Essay on the unsolved problem of Kashmir

Kashmir has been a problem for us since our independence. It has a historical background of our failings and betrayals to the nation. The seeds were sown in the unnatural partition of the country. We talked of secularism and accepted the partition on communal lines.

The appeasement policy of Indian leaders started by as great a leader as Mahatma Gandhi continued even after partition. The natural corollary of partition was that all Muslims ought to have gone to Pakistan and all Hindus ought to have come to Bharat. The partisan and idealistic stance of Indian leaders obligated them to allow the flow of Hindus from Pakistan to India.

But it equally obligated them to keep five crore Muslims in this country. What was the fun of partition then? It was rather an introduction to many partitions to come. We allowed this situation even when we knew that the Muslims as a community would always create problems.

Pakistan lives in our country in every nook and corner. Wherever Muslims are in majority one can hear the slogans of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ and we can see the flag of Pakistan unfurled on many a building in Muslim localities. It may be Aligarh, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Sholapur, Bhagalpur or Meerut.

Such cities have Hindu Muslim riots again and again. These are not riots but are efforts to gain ascendance. At all the places Pakistani Muslims have been noticed and many a time arrested too. Arsenals have been found in Muslim localities and mosques (Ahmedabad in 1973 riots in Jama Masjid). The government has been unscrupulously not divulging these facts to the people.

Newspapers have been very idealistic in not showing the courage to call a spade a spade. The so called secularism that is to safeguard the interests of this vast minority keeps them both blind and deaf to the realities.

When this is the situation in whole of the country what can we expect from Jammu and Kashmir where more than sixty per cent population comprises of Muslims. The Kashmir valley is virtually a small Pakistan. The People there do not believe in the annexation of Kashmir to Bharat by Raja Hari Singh. Half of Kashmir was occupied by Pakistan. The whole would have been occupied by Pakistan had Sardar Patel not ordered the army to march. Had Nehru had an idea of National Integration he would have not gone to the UNO. It was rather a big conspiracy of the foreign powers to order cease fire. More than one-third of Kashmir remained in Pakistan.

It is rather sad that our strategy has never been to acquire what is ours whether it is in the occupation of Pakistan or China. That is the only strategy we shall have to reverse ultimately. In that case we should allow, rather compel all those who think themselves Pakistanis go to their land and leave us alone. But this requires a phased programme. The most essential thing is to do away with the blunder we committed in including Section 370 in our Constitution. To give a state a special status means to keep it away from the main stream.

Eighties saw the rise of militants in Kashmir Valley to the extent that there was an average of 20 killings a day during the last five years of the decade. A number of officers were kidnapped including bank managers and heads of Public Sector Industries. Some of them were killed while others were free only after some hard core militants were released from jails.

There were sometimes gimmicks too. To get a few released the daughter of the Home Minister, a Kashmiri Muslim was abducted. It is said she was kept in the house of one of her relatives till some members of militant bodies were released.

The condition in the valley has deteriorated to the extent that lakhs of Hindus, mostly Kashmiri Pandits have left their homeland, locking their houses, and have migrated to Jammu, Delhi, Bangalore and many other cities. Most of them have been living in ill equipped camps.

CPI, CPM, Congress, Janta Dal, National Integration Council and the Left Front have been insisting upon a peaceful solution by giving more facilities and job opportunities to the Muslims in the valley. The reality is that there is nothing like a border between Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and this side of Kashmir. Militant Muslim Organisations send their members for training to Pakistan while Pakistanis and the trained Indian Muslims infiltrate clandestinely in India. There is an organised conspiracy by Pakistan to occupy whole of Kashmir. ISI of Pakistan has been very active in these efforts.

The tragedy is that because of Section 370 even the President of India cannot purchase an inch of land in Kashmir while Pakistani Muslims, asserting that they belong to India can. Thus the population of Muslims in Kashmir has been increasing by leaps and bounds while others have left at least the valley. The solution lies in a firm determination to scrap Section 370, give autonomy to Jammu and Ladakh and if the occupied portion of the valley is to be surrendered to Pakistan let all the Muslims, who side with Pakistan, be asked to accompany their Kashmiri brethren to the land of their love. There is no alternative to Military action. Let us undo what Nehru had done before the Muslim countries, including the six recently established in the old USSR, bring pressure on India through international forums like UNO, European forums like the Big 8, the European Community of twelve, USA and the friends of Palestine in the Middle East.

In March, 1994 India invited ambassadors of different countries to visit Kashmir. Ten ambassadors toured Jammu and Kashmir for four days meeting people and authorities of all shades. They returned to Delhi on 10th of March. For months Pakistan had been lobbying for a vote against India in a resolution to be moved by it in United Nations Human Rights Commission about the infringement of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir by Armed Forces of India. With great difficulty she found Iran and China as cosponsors.

On the 9th of March, 1994 when voting was to be held the two countries advised Pakistan not to press Kashmir issue in world organisations and find a bilateral solution. Pakistan had to eat a humble pie and withdraw the resolution unconditionally when extreme pressure was put by Atal Behari Vajpayee, leader of the Indian Delegation and a former Foreign Minister. It was a great victory of India on Kashmir issue in a world body of 57 members including many Islamic states friendly to Pakistan. After Vajpayee became Prime Minister in 1998 peace has been coming back to Kashmir.