir. The final status of the state is to be determined by the 13 million Kashmiris themselves, 70 percent of whom are Muslim, and the rest Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and others.

Kashmir has an area of 86,000 square miles and borders India, Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Following the UN-supervised cease-fire, the state has remained divided along what is known as "the Line of Control.'' One side is controlled by India, and the other (Azad Kashmir) by Pakistan. The line, which was supposed to be a temporary arrangement until a plebiscite is held to decide the future, has been there longer than the present dividing line between North and South Korea.

Recent Turmoil Hardens Support for Self-Determination

The long delay has only further confused the Kashmir issue.

The late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, himself a Kashmiri Pandit, took the issue to the United Nations, did much to tie it up in knots there. For instance, India has argued that Pakistan's entry into military pacts with the West changed the premise in Kashmir. India also has put forth its claim to "secularism" to explain its unwillingness to recognize the ethnicity of Kashmir.

At one time there were strong advocates of the theory that the issue would disappear with time. Instead, recent turmoil in Kashmir indicates hardening of support for self-determination.

In November 1990, James Sterba of The Wall Street Journal drew a graphic picture when he wrote: "Today it is more like a high-altitude Beirut. Gun battles between Kashmiri Muslim secessionists and Indian security forces have claimed nearly 2,000 lives so far this year. The valley floor is an eerie landscape of charred villages and bombed-out buildings, sandbagged bunkers and barbed-wire barricades, shuttered shops, abandoned neighborhoods and fresh mounds of dirt from newly dug graves . . . So far, some 50,000 Hindu families have fled the region. . . Muslims claim the Indian government moved them so it could more easily kill Muslim Kashmiris. . . "

All attempts to put a lid on this cauldron apparently have failed. "Not for 25 years have we seen such a mass uprising in the valley," India's late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi observed.

There are signs of recognition of the deepening crisis in Kashmir on the part of some senior Indian journalists and politicians. The right-wing hard core, however, continues to advocate the use of the strong arm to meet the popular upsurge in Kashmir. The latter approach, however, is gradually becoming a very small official minority opinion.

Inder Malhotra, B.G. Verghese, Kuldip Nayar, Dilip Mukerjie, Jaswanth Singh, Pran Chopra, V.M. Tarakunde, J.R. Sahani, Minoo Masani, Justice Bahauddin Farooqi and others, each in his own style, has expressed the need for the resolution of the Kashmir question before the Indian image is further tarnished by reports of grave human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir. Most of their suggestions, seeking compromises, skirt the central point. Because a gag order keeps the truth from being reported in the Indian media, the full facts are seldom reported and most of the public remains in the dark. Even the names of the participants in the "Kashmir Group" formed in Delhi are kept a secret out of fear, and its deliberations are held "in camera."

Thus, Indian journalists do not write such reports as did Edward Gargan in the Oct. 28, 1991 New York Times, interviewing a doctor concerning police treatment of one Muzzafar Mirza: "Dr. Pirzada Abdur Rashid explained, 'they pushed a metal rod into his rectum, puncturing his liver, his pancreas, his stomach and tearing his lung."'

Such brutality has given the deepening unrest an added dimension. The women of Kashmir have come out on the streets defying the army and the police. Harinder Baweja writes in the Sept. 15, 1991, issue of India Today: "Behind the veil seems to lurk a will of steel . . . In a few short but eventful years the Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of Islam) and Muslim Khawateen Markhaz (Muslim Women's Center) have matched their men at taking on the Indian security forces."

Amnesty International, Asia Watch and, inside India, the People's Union of Civil Liberties and the People's Union of Democratic Rights all have compiled heartrending details of the human rights violations being committed in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Other Costs of Kashmir

In addition to leaving a trail of human suffering, the Kashmir issue puts a heavy strain on India's Exchequer, at a time when the country stands on the verge of economic collapse. At a courageous seminar held by the Rajaji Foundation in Bombay last July, it was revealed that India spends between "Rs.250 million and Rs.500 million every day" to control Kashmir. Foundation Secretary S.V. Raju pointed to the weakness of the "Kashmir is part of India" argument: "If [a Kashmiri] has to travel from one village to another he has to take police permission," Raju said. "It is almost as if Kashmir is treated as a colony of India," he concludes.

The most often cited argument for maintaining the status quo in Kashmir is that disturbing it would imperil the Indian Union and the integrity of the country. Jayaprakash Narayan, a prominent contemporary of Nehru, said in 1964 of India's refusal to abide by UN resolutions on Kashmir: "The assumption behind the argument is that the states of India are held together by force and not by sentiment of a common nationality . . . It is an assumption that makes a mockery of the Indian nation and a tyrant of the Indian State."

At present the Indian government is confronted by a growing economic crisis and resurgent communal sentiment whipped up by politicians of the Bharatiya Janata and other parties hell-bent on establishing a Hindu state in India. Although it lacks leadership strong enough to make bold decisions, India today, as never before, needs closer relationships with the Western democracies.

India may choose to stall a realistic decision in Kashmir for a while longer by charging Pakistan with assisting the revolt in Kashmir and by tightening its military grip on the state. With the changed circumstances in Eastern Europe, however, and the continuing developments in the Soviet Union, many nationalities are breaking artificial fetters. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the meltdown of the Iron Curtain, and the thawing of the Cold War are indicators that in the l990s the world will be found to side more and more for human rights and the democratic principles enunciated in the UN Charter.

The United States can promote this not by conducting itself as a world policeman, but by more stringently tying its economic and political support to the promotion of democracy, preservation of the environment, demilitarization and, above all, human rights. Aid offered through international agencies can be similarly structured.

Coming to grips with facts often reduces and even eliminates the pain and embarrassment caused by ignoring reality.

Resolution of the Kashmir question will remove a major conflict between India and Pakistan, and free their limited resources from being exploited in unproductive areas like armament. There are still enough sane people on both sides.

The United States and the Soviet Union can therefore play a very constructive role in bringing the feuding parties together to work out a decent solution. Whatever steps are taken, the rights and the will of the people of Kashmir should remain paramount. Nothing should be done without their full representation and participation.

The world has to be reminded that over a billion people live in the subcontinent of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, most of them in abject poverty. If political tensions in the area are removed, and their military budgets reduced, all of these people can live in peace and work toward their mutual economic security. Solution of the Kashmir problem would take the subcontinent a long way toward that end. A helping hand is what is needed.

M.M. Ali is a professor at the University of the District of Columbia.