Kashmir issue
In Indo-Pakistan relations, Kashmir alone is the lingering and central problem. All other issues are simply the symptoms of this malady. Therefore, if a just and equitable solution is effected, the tension around it will automatically cease to exist and the region could be able to play its natural role in world affairs. Not only shall this provide a conducive framework for the development and progress of the constituent nations in the area, but it will also bring stability and security in the region, thereby making a substantial contribution to international peace and harmony. Being the core issue, its settlement will tend to release tremendous reservoir of energy and resources, which are thus far locked unnecessarily in mutual antagonism, to be otherwise diverted to constructive purpose.
The situation of confrontation between the two countries has been for the last four decades drawing their life-blood and taxing critically their national exchequers, so much so that they have come to be net borrowers and net importers of their necessities. If this pitiable condition continues, it will bleed each of the parties to ruination. In that case, there will be no winners and the region will fall into an abyss of irreversible plight. The salvation, therefore lies in timely and sagacious actions on the part of the two nations so that rebuilding process may be initiated before it is too late. India being a vast country with a huge human capital and great needs for socio-economic development will thus be relieved from undue burdens and divert its attention to the welfare of the people who are presently leading a dismal life.
In tackling the issue for its resolution, even though there may be numerous options, genuine solution lies in a political rapprochement. As far as the military option is concerned, despite a myriad of social and economic dimensions it is in itself not a sound premise. In examining the historic facts and realities, it is clear that military supremacy cannot hold for good. It can remain in force only upto the point of physical dominance, which of course continues to decay in time and space. So, the threshold lies at the verge of its dilution against the popular demand of self-assertion. Then it breaks down and the process is reversed as has happened recently in Algeria, Vietnam, Korea and Germany. In the same scenario, as the ongoing process of Palestine and Kashmir, do also conform to this paradigm. Once the critical point is reached, which is close enough in both the cases, the situation will be bound to change violently with no other course to be left anymore to try. Wisdom demands that this situation should be shunned in the larger interest of all.
The occupying forces remain in control only so long as stamina permits to suppress the masses, but as soon as power dilutes, the popular will triumphs and alien dominance is thrown out. It is the dialectics of the opposing will which ultimately determines the fate of an armed conflict. The will of the people of Kashmir, to carry the war of liberation to its logical conclusion is being determined by their willingness to sacrifice and defy death, thus elevating themselves to the point of moral ascendancy, where the stronger will always triumph.
Conversely, the occupation forces tend to rely upon their material superiority and the more they build-up on such material resources, the more they move into the error. From this point of view the war of liberation in Kashmir provides an interesting study of the conflict between the two opposing forces each having a “limit of tolerance”. When the military pressure rises beyond the tolerance limit, collapse would begin to occur. Take for example the war of liberation in Algeria, where the collapse of the French forces started with the level of security forces rising to the figure of 500,000.
In Vietnam, with a force of over 500,000 the French met a similar fate at Dien Bien Phu. Then came the Americans , building-up their forces in Vietnam, to over 500,000, which caused much of moral, political and economic pressure, forcing them to withdraw accepting defeat. And very recently, in Afghanistan, with the level of Security forces of PDPA and Russian troops reaching the figure of 500,000, the cracks started appearing forcing the Russians to beat a withdrawal.
A similar phenomenon is now taking place in Kashmir where the level of Indian security forces, with barely 200,000 men in early ’90, now stands at over 400,000. Soon it would be reaching “the magic figure of 500,000 — the limit of their tolerance”, putting much of moral, economic, political and military pressures, to cause the collapse of the military will and retreat of the occupation forces. That is the judgement of history for the Mujahideen of Kashmir.
History is replete with many instances from which lessons could be learnt to avoid impending crises. In Germany, the enforced infestation of the military solution could not similarly maintain itself as soon as its muscles slackened as accentuated by other factors, it fell to the ground, and the people naturally reconverged under common identity to reassert themselves and replace the usurpers in their own favour. The same drama was replayed in the realms of the mighty Super Power — the Soviet Union, where for long seven decades, totalitarian system was imposed over and against the populace, only to be crumbled under its own weight to give way to the people.
So far as other semi-political and one sided solutions based on unnatural divisions for vested fractionalization, they too fall short of equitability, justice and reasonableness. In this context, among other things, the Trieste Model has often and unobjectively been suggested. Neither is this suggestion relevant or applicable in the Kashmir case. The state of Jammu and Kashmir is a monolithic entity as it existed politically and territorially on 14 August 1947, and inhabited by the predominant Muslim population. Therefore, the thought of the break-up of the land and/or people is unnatural and unjust, besides being unpracticable. Therefore, this suggestion, which was also recently proffered by the visiting scholar, Mr. Selig Harrison, at the Friends forum on 27 November 1991, lacks both fairness and sustainability. This type of myopic expediencies and excuses certainly lack the contents of genuine solutions. Actually, burying the head under the sand as part of ostracism or putting an issue under the rug is no solution at all, rather the problem should be faced boldly and squarely and worked out properly for its resolution.
The solution has to be found in the political will of the people. Actually, a framework for such a settlement has already been provided by the international comity and accepted by all the parties concerned (India, Pakistan, Kashmir). Therefore, this could accordingly be implemented in good faith as promised and deserved. Even where there may remain some procedural and interpretive differences they may preferably be sorted out by resort to either United Nations Agencies or the Judicial or arbitral modalities as universally recognised.
As all these modalities are both in existence and operative, their utilization could not be a difficult course. It would rather be an easy and accepted resort thereto. With the provision of these conceptual and practical frames, talking of settlement outside this structure is both illogical and wasteful. That could be excused only as a diversionary tactic. Indeed, India has been for long the victim of this dialectic. Perhaps this is the time that the realities should be accepted and the thread of earlier promises and procedures, be taken up to usher in an era of peace and prosperity in the region.
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