The Government of India is making repeated declarations of striving to recover the physical possession of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir(POK) and China Occupied Kashmir(COK). It has also shown the parts Occupied by Pakistan since October 1947 and by China since 1962 as ‘Undisputed parts’ of the Indian Union Territories of Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh in the new Maps of the recently created Union Territories of Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh, released on October 31, 2019, following soon after its Abrogation of the Article 370 of the Indian Constitution (which had conferred Special Status on the State of Jammu and Kashmir upon its Accession to India in 1947) on August 5, 2019 and bifurcation of the State into two separate Union Territories, viz. UT of Jammu-Kashmir and UT of Ladakh.
The Abrogation of the Article 370 followed by Downgrading and division of the State into 2 UTs and the Bifurcation itself had stirred doubt in the minds of Pakistan and China, who hold the regions of Jammu and Kashmir occupied by them through capture to be ‘Disputed Territories’.
The further release of fresh Maps on October 31, 2019 showing the areas as full-fledged parts of the Union Territories newly carved out from the restructured State of Jammu and Kashmir that were formally made a part of the Indian Union from 5th August 2019, has made both the neighbouring nations go berserk with frustration and rage, and is leading to yet another serious exacerbation of the already existing tensions between India and its neighbours, as seen from the current double onslaught of the aggressive military incursions being made by China into India’s territory inside the Line of Actual Control on the border of Ladakh on May 5,2020 on one hand, and the enhanced terrorist attacks by Pak sponsored terrorists across Line of Control from Pakistan on the other.
It is therefore trusted and hoped that in its enthusiasm and determination to get back the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir owned by Maharajah Hari Singh of which a part was lost by Jawaharlal Nehru- first Prime Minister of India – to Pakistan and China, the BJP Government is not “Rushing In” Where the Indian National Congress “Feared To Tread”.
For, with the Pandemic of CoVid19 infection still raging strong in the background causing a multitude of deaths in India at present, Frank War with the neighbouring countries at this point will cost the Indian Population more heavily than the previous wars.
Thinking objectively, leaving our National Ego aside for a while, what do the regions of POK or COK hold for us now except their supposed strategic value? There are no Hindus or Buddhists left there now, for those who were there earlier in the Azad Jammu Kashmir of POK, and the Buddhists in COK have been driven out of there after Pakistan’s Occupation. Nor is it going to be a smooth process to resettle them there.
Instead, even if we ever succeed in wresting the areas back from Pakistan and China, we are not going to get the land back without the 100% population of Muslims and Chinese residents who have already settled and started installing the China- Pakistan Economic Corridor therein. Are those people going to follow the Uniform Civil Code that the current Indian Government is seeking to formulate and apply to all its citizens?
With addition of the mass of the Muslims of POK and COK, the demography of India will tilt even more towards the Muslim minorities by increasing the strength of the Muslim population in India, and will create problems for not only Hindus but other minority groups too in India. This will be paradoxical to the present government’s aim of passing the Citizenship Amendment Act, and will defeat it. So the End Result will be “Penny Wise, Pound Foolish”.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel too, to begin with, was not in favour of adding the State of Jammu- Kashmir to India for the very reason that it was a Muslim majority state. However, once the Maharajah of Kashmir agreed to accede his State to India for protection from the Pakistani tribals who had invaded Kashmir on October 22,1947, and the Indian PM Nehru accepted it, he did all he could to retrieve the invaded areas.
Whatever areas have remained under Pak Occupation are there because Pandit Nehru put an abrupt brake on the Indo-Pak war by bringing the UNSC to India in 1948 to intervene and impose Ceasefire at whichever point the troops of the opposing nations were at that time, as he did not want the war and bloodshed to continue into the closely approaching freezing winter of Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan at the cost of our soldiers. Also, SheikhAbdullah told Nehru that Gilgit- Baltistan was a very rough land, and besides it was not ethnically related to Kashmir. The western strip of the Jammu-Kashmir state that is now named as ‘Azad Jammu-Kashmir’ by Pakistan was difficult to retrieve as the situation in that region, being adjacent and much closer to the Pakistan border and also to Islamabad than to India’s capital, had become “uncontrollable”.
As a matter of fact, the people of Kashmir had been clamouring for “Independent Kashmir”and “Freedom From Jammu” which was a Hindu State – ethnically and culturally alien to the Muslim majority Kashmir- ever since the British Sovereignty sold and transferred the British colony of Kashmir from Maharajah Ranjit Singh (who had captured it from Afghani Pathans with British backing) to the Maharajah of Jammu in the year 1846 who merged it with Jammu, but their protest had gone unheeded by the British and by the Jammu rulers until the Independence of the State of Jammu and Kashmir from the British rule.
The Maharajah of Jammu,like the rulers of other princely states, was given the liberty to decide whether to remain independent or to join India or Pakistan but neither the British nor Raja Hari Singh gave Independence to the Kashmiris and the Kashmir valley and retained it under Jammu.
The Maharajah first chose to remain independent but was forced to accede his State to India on 26 October 1947 due to the invasion of it by Pakistani tribals from the Neelam Valley on 22nd October 1947. The Indian Army rescued the major part of the J+K State. However, certain parts of the State remained unretrieved due to the delay of Hari Singh to sign the Accession Treaty with India, and are under Pakistan’s Occupation to this day, that is, AJK, Gilgit and Baltistan which is a part of Ladakh, including Skardu Valley. They form the ‘Pakistan Occupied Kashmir’. The citizens of the AJK are not keen on coming under the Indian Union.
The Shaksgam Valley and 5180 sq.km land of Baltistan was handed over by Pakistan to China in 1963 as per a border agreement.(Aksai Chin was occupied by China during the time of Mao Zedong in 1962 by itself, (which was said to be in vengeance because of Pandit Nehru’s granting asylum to Dalai Lama who was involved in the rebellion of Tibet against Communist China and fled in 1959). These regions with the Trans- Karakoram pass are termed the ‘China Occupied Kashmir’. India had raised objection to UN over the transfer of the above mentioned areas to China by Pakistan but it was too late.
As to Gilgit, it was not a part of the original state of Jammu-Kashmir, so it was trying to be free of Jammu alongwith Baltistan (a part of Ladakh) with the backing of the British Scouts from the time of being placed by British Sovereignty under the Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir itself as it did not wish to be subject to Raja Hari Singh. Unfortunately, they were captured by Pakistan in 1947 alongside AJK. Gilgit and Baltistan are now separated from AJK but are still under Pakistan as the ‘Northern Areas’ of Pak Occupied Kashmir together with the North West Frontier Province.
They are unhappy with the Pakistani government also, because of the installation of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor across it, and want freedom from Pakistan, but it is doubtful if they want to join India though they are reported to be saying so now. But they may prefer to remain free and separate like Bangladesh after liberation from Pakistan.
What is the rationale or morale of fighting for possession of regions of which the people themselves want to be independent, especially of Azad Jammu Kashmir, and not desirous of becoming a part of India? And , thinking neutrally, which country does not want to be independent?
Did Indians not fight for their independence from the British Rule? How would our country people have felt if the British sovereignty had put parts of India, especially the rebellious zones, under some other colonies ruled by them, for example, North Indian princely states in Bengal, Punjab, Jhansi etc. under Burma, and Southern states including Mysore, underSouth Africa, at the beginning of the Indian Mutiny of 1857?
Just because Kashmir was populated by Hindus in the ancient times does not automatically mean that the present generation of Kashmiris are bound to be under India. Nepal too was a Hindu kingdom, not only in the ancient times but right uptil 2008, that is, upto this 21st century. Yet it has never been under India. Only the princely states under the British colonial rule formed the Indian Union after Independence.
What is more important than struggling to get back AJK into the Indian Union is to reinstate the long since exiled Kashmiri Pandits who are yearning to be resettled in their homeland of Kashmir valley which is under India, at the earliest, now that Articles 370+35 A have been abrogated.
Would it not have been better if POK and COK had been indicated by the ambiguous word ‘Occupied’ in the new maps of the UTs, as they had been shown hitherto in the previous maps of the combined State, for some more time, rather than showing any alteration in their status so soon after the Abrogation of Article 370?
Now, what is done has been done, but All that We can pray for now is that the border tensions with China should be soon de-escalated by both sides without recourse to War. For India, or for that matter, China and Pakistan too can ill afford it, whether the latter realise it or not.
India demands that China should go back to the position Quid Pro Ante outside the Line of Actual Control as it was on May 4, 2020.
Now Pakistan has retaliated by showing Kashmir in its national map instead. India did one surgical strike through its army in POK and our people are making the war cry to Pakistan- “Hum Tumhare Gharme Ghooske Tumhe Maarenge!” Now the Pakistani terrorists are doing the same to our soldiers and civilians with increased vengeance and frequency.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION:
Perhaps the de-escalation might occur soon if India agrees to reverse the status of POK and COK from “undisputed/integrated” parts to simply ‘Occupied’ territories in the new maps as it was in the previous maps, on condition that China moves back its troops ‘Quid Pro Ante’ as on 4.5.2020 at once, and stops efforts to appropriate Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. For it is from the time the new maps for the Union Territories of J+K and Ladakh were released, displaying POK and COK as ‘Undisputed’ territories (instead of ‘Disputed’ Indian territories as Pak and China claim they are), that the two nations have become more apprehensive and aggressive.
Hence It would be in the interest of all the three neighboring nations to come to an agreement to make the ‘Line of Control’ between India and Pakistan, as also the ‘Line of Actual Control’ laid down between India (UT Ladakh) and China, permanent as the’International Border’ between India- Pakistan and India- China to end the Border dispute Once for All, without involvement of US, at least for the time being.
If the three concerned nations do not agree between themselves soon enough before the situation on the borders flares up further, the UN Security Council(UNSC) should intervene and impose the Final Decision to make the existing LOC and LAC permanent (in keeping with the Line of Ceasefire drawn by it in 1948) on all the three nations – Pakistan, China and India, instead of leaving it to the three unrelenting and clueless nations to fight it out among themselves, in the interest of ending the Bitter War on both sides of India’s Borders, which is threatening to become another World War, especially at this time during the Corona Pandemic. It is not fair that the civilians and soldiers of the concerned nations should suffer financially and mortally for the expansionist ambitions of their political leaders.
For enough time and opportunity has been given to the governments of the respective nations to sort out the issue amicably by bilateral or as it stands now, trilateral dialogue, but they are not arriving at any satisfactory resolution!
[As regards the internal tension within the Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir, that too can be resolved by further division of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir into (A) separate UT of Jammu with the two districts of Kashmir valley viz. Anantnag and Ganderbal on the Eastern side of the Kashmir Valley for protection of the Hindu places of worship and pilgrimage, while the (B) remaining part of the Valley can be named UT Kashmir (with the districts of Poonch and Ramban of Jammu, that have overwhelming Muslim majority of over 70% of the population in exchange for Anantnag and Ganderbal).This additional division should be done before allowing the influx of people from the rest of the country into Jammu and Kashmir so that the citizens of Jammu too become free from the dominion of the Kashmiris. (About Kargil, it was an ethnic part of Ladakh and should remain with the UT of Ladakh, though it is inhabited by several Sunni Muslims who crossed over to that side from the Kashmir valley)].
If the internal disputes are solved, that will make it easier for the Indian government to cope effectively with the other nations.
Usha Padiyar's Blog 