Upholding the Kashmir cause

Every year on February 5, we observe the Kashmir Solidarity Day with great zeal and fervour, showing Pakistan’s full support and unity with the people of Indian-occupied Kashmir and their ongoing freedom struggle while also paying homage to Kashmiri martyrs who lost their lives fighting for Kashmir’s freedom. For decades, however, we have been observing this annual occasion as a ritual only with a countrywide public holiday and sporadic protest rallies and gatherings with no practical expression of solidarity for the legitimate freedom struggle of the Kashmiri people. As a nation, we just walk through the ritual, enjoying the holiday mostly sitting at home without even realising what it is all about.

The day is usually marked by public processions, special prayers in mosques for the liberation of Kashmir and protests against the Indian oppression in Kashmir. In practice, however, other than the familiar spectacle of a human chain with people standing in rows clasping each other’s hands on all major crossings into AJK from Pakistan, one doesn’t see any other public demonstration of solidarity in our major cities to reassure Kashmiris that they are not alone in their struggle. This year, for a change, one witnessed special fervour and passion on Kashmir Day at all levels in the country showing support and solidarity for the Kashmir cause.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif specially went to Muzaffarabad to address the joint session of the AJK Legislative Assembly and the Kashmir Council and reiterated that Pakistan would continue its moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiris in their legitimate struggle for the right of self-determination and that no decision against their will would be accepted. “There is no solution to the Kashmir issue except a plebiscite. I make it clear to the entire world that durable peace in South Asia is linked to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute,” he declared. This was a timely message to his Indian counterpart who misread Nawaz Sharif’s gesture of goodwill last year when he attended Narendra Modi’s oath-taking ceremony in Delhi.

What should be clear to Modi is that by putting up an arrogant face, you cannot change realities. Besides representing the key unfinished agenda of the June 3, 1947 Partition Plan, Kashmir is an internationally recognised dispute, which has been on the UN agenda for over six decades. In accordance with UN Security Council resolutions, the question of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan was to be decided through a free and fair plebiscite under UN auspices. All those resolutions remain unimplemented, denying the Kashmiri people of their inalienable right of self-determination.

On their independence, India and Pakistan inherited many problems, but the Kashmir dispute was the mother of all. The Kashmir clash in 1948, the 1965 war, the Siachen dispute, the Kargil crisis, a volatile Line of Control with frequent violent eruptions, recurring skirmishes at the Working Boundary, frequent war-like military deployments and resultant tensions, water disputes, and mutual suspicions and accusations are all directly related to Kashmir. Even today, the two countries remain locked in a confrontational mode. While all other issues are amenable to easy solutions, the Kashmir dispute invokes intense feelings among the peoples of India, Pakistan and Kashmir.

It is not a ‘real estate’ issue or a question of ‘re-demarcation’ of geographical boundaries. It is a question involving the fundamental right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people, pledged to them by the international community through solemn UN Security Council resolutions. The setting aside of UN resolutions is one thing, the discarding of the principle they embodied is quite another. The underlying cardinal principle of self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter and reaffirmed in the Millennium Declaration cannot be ignored. The Kashmir settlement has to be in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people, impartially ascertained under no coercion or intimidation.

As one of the oldest unresolved international conflicts, Kashmir is today a sombre reminder to the world that it cannot continue to ignore the legitimate aspirations of the Kashmiri people. They want nothing but freedom from Indian occupation. The indigenous Kashmiri struggle goes on undeterred with thousands of Kashmiris already laying down their lives. No amount of atrocities and humiliations can stop them from pursuing their legitimate cause. The Kashmiri people continue to experience untold hardships, including human rights violations. This is the crux of the Kashmir situation. India will do itself good by seeing the writing on the wall.

India’s efforts to obfuscate the Kashmir dispute as an issue of terrorism will not succeed. Popular movements cannot be suppressed. Brutal military force brings no relief to anyone. Stark lessons are there to be learnt from history. Even the world’s sole superpower today owes its existence to a long war of independence. Modi cannot deny the history of his own country. It was the 1857 War of Independence that laid the road to India’s liberation as an independent state. India is forcibly hanging on to Kashmir when the Kashmiris don’t want to have anything to do with India. They want their right of self-determination.

Today, the voice of the Kashmiris is that of a wronged and forcibly subjugated people challenging India’s and the world’s conscience. For India, it is time to revert to the path of justice and fair play, and to heed to sanity and legality. On our part too, it is time to come out of our ostrich-like mode of total apathy and indifference to the Kashmir cause. Pro forma gestures of ritualistic solidarity are no service to the people of Kashmir. While India never showed the slightest change in its position, our rulers in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks gave wrong signals through their self-serving gestures of unilateral flexibility.

What they don’t understand is that beyond UN resolutions, there is no compact formula or tailor-made solution available for addressing the Kashmir issue. A free and fair plebiscite under UN auspices remains the only solution to which both India and Pakistan had committed themselves in terms of those resolutions. Our commitment to the Kashmir cause is rooted in this legal and moral reality and cannot be given up by our rulers merely as gestures of goodwill or as a confidence-building measure in pursuit of a peace that will never come by giving up on our principled position. Until then, we must continue to extend full political, diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmir cause and keep upholding the Kashmiris’ right of self-determination in every international forum.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2015.

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