A Comprehensive Note on Jammu & Kashmir
INTRODUCTION
In recent years Jammu and Kashmir has been the subject of international focus. Unfortunately, discussion on the issue has largely been flawed by misunderstanding of the State’s history and its present situation. Pakistan, in promoting its own territorial ambitions, has deliberately sought to project a distorted version of developments in the State since 1947 when the State joined the Union of India, in an attempt to disguise its own sustained effort at undermining the tranquillity of this "Eden of Bliss".
Pakistan continues to look upon the issue of Jammu & Kashmir as one that lies at the very core of India’s relations with Pakistan. This is manifested by Pakistan’s pronouncements and its repeated aggression against India, initially in the form of conventional wars and then by sponsorship of terrorism. This strategy is born of Pakistan’s non-acceptance of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India, made with the full support of its people then led by Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah. The fact that the two communities had coexisted for centuries, that a sizeable section of India’s Muslims chose to live in India, that a princely state with a sizeable Muslim population like Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India of its own volition, and that the Muslim majority wing of Pakistan separated and became independent Bangladesh, are aspects of history that challenge the principle that peaceful and beneficial co-existence was not possible.
Jammu and Kashmir became an integral part of the Indian Union in 1947 through final accession in accordance with the legal framework determined by the British Parliament for the independence of the Indian subcontinent. This was sought to be undermined by the use of military force in 1947, which though successfully resisted by the Kashmiris with the support of India’s army, resulted in a portion of the State remaining under Pakistan’s occupation. Again, in 1965 Pakistan sought to capitalise on local disturbances to foster insurgency, but on failing to suborn the local Kashmiri population, infiltrated armed personnel into the State leading to war with India, ending with the Tashkent Declaration of 1965. In 1971, under threat of an insurgency in its own eastern wing Pakistan again sought to divert world attention and extend the conflict into Jammu & Kashmir. This brought about defeat and the loss of its eastern wing with the emergence of independent Bangladesh.
In complete contravention of the Tashkent Declaration of 1965 and the Simla Agreement of 1972, signed after two wars, Pakistan, still addicted to its quest to wrest Jammu and Kashmir by force, changed strategy and embarked on a programme of sponsoring terrorism in the State. Since 1989, with over 20,000 people killed, Pakistan continues its proxy war against India. Even after the Kashmiris voted for democracy and again elected their own government in 1996, signalling their disenchantment with terrorist violence, Pakistan has not given up its policy of trying to disrupt the free democratic polity of Jammu and Kashmir. Disappointed with the response of the Kashmiris to its calls for what it sought to promote as a "holy war" in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has taken recourse to sending in battle hardened Pakistani, Afghan and other mercenaries who have distinguished themselves only by drenching the soil with the blood of the very people whose interests they claim to champion in the name of religion.
India remains committed to dealing with all matters pertaining to its relations with Pakistan, within the bilateral framework of the Simla Agreement. Solutions that entail a rewriting of history or a redrawing of geographical boundaries and possible population transfers can, however, never be countenanced.
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