Fact Sheet on Kashmir
World's oldest dispute
Settling the Kashmir issue
Averting the Nuclear disaster
Nehru's betrayal
Location
: The State of Jammu and Kashmir is bordered in north by China, east by
autonomous region of Tibet, south by Indian states of Himachal Pradesh
and Punjab, and west by Pakistan. 63 per cent of the territory is under
Indian occupation; while the rest, 37 per cent, is with Pakistan, called
Azad (independent) Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).
Area: 151,360 square kilometres Indian-occupied Kashmir: 95,356 sq.kmsAzad
Jammu and Kashmir : 56,003 sq.kms
Population: 13 million (approximate)Indian-occupied Kashmir: 7.7 million
(projected figures, as cens us has not been held since 1991)
Azad Jammu Kashmir: 2.58 million (1990 figure)
Refugees in Pakistan: 1.5 million Expatriates: 1.5 million
World's oldest dispute
The Kashmir dispute is the oldest unresolved international
conflict in the world today. Pakistan considers Kashmir as its core political
dispute with India. So does the international community, except India.
While Indian security forces are practicing an unprecedented reign of terror
in Occupied Kashmir being widely reported world-wide; the Indian government,
currently led by Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, is neither willing
to negotiate the issue multilaterally--through international mediation--nor
is it ready to sort it out with Pakistan through bilateral negotiations.
India and Pakistan have already fought two wars over Kashmir. The exchange
of fire between their forces across the Line of Control, which separates
Azad Kashmir from Occupied Kashmir, is a routine affair. Now that both
India and Pakistan have acquired nuclear weapons potential, the possibility
of a third war between them over Kashmir, which may involve the use of
nuclear weapons, cannot be ruled out. The likely nuclear disaster in South
Asia, whose cause may be Kashmir, can be averted with an intervention by
the international community. Such an intervention is urgently required
to put an end to Indian atrocities in Occupied Kashmir and prepare the
ground for the implementation of UN resolutions, which call for the holding
of a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
Cause of the Kashmir dispute
India’s forcible occupation of the State of Jammu
and Kashmir in 1947 is the main cause of the dispute. India claims to have
'signed' a controversial document, the Instrument of Accession, on 26 October
1947 with the Maharaja of Kashmir, in which the Maharaja obtained India's
military help against popular insurgency. The people of Kashmir and Pakistan
do not accept the Indian claim. There are doubts about the very existence
of the Instrument of Accesion. The United Nations also does not consider
Indian claim as legally valid: it recognises Kashmir as a disputed territory.
Except India, the entire world community recognises Kashmir as a disputed
territory. The fact is that all the principles on the basis of which the
Indian subcontinent was partitioned by the British in 1947 justify Kashmir
becoming a part of Pakistan: the State had majority Muslim population,
and it not only enjoyed geographical proximity with Pakistan but also had
essential economic linkages with the territories constituting Pakistan.
History of the dispute
The State of Jammu and Kashmir has historically remained
independent, except in the anarchical conditions of the late 18th and first
half of the 19th century, or when incorporated in the vast empires set
up by the Mauryas (3rd century BC), the Mughals (16th to 18th century)
and the British (mid-19th to mid-20th century). All these empires included
not only present-day India and Pakistan but some other countries of the
region as well. Until 1846, Kashmir was part of the Sikh empire. In that
year, the British defeated the Sikhs and sold Kashmir to Gulab Singh
of Jammu for Rs. 7.5 million under the Treaty of Amritsar. Gulab
Singh, the Mahraja, signed a separate treaty with the British which gave
him the status of an independent princely ruler of Kashmir. Gulab Singh
died in 1857 and was replaced by Rambir Singh (1857-1885). Two other
Marajas, Partab Singh (1885-1925) and Hari Singh (1925-1949) ruled in
succession.
Gulab Singh and his successors ruled Kashmir
in a tyrannical and repressive way. The people of Kashmir, nearly 80 per
cent of whom were Muslims, rose against Maharaja Hari Singh's rule.
He ruthlessly crushed a mass uprising in 1931. In 1932, Sheikh Abdullah
formed Kashmir's first political party--the All Jammu & Kashmir
Muslim Conference (renamed as National Conference in 1939). In 1934, the
Maharaja gave way and allowed limited democracy in the form of a Legislative
Assembly. However, unease with the Maharaja's rule continued. According
to the instruments of partition of India, the rulers of princely states
were given the choice to freely accede to either India or Pakistan, or
to remain independent. They were, however, advised to accede to the
contiguous dominion, taking into consideration the geographical and ethnic
issues.
In Kashmir, however, the Maharaja hesitated.
The principally Muslim population, having seen the early and covert arrival
of Indian troops, rebelled and things got out of the Maharaja's hands.
The people of Kashmir were demanding to join Pakistan. The Maharaja, fearing
tribal warfare, eventually gave way to the Indian pressure and agreed
to join India by, as India claims, 'signing' the controversial Instrument
of Accession on 26 October 1947. Kashmir was provisionally accepted into
the Indian Union pending a free and impartial plebiscite. This was spelled
out in a letter from the Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten, to
the Maharaja on 27 October 1947. In the letter, accepting the accession,
Mountbatten made it clear that the State would only be incorporated
into the Indian Union after a reference had been made to the people
of Kashmir. Having accepted the principle of a plebiscite, India has since
obstructed all attempts at holding a plebiscite.
In 1947, India and Pakistan went to war
over Kashmir. During the war, it was India which first took the Kashmir
dispute to the United Nations on 1 January 1948 The following year,
on 1 January 1949, the UN helped enforce ceasefire between the two countries.
The ceasefire line is called the Line of Control. It was an outcome of
a mutual consent by India and Pakistan that the UN Security Council
(UNSC) and UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) passed several
resolutions in years following the 1947-48 war. The UNSC Resolution of
21 April 1948--one of the principal UN resolutions on Kashmir--stated that
"both India and Pakistan desire that the question of the accession of Jammu
and Kashmir to India or Pakistan should be decided through the democratic
method of a free and impartial plebiscite". Subsequent UNSC Resolutions
reiterated the same stand. UNCIP Resolutions of 3 August 1948 and 5 January
1949 reinforced UNSC resolutions.
Nehru's betrayal
India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru made
a pledge to resolve the Kashmir dispute in accordance with these resolutions.
The sole criteria to settle the issue, he said, would be the "wishes of
the Kashmir people". A pledge that prime minister Nehru started violating
soon after the UN resolutions were passed. The Article 370, which
gave 'special status' to 'Jammu and Kashmir', was inserted
in the Indian constitution. The 'Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly'
was created on 5 November 1951. Prime minister Nehru also signed the Delhi
Agreement with the then 'ruler' of the disputed State, Sheikh Adbullah,
which incorporated Article 370. In 1957, the disputed State was incorporated
into the Indian Union under a new Constitution. This was done in
direct contravention of resolutions of the UNSC and UNCIP and the
conditions of the controversial Instrument of Accession. The said constitutional
provision was rushed through by the then puppet 'State' government of Bakshi
Ghulam Mohammed. The people of Kashmir were not consulted.
In 1965, India and Pakistan once again went to
war over Kashmir. A cease-fire was established in September 1965.
Indian prime minister Lal Bhadur Shastri and Pakistani president Ayub Khan
signed the Tashkent Declaration on 1 January 1966. They resolved to try
to end the dispute by peaceful means. Although Kashmir was not the
cause of 1971 war between the two countries, a limited war did occur on
the Kashmir front in December 1971. The 1971 war was followed by the signing
of the Simla Accord, under which India and Pakistan are obliged to resolve
the dispute through bilateral talks. Until the early 1997, India never
bothered to discuss Kashmir with Pakistan even bilaterally. The direct
foreign-secretaries-level talks between the two countries did resume in
the start of the 1990s; but, in 1994, they collapsed. This happened because
India was not ready even to accept Kashmir a dispute as such, contrary
to what the Tashkent Declaration and the Simla Accord had recommended and
what the UNSC and UNCIP in their resolutions had stated.
The government of prime minister Nawaz Sharif,
after coming to power in February 1997, took the initiative of resuming
the foreign secretaries-level talks with India. The process resumed in
March 1997 in New Delhi. At the second round of these talks in June 1997
in Islamabad, India and Pakistan agreed to constitute a Joint Working Group
on Kashmir. But soon after the talks, India backtracked from the agreement,
the same way as prime minister Nehru had done back in the 1950s by violating
his own pledge regarding the implementation of UN resolutions seeking Kashmir
settlement according to, as Mr Nehru himself described, "the wishes
of the Kashmiri people." The third round of India-Pakistan foreign secretaries-level
talks was held in New Delhi in September 1997, but no progress was achieved
as India continued dithering on the question of forming a Joint Working
Group on Kashmir. The Hindu nationalist government of prime minister Atal
Behari Vajpaee is neither ready to accept any international mediation on
Kashmir, nor is it prepared to seriously negotiate the issue bilaterally
with Pakistan.
Popular uprising since 1989
Since 1989, the situation in Occupied Kashmir has
undergone a qualitative change. In that year, disappointed by decades-old
indifference of the world community towards their just cause and threatened
by growing Indian state suppression, the Kashmiri Muslim people rose in
revolt against India. A popular uprising that has gained momentum with
every passing day--unlike the previous two popular uprisings by Kashmiris
(1947-48, first against Dogra rule and then against Indian occupation;
and 1963, against Indian rule, triggered by the disappearance of Holy relic),
which were of a limited scale.
The initial Indian response to the 1989 Kashmiri
uprising was the imposition of Governor's Rule in the disputed State in
1990, which was done after dissolving the government of Farooq Abdullah,
the son of Sheikh Abdullah. From July 1990 to October 1996, the occupied
State remained under direct Indian presidential rule. In September 1996,
India stange-managed 'State Assembly' elections in Occupied Kashmir, and
Farooq Abdullah assumed power in October 1996. Since then, the situation
in the occupied territories has further deteriorated. Not only has the
Indian military presence in the disputed land increased fundamentally,
the reported incidents of killing, rape, loot and plunder of its people
by Indian security forces have also quadrupled.
To crush the Kashmiri freedom movement, India
has employed various means of state terrorism, including a number of draconian
laws, massive counter-insurgency operations, and other oppressive measures.
The draconian laws, besides several others, include the Armed Forces
(Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990; Terrorist and Disruptive
Activities Act (TADA), 1990; the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act,
1978 (amended in 1990); and the Jammu & Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act,
1990.
Most densely-soldiered territory
The Indian troops-to-Kashmiri people ratio in the
occupied Kashmir is the largest ever soldiers-to-civilians ratio in the
world. There are approximately 600,000 Indian military forces--including
regular army, para-military troops, border security force and police--currently
deployed in the occupied Kashmir. This is in addition to thousands of "counter-militants"
--the civilians hired by the Indian forces to crush the uprising.
Since the start of popular uprising, thousands
of innocent Kashmir people have been killed by the Indian occupation forces.
There are various estimates of these killings. According to government
of India estimates, the number of persons killed in Occupied Kashmir between
1989 and 1996 was 15,002. Other Indian leaders have stated a much higher
figure. For instance, former Home Minister Mohammad Maqbool Dar said
nearly 40,000 people were killed in the Valley "over the past seven years."
Farooq Abdullah’s 1996 statement estimated 50,000 killings "since the beginning
of the uprising." The All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC)--which is
a representative body of over a dozen Kashmiri freedom fighters' organisations--also
cites the same number. Estimates of world news agencies and international
human rights organisations are over 20,000 killed.
Indian human rights violations in Occupied Kashmir
include indiscriminate killings and mass murders, torturing and extra-judicial
executions, and destruction of business and residential properties, molesting
and raping women. These have been extensively documented by Amnesty International,
US Human Rights Watch-Asia, Physicians for Human Rights, International
Commission of Jurists (Geneva), Contact Group on Kashmir of the Organisation
of islamic Countries--and, in India, by Peoples Union for Civil Liberties,
the Coordination Committee on Kashmir, and the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples’
Basic Rights Protection Committee. Despite repeated requests over the years
by world human righits organisations such as the Amnesty International,
the Indian government has not permitted them any access to occupied territories.
In 1997, it even refused the United Nations representatives permission
to visit there.
Settling the Kashmir issue
For decades, India has defied with impunity all the
UN resolutions on Kashmir, which call for the holding of a "free and fair"
plebiscite under UN supervision to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri
people. Not just this. A massive Indian military campaign has been on,
especially since the start of the popular Kashmiri uprising in 1989, to
usurp the basic rights of the Kashmiri people. Killing, torture, rape and
other inhuman practices by nearly 600,000 Indian soldiers are a norm of
the day in Occupied Kashmir.
The Kashmir problem will be solved the moment
international community decides to intervene in the matter--to put an end
to Indian state terrorism in Occupied Kashmir and to implement UN resolutions.
These resolutions recommend demilitarization of Kashmir (through withdrawal
of all outside forces), followed immediately by a plebiscite under UN supervision
to determine the future status of Kashmir. The intervention of the international
community is all the more necessary, given the consistent Indian opposition
to both bilateral and multilateral options to settle the Kashmir issue.
Such an intervention is also urgently required to stop the ever-growing
Indian brutalities against the innocent Muslim people of Kashmir, who have
been long denied their just right to self-determination.
Averting the Nuclear Disaster
If the world community failed to realise the gravity
of the Kashmir problem now, there is every likelihood of Kashmir once again
becoming the cause of another war between India and Pakistan. And, since
both the countries have acquired overt nuclear weapons potential, and since
India led by Hindu nationalists has clearly shown its aggressive intentions
towards Kashmir after declaring itself a nuclear state, a third India-Pakistan
war over Kashmir is a possibility, a war that may result in a South
Asian nuclear catastrophe. The world community, therefore, has all the
reasons for settling Kashmir, the core unresolved political dispute between
Islamabad and New Delhi.
Like many other international disputes, the Kashmir
issue remained a victim of world power politics during the Cold War period.
When the dispute was first brought to the UN, the Security Council, with
a firm backing of the United Sates, stressed the settlement of the issue
through plebiscite. Initially, the Soviet Union did not dissent from it.
Later, however, because of its ideological rivalry with the United States,
it blocked every Resolution of the UN Security Council calling for implementation
of the settlement plan.
In the post-Cold War period--when cooperation
not conflict is the fast emerging norm of international politics, a factor
which has helped resolve some other regional disputes-- the absence of
any credible international mediation on Kashmir contradicts the very
spirit of the times. An India-Pakistan nuclear war over Kashmir? Or, settlement
of the Kashmir issue, which may eventually pave the way for setting up
a credible global nuclear arms control and non-proliferation regime? The
choice is with the world community, especially the principal players of
the international system.
