The Ongoing Problem of Kashmir

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

The most intractable problem between India and Pakistan has been the status of Kashmir, which has bedeviled their relationship from the moment both countries gained their independence.

When India was partitioned into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India in 1947, princely states were given the option of joining either country.

Though Kashmir had a Muslim majority, and its territory was contiguous to what had become Pakistan, the Hindu Maharaja, Hari Singh, who ruled Kashmir opted to throw in his lot with India. It was incorporated into the Indian Union as the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan has never reconciled itself to this.

Pakistan has argued that including a Muslim-majority state in India repudiates the two-nation theory responsible for its identity; it insists that the “completeness” of the nation depends on the integration of the state into Pakistan. Former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto once said that “Kashmir must be liberated if Pakistan is to have its full meaning.”

On the other hand, India insists that Kashmir’s annexation validates the theory of secular nationalism on which it was founded.

Pakistani irregulars occupied a partition of the territory, now called Azad (Free) Kashmir, in 1947, and Pakistan fought wars in 1965, 1971 and 1999 to try to conquer it. In 2003 Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf declared a cease-fire, but Kashmir remains divided, with troops from both countries facing each other at the Line of Control.

Pakistan contends that India is still bound by a 1948 UN Security Council resolution to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir, to allow its people to decide whether they would like to accede to India or Pakistan. A third option, an independent Kashmir, has also been suggested by some of Kashmir’s political elite. So Kashmir’s own inhabitants are not united in their political desires.

Multiple peace talks have been held over the years in attempts to resolve the conflict, although there have been disputes about who can legitimately represent the various parties involved.

Meanwhile, a major insurgency within the Indian state itself began in 1988, after Muslim political parties complained that the 1987 elections to the state’s legislative assembly were rigged. Fuelled by covert support from Pakistan, and involving many mujahidin who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, by the end of the decade at least 50,000 and perhaps as many as 100,000 people had died in the conflict.

India used draconian laws, which allow security forces to detain individuals for as many as two years without presenting charges, and a massive military presence, to quell the violence. There was eventually one Indian soldier or paramilitary police officer for every five Kashmiris. Yet there was further large-scale unrest in 2010.

In September, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met in New York and agreed to maintain peace on the border, but their pledge seems to have made little difference on the ground.