Can Redrawing of Maps Change Status of Kashmir

Punchline

The “Map” Battle

By

Z. G. Muhammad

1. G. Muhammad

In the 1990s firebrand, Hurriyat Conference leader Late Abdul Gani Lone was a nationalist to the core. In the mid-nineties, when ‘armed struggle’ was at its peak, he wanted to reach out to Indian masses with his idea of Kashmiri nationalism. And garner support for an independent state of Jammu and Kashmir which he believed could be an oasis- a buffer of peace bridging three nuclear powers. His belief was that the left in India was not suffering ‘ultra-nationalism’, and there were some important leftist leaning intellectuals and ideologues who were supporters to self-determination for people of the state. For this belief, he wanted to start his campaign for winning friends for his cause from Kolkata- once a bastion of the left politics.

Caught up in the history of the genesis of the Kashmir Dispute and the geostrategic location of the state like many others in my tribe I   also have been sceptical about the idea of a sovereign state of Jammu and Kashmir. And for the resolution of the dispute I have been looking at its post-1947 history, the UN resolutions and New Delhi honouring its commitments.  Like historian Alastair Lamb, my belief also has been had the State been located somewhere else on the globe the dispute would have been settled long before. One day, during an interaction, I asked the Hurriyat leader if he wanted total independence for the entire state as it stood on 14 August 1947 or the “Naya-Kashmir” that came into being after October 27, 1947. Sharing his dream of an independent State he told me that his map of independent Kashmir was far bigger- it was Kashmir of Sultan Shihabu’d-Din. This fourth scion of the Sultanate of Kashmir who ruled for 19 years from 1354-1374, was a great conqueror. His territory did not include only Jammu and Kashmir as it stood on August 14, 1947, but in North-West it extended to Pakhli, Swat, Multan, Kabul, Qandahar, and Badakhshan in East- South from Kangri to Sirhind. He had even moved to Delhi but “for a battle between Delhi and Srinagar remaining indecisive peace was concluded.”

The Late Hurriyat leaders’ desire of an independent state had two takes for me one that it deconstructed the often orchestrated narrative that the undivided State of Jammu and Kashmir was a creation the Dogra rulers and second it also spoke about the map of an independent Kashmir in the eyes of a leader.  If one draws lines around the territories of Sultan Shihabu’d-Din’s Kashmir on the Google map, and conjure it into being it would make one of biggest countries in Asia. Notwithstanding, the dream of the Hurriyat leader do drawing maps change the realities.  The territory of Jammu and Kashmir at present as it stood in the summer of 1947 is a hard reality, which continues to be on the    Security Council’s agenda as the longest unresolved dispute. This status in the eyes of the world did not change even after the “Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly” adopted the State Constitution.  How strongly one may desire the political realities about the state cannot be changed by drawing and redrawing maps.

I remembered  Lone’s dream map of an ‘independent state of Jammu and Kashmir’ a couple of days back after once again diplomatic row started between New Delhi and Islamabad over the map of the State. On May 4, 2016, the Ministry of Home Affairs Government of India released a draft of “the Geospatial Information Regulation Bill, 2016.” The Bill among other things suggests that anyone distributing a map the Indian government deems to be “wrong,” could be liable for a billion-rupee fine and jail time. Through the passage of this Bill, the government would be able to penalise individuals and organisations “depicting Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory as per the    UNSC resolutions.”  New Delhi’s sensitiveness about Kashmir map despite its commitment to holding a referendum in the state being part of the provisional accession and same   reiterated at page 2-3 of the White Paper on Jammu and Kashmir, Government of India published in February 1948, started after 1957, when it went back on its commitment. History is replete with instances of New Delhi banning books and magazines containing maps showing J&K as disputed state. Or, the customs department paste white papers on these maps before allowing them entry into India. The latest in the row was last year when it took news channel Al Jazeera off the air for nearly a week. Currently, the 2005 National Map Policy governs publishing of maps in India, and it has no punitive clause.

Tt is for the first time in the history of Kashmir problem that the proposed law about the maps has turned into a war of attrition between the two countries. It has provided another opportunity to Islamabad to knock at the doors of the UN. Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations, sent a letter to Secretary-General and President of the United Nations. In her letter circulated as an “official document” by the UN  the Pakistan representative criticizing the bill and India showing the state as its integral part the Ambassador called upon the “The international community to honour its responsibility to the people of Jammu and Kashmir  by holding an independent and impartial plebiscite under UN auspices.” New Delhi took a serious exception to the letter and challenged Pakistan locus standi. It not only told Islamabad to “mind its own business” but also took the debate further asking China to stop its works in AJK as it was part of India. Thus, it moved beyond the favoured bilateralism and gave it the regional dimension. The important question that calls for an answer is where this diplomatic row over the map bill will lead to.  Ostensibly, it seems that the two countries are moving away from the bilateral dialogue back to the January 1948 situation.

Written on 21-5-2016

Published in Greater Kashmir on 23-6-2016