A Kashmiri Solution for Kashmir

by Eqbal Ahmad

(excerpt from a longer article in DAWN and Reprinted here with the courtsey of HIMAL: The South Asian Magazine)

Denial of Reality

India's failures in Kashmir have been compounding since the time Jawaharlal Nehru's

liberal, newly independent government chose to rely on the hated and oppressive Maharaja

Hari Singh's decision to join the Indian Union. Pressed by a military confrontation

with Pakistan, Delhi took the dispute to the United Nations. It then promised to

abide by the Security Council's resolution which called for a plebiscite to allow

Kashmiris to decide between joining India or Pakistan. India broke that promise.

Delhi's only asset in those initial years had been Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah's

cooperation. For his opposition to the Maharaja's unpopular regime and his advocacy

of reforms of land and labour in Kashmir, the Sheikh and his party, the National

Conference, had become the embodiment of Kashmiri nationalism. As Chief Minister

of Kashmir, he promulgated land reforms in 1950, which further enhanced his standing

with Kashmir's overwhelmingly rural and disinherited people. But this national hero

was jailed in August 1953 after he began demanding greater autonomy. Except for two

brief spells of freedom, he remained India's prisoner for 22 years, until February

1975, when the Sheikh became Chief Minister after signing an agreement with Prime

Minister Indira Gandhi.

Mrs Gandhi was able to defang the Lion of Kashmir, who allied with the ruling

Indian National Congress. The only freedom he, and his heir apparent Farooq Abdullah,

exercised during his second term in office was the freedom to be outrageously self

indulgent and engage in corruption. Kashmiris nurtured anger and a sense of humiliation

over how their vaunted 'lion' had been tamed in Indian hands. Furthermore, they had

been denied not only the right of self determination, a right affirmed by the United

Nations, but were now also witnessing the disintegration of their historic Kashmiri

party, the Conference. This was taken as yet another assault on their identity and,

as often happens in such circumstances, reinforced Kashmiri nationalism vis-a-vis

India.

Besides political disenchantment, the alienation of the Kashmiri from India is

mired in history, economics and psychology. The problem is not communal, although

sectarian Hindu and ideologues would like to view it in these terms. The latest phase

of Kashmiri discontent followed significant social changes in Kashmir. The governments

of Sheikh Abdullah and Ghulam Mohammed Bakhshi did free the Kashmiri from feudal

controls, and helped enlarge a middle class. In increasing numbers, Kashmiri youth

were educated but their social mobility remained constricted because meaningful economic

growth did not accompany land reforms and expanded educational facilities. Rebellions

are normally started by the hopeful not the abject poor.

The roots of the popular uprising in 1989 lay in the neglect of Kashmir, and New

Delhi's unconscionable manipulation of Kashmiri politics. Yet, India confronts the

insurgency as incumbents normally do-with allegations of external subversion, brute

force and unlawful machinations. Above all, it denies reality.

Kashmir in Partition

The reality is that New Delhi's moral isolation from the Kashmiri people is total

and irreversible. It might be reversible if India were to envisage a qualitatively

different relation with Kashmir, one which meaningfully satisfies Kashmiri aspirations

of self government, but so far New Delhi has evinced no inclination in this direction.

But can India's loss translate into Pakistan's gain? The answer is it cannot. Policy

makers in Islamabad like to believe otherwise, and this is not unusual. It is quite

common for rival countries to view their contest as a zero sum game whereby the loss

of one side translates as gain for the other. However, history shows this assumption

to be false, and rival losses and gains are rarely proportional; they are determined

by circumstances of history, politics and policy. India's Kashmir record offers a

chronicle of failures, yet none of these have accrued to Pakistan's benefit. Rather,

Pakistan's policy has suffered from its own defects. Three characteristics made an

early appearance in Islamabad's Kashmir policy. One, although Pakistani decision

makers know the problem to be fundamentally political, since 1948 they have approached

it in military terms. Two, while the military outlook has dominated, there has been

a healthy unwillingness to go to war over Kashmir. Three, while officially invoking

Kashmiri right to self determination, Pakistan's governments and politicians have

pursued policies which have all but disregarded the history, culture, and aspirations

of Kashmir's people.

One consequence has been a string of grave Pakistani miscalculations regarding

Kashmir. Another has been to alienate Kashmiris from Pakistan at crucial times such

as 1948 49, 1965 and the 1990s. Success has eluded Pakistan's Kashmir policy, and

the costs have added up. Two wars-in 1948 and 1965-have broken out over Kashmir;

annual casualties have mounted during the 1990s across the UN-monitored Line of Actual

Control (LOC); the burden of defence spending has not diminished. A study of recent

Kashmiri history will help put Islamabad's blunders in perspective. In 1947 48, Kashmiri

Muslims were subject to contrasting pulls. The partition of India, the communal strife

that accompanied it, and Kashmir's political economy, which was linked to the Punjab,

disposed them towards Pakistan. However, the people's political outlook was rooted

in Kashmiri nationalism which had been mobilised earlier by the National Conference

led by Sheikh Abdullah. Sheikh Sahib was drawn towards the men and the party with

whom he had worked closely since 1935-Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad, and the Indian National

Congress. (He did not meet Mohammad Ali Jinnah until 1944.) There was also a tradition

of amicable relations between Kashmiri Hindus and Muslims, despite general Muslim

antipathy to the Maharaja's rule.

What Kashmiris needed was time, a period of peaceful transition to resolve their

ambivalence. This, they did not get. Owing to Lord Mountbatten's mindless haste,

the Subcontinent was partitioned and power transferred in a dizzying sequence of

events which left little time to attend to complex details in far corners. The leadership

of the Muslim League, in particular, was preoccupied with the challenges of power

transfer, division of assets, civil war and mass migration. The League was short

on experienced leaders, and squabbling squandered their meagre skills. Quaid i Azam

Mohammad Ali Jinnah was terminally ill.

In this climate of crisis and competition, Kashmir received scant attention. The

little attention it did attract was of those who did not comprehend Kashmiri aspirations

nor the ambiguities, and the extraordinary risks and temptations that lay in waiting.

In a peculiar expression of distorted perspective, self serving officials like Ghulam

Mohammed, a colonial bureaucrat who later wormed his way into becoming the Governor

General of Pakistan, paid more attention to the undeserving and hopeless case of

Hyderabad (Deccan) than to Kashmir.

When India's Home Minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel sent feelers about a possible

give-and-take on Hyderabad and Kashmir, Ghulam Mohammed is said to have spurned this

opportunity and carried on his lucrative dealings with Hyderabad's Nizam. Pakistan

also welcomed the accession of Junagadh and Manavadar, whereas an overwhelming majority

in both states (as well as Hyderabad) were Hindu. In effect, Pakistan held three

divergent positions on the question of accession-in favour of the Hyderabad Nizam's

right to independence, Junagadh's right to accede to Pakistan against the wish of

the populace, and, in Kashmir, for the right to self determination. Double standard

is a common enough practice in politics, but it invariably harms the actor who lacks

the power to avert consequences. The Nawab of Junagadh tried to deliver his Hindu-majority

state to Pakistan, which set the precedence for the Maharaja of Muslim-dominated

Kashmir choosing India. Pakistan did not have the power to defend either the Nawab

or the Nizam, nor the will to punish the Maharaja. So India, practising double standards

in its turn, took it all.

Pork Barrel

India's policies have been no less riddled with blunders than Pakistan's. Its

moral isolation on Kashmir is nearly total, and unlikely to be overcome by military

means or political manipulation. New Delhi commands not a shred of legitimacy among

Kashmiri Muslims. Ironically, even as India's standing in Kashmir appears increasingly

untenable, Kashmiris today appear farther from the goal of liberation than they were

in the years 1989 to 1992.

Pakistan's engagement in Kashmir is indirect and unacknowledged. As such, it enjoys

greater tactical and political flexibility than either Indian or the Kashmiri leaders.

The diversity and nuances of informed opinion in Pakistan also render Islamabad more

elastic than New Delhi, where the Hindutva right is powerful and breathes heavy over

weak liberal shoulders. Furthermore, for a number of reasons-its popular standing

in large segments of Kashmiri population, material support of militant groups, international

advocacy of Kashmir's cause-Pakistan's leverage in Kashmir is greater than what most

observers assume. Yet, beyond repeating tired shibboleths about "our principled

stand&quot;, Islamabad lacks a functioning policy capable of exploiting its advantages.</P>

<P>To date, the governments of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir have spent millions of dollars

to mobilise international support behind the question of Kashmir. Islamabad's jet

setting, patronage soaked lobbying for a UN recommended plebiscite has elicited no

significant international support during the last seven years of Kashmir insurgency.

Cumulatively, Pakistan's score has been a pathetic zero, despite the hectic international

itinerary of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the ever-travelling delegations

headed by the Punjabi politician Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan. A few months ago, the

Security Council even dropped Kashmir from its agenda, and it was only retroactive

Pakistani lobbying that was able to obtain a temporary reprieve. The most that Pakistan

has been able to achieve are favourable resolutions from the Organisation of Islamic

Countries, an entity about as influential in world politics as an Arabian camel.

Kashmir's cause therefore serves merely as one big pork barrel for Pakistani carpetbaggers

and patronage seekers, religious and secular, parliamentary and private.

In sum, Pakistan continues to wage a half hearted "war of position"

replete with private doubts, symbolic posturing and petty opportunism. Its support

has not helped unify or energise the insurgency in Kashmir into a winning movement.

The resulting stalemate appears 'stable', and unlikely to be upset in the absence

of a conventional India Pakistan war. Since war is not an option, Pakistan's policy

is reduced to bleeding India; and India's to bleeding the Kashmiris, and to hit out

at Pakistan whenever a wound can be inflicted.

E. Ahmad writes for the Al Ahram (Cairo), Al Hayat (London) and is a weekly columnist

in the Dawn (Karachi). Portions of this article have appeared before in Dawn. The

writer divides his time between Islamabad and Amherst, Massachusetts, where he teaches

West Asian studies and international relations.

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