Kashmir Resolution Inevitable- Scent of Hope in the Air

Punchline
Kashmir Resolution Is Inevitable

By
Z. G. Muhammad

Is 69 year old Kashmir Dispute on the threshold of a resolution? In the weird scenario of denials about the very existence of the Dispute, the question does not seem in sync with the ground realities. Yet, for a quick succession of developments during past few weeks and tensions building up on the LOC and India and Pakistan borders what has been engaging my mind, if there are historical forces at play that are going to help in the resolution of Kashmir problem sooner than expected by many analysts.
Kashmir continues to be the oldest unresolved dispute on the United Nations agenda is a historical reality. In recognition of this reality, there is hardly a year when the UN Secretary General has not asked India and Pakistan for resolving this dispute for ensuring peace in the South-Asian region. Moreover, notwithstanding repeated commitments of the two countries through various declarations after the summit meetings or joint statements about addressing the Kashmir Dispute through dialogue, the UN Secretary General and many friendly countries including the United States have been offering their services for mediating an amicable settlement of the Dispute according to wishes of the people of the State. From Eisenhower to George Bush, there is hardly any American President who has not seen wishes of people of Jammu and Kashmir paramount for the resolution of the Kashmir Dispute.
After the 1964 Holy Relic movement, 2016, ‘Intifada,’ is the first movement that worked as a catalyst in bringing Kashmir back to the floor of the United Nations- the floor on which at India’s bidding resolutions for holding a plebiscite in the state were passed almost seven decades back. Notwithstanding, change of guards twice even after the end of Musharraf a large section of diplomats retired and serving in Pakistan continued to be prisoners of the four-point formula of the former President- thus shy to talk about UN resolutions and right to self-determination of Kashmir. So Nawaz Sharif mentioning the Kashmir Dispute, Intifada-III and loss of life in Kashmir ruffled feathers in New Delhi to the extent that External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj in her address to 71st UNGA not to say of endorsing the resolutions of the right to self-determination passed on the same floor even refused to recognize Kashmir Dispute as bilateral issue- stated policy of the country since 1972. India and Pakistan diplomats in New York making use of ‘Right to Reply tried to augment the discourses of their countries in the General Assembly. Pakistan endeavoured to highlight the human rights violations in Kashmir – including killing, blinding and wounding of children and youth. India played upon the “Uri attack”. The war of words on Kashmir in the UNGA generated another debate in Pakistan media and Srinagar press. That the “Uri happenings” eclipsed the ongoing human rights violations in Kashmir and undermined the UNHRC resolution calling upon India and Pakistan to allow a ‘fact-finding team’ of the organization to visit both sides of the divided State of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan agreed to allow the team, but India refused the permission. India’s refusal failed to become an issue in UNGA for the Uri that is what commentators believe.
There may be some strength in the argument that Uri overshadowed eighty-three days old uprising in Kashmir and sufferings inflicted upon people by the State when the UNGA was in session. There may be some truth what a commentator has said, “There had been a slight momentum shift in favour of the Kashmiri people as it becomes hard to avert your gaze when a country is intent on blinding children and shooting down innocent protestors. But Uri enabled New Delhi to change the narrative” Nonetheless, after India claimed having carried out “surgical strikes” at five places three kilometres deep inside on the other side of the LOC and Pakistan refusing the claim Kashmir Dispute has once again come under the spotlight as a nuclear flashpoint and threat to peace in South Asia and beyond. These developments have sent warning signals to Beijing as well. ‘It apprehends that India will deploy the 36 nuclear capable Rafale fighter jets to be acquired from France in the border region of China and Pakistan to enhance its deterrence capability’ a media report suggested on Saturday. ‘India is the largest arms importer in the World into the Asian region’ was indicated in a recent report by Stockholm International Peace Research (SIPIR). This obviously has added to the unstable security environment in the region. Whether India has carried out any surgical strikes or there, have been cross LOC skirmishes there are all indications the tension between the two South Asian nuclear powers is increasing. On Saturday, when I am writing this column there are all indications that the tension on the borders is escalating. Thousands of people on our side of the LOC are being shifted from the border areas. Equally scores of villages along the international border in Rajasthan and Punjab have also been evacuated. The escalation in tension on the LOC, the working boundary, and India-Pakistan borders is being viewed seriously across the globe. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday regretted that ‘the UN’s military mission is only able to operate on the Pakistani-controlled side of the LoC, as India refuses to accept its functioning on the other side and opposes its expansion.’ To prevent further escalation and the two countries going to war, he also offered to mediate if both the countries agree. Notwithstanding, nudging for de-escalation by the UN and the USA if a war breaks between the two countries, it will be first war between two neighbours caused directly by the uprising in Kashmir.
True, war solves no disputes. Nonetheless, it has been the historical forces that wars or war hysteria have sent into motion that has brought freedom to the struggling nations and settled the most complex disputes. History is replete with such instances. India and Pakistan gaining Independence after the Second World, France after considering for Algeria as its integral part for almost hundred years on the spur of the moment granting it freedom at the spur of moment and collapse of the Soviet Union and fifteen countries freedom are some classical examples of our times.
It had taken three hundred years to the British to consolidate their hold on the Indian Sub-Continent, but it took them only seventy-two days only to pack and sail across the Indian Ocean. In February 1931, Winston Churchill had told House of Commons, ‘The loss of India would be final and fatal to us. It could not fail to be part of a process to the scab of a minor power.’ For decades he had said ‘no’ ‘to every move to bring India along the road of Independence.’ He at that hour did not realize sixteen years after historical forces will gang up against the British Empire, that his fond naval officer appointed as Viceroy of India Lord Mountbatten will be in a hurry to the end colonial rule in the sub-continent. Moreover, he would advance the birth of two new dominions India and Pakistan by six months. Even Indian elite close to the British Empire saw India’s independence a pipe dream. In 1940, when the Muslim League adopted Pakistan Resolution Congress leadership mocked at the idea. M.K. Gandhi termed M.A. Jinnah’s t two-nation as ‘untruth.’ Even Mountbatten also did not want to see himself as ‘man who divided India’, but in the fifth report, he wrote to Prime Minister, Atlee how deepened communal divide between Hindus and Muslims were working as historical forces having made the birth of Pakistan inevitable.
In the second half of twentieth century birth of Algeria as The Independent nation is another classical example of how historical forces surreptitiously work to the disbelief of the political leadership and military generals. In 1959, after the failure of negotiations France adopted stick and carrot policy to see the end of the Algerian war of liberation. The military launched an offensive using ‘new tactics, relied on helicopters to pursue the rebels into their mountain hideouts. ‘At the same time, the French tried to provide social reforms and services to win the “hearts and minds” of the Muslim Algerians, much like the United States tried to do in Vietnam a decade later.’ Just a year before the new offensive French had brought war veteran De Gaulle with this belief that he would never yield control over Algerian territory. The new offensive failed to defeat the resistance movement, and at the same time, human rights violation committed by French soldiers in Algeria under new offensive doctrine brought disrepute France at international level. De Gaulle had to yield to historical forces, allow a referendum and reconcile to granting freedom to Algeria- once counted an integral part of France. In mid-eighties, no one could in wildest dream think about world second superpower the Soviet Union just after seventy-two years disintegrating and fifteen countries getting independence in one go- thanks to gusty winds of historical forces.
In the given scenario in the region with clouds of nuclear war looming large and power equations changing fast, it seems historical forces will be set into motion that will help in the resolution of Kashmir, sooner than expected.

A portion published in Greater Kashmir on 3-Oct 2016