Kashmir Issue

Ground realities
A lot of chest thumping and back-patting is being observed in government circles after Prime Minister
Mian Nawaz Sharifs speech at the seventieth UNGA session although his four-point proposal to ease
tension between India and Pakistan and move towards a workable solution of the festering Kashmir
issue was spurned by India. Sushma Swaraj, Indian External Affairs Minister, responded venomously:
We do not need four points; we need just oneSHUN TERROR!
It is time that ground realities regarding the Kashmir issue are taken into consideration. First and
foremost, Pakistan lacks a sustained and coherent Kashmir policy. Various governments have tried to
resolve the issue through different means. Ayub Khans hands were forced by a coterie of ambitious
politicians, bureaucrats and generals to initiate Operations Gibraltar and Grand Slam, which led to
India launching a full scale war. Pakistan panicked but a handful of brave soldiers, airmen and sailors
saved the day. India lacked strategic planners to see its military thrust bear fruition and the war ended
in stalemate but the Kashmir situation remained unchanged. Under Yahya Khan, India planned and
executed subversion, insurgency and full scale war in which Pakistans eastern wing was severed
while territories in the west were also lost. Under Zia-ul-Haqs authoritarian rule, India occupied
Siachen and has held commanding positions since. As Army Chief, Musharraf tried the Kargil
adventure, failed miserably, nearly lost his job but got resurrected as the countrys Chief Executive
through a soft coup. Musharraf tried to secure an out-of-the-box solution but got outsmarted by the
Indians. The plight of the Kashmiris remained unchanged.
Zardari remained oblivious to the Kashmir problem while Nawaz Sharif, elected to lead the country for
the third time, tried to mend fences with India through trade and commerce putting the Kashmir issue
on the backburner.
He failed to comprehend that Narendra Modi assumed the mantle of Prime Minister with a clear
agenda regarding Kashmirits annexation to India to be completed before the end of his tenure.
Modis Kashmir agenda is multi-pronged. To sideline the Kashmiri leadership and isolate them from
Pakistan; to alter the demography of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) by resettling Hindus so that
Muslim majority of the Valley becomes a minority and finally abrogating Article 370 of the Indian
Constitution (that grants special autonomous status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir) to
amalgamate it as an integral part of India.
Nawaz Sharif should have got the message loud and clear when he was invited to the swearing in
ceremony of Modi as the 15thPrime Minister of India and was warned not to meet any Kashmiri leader
during his Bharat yatra. Mian sahib willingly obliged and gleefully held profitable meetings with Indian
iron and steel magnates Birlas and Tatas only.
When India cancelled the Foreign Secretary level meeting scheduled in Islamabad on August 25,
2014, under the plea that Pakistans High Commissioner in New Delhi had held meetings with the
Hurriyat leaders prior to the Foreign Secretaries Islamabad moot, Pakistan should have seen through
Modis machinations. While Indian forces were blatantly firing barrages of rockets and heavy artillery
across the LoC, an undeterred Nawaz Sharif dispatched mangoes to his Indian counterpart and an
expensive sari for Modis mother.
The elections in IOK held in five phases (November 25-December 20, 2014), were expected to bring
the BJP into power under its infamous 44+ formula i.e., aspiring to bag at least 44 seats in the Jammu
and Kashmir Legislative Assembly. BJP did not achieve its target but managed to form a coalition
government with PDP and is now calling the shots in IOK.
The second phase of the heinous Kashmir agenda was to appoint hardliner Hindu extremists like Ajit
Doval as National Security Adviser (NSA), Sanjeev Tripathi, Rajnath Singh, et al in key positions.
Being a former RSS Parcharak, Modi, like Dr Faust sold his soul to Mephistopheles, made a deal for
RSS to run his election campaign and drive people out to vote for him. After his anointment as the
Prime Minister, the RSS demanded its pound of flesh for backing the BJP campaign under Modi. Modi
is endeavouring to change Indias constitution from a secular state to a non-secular one promoting
Hindutva.
The next phase of Modis agenda has been put into motion where indiscriminate firing across the LoC
and working boundary is being incessantly carried out, killing civilians, destroying property but blaming
Pakistan for it. Simultaneously, false flag terror operations are being conducted, laying the blame
squarely on Pakistan. The aim is to demonise Pakistan and have the world label Pakistan as a terrorist
state while simultaneously abetting and arming terrorists to wreak havoc in Pakistan to destabilise it.
Meeting between the two Prime Ministers at the Russian city of UFA at the sidelines of the SCO
Summit, in an atmosphere of bonhomie, Nawaz Sharif complied with the caveat imposed by India not
to mention the K-word. Nawaz Sharif went a step ahead as he did not mention the Samjhota Express
inferno or the BBC expos of Indian machinations of spreading terror in Karachi, FATA, KPK and
Balochistan, he assented to taking the alleged protagonists of 26/11 Mumbai attack to task and limit
all future talks to terrorism only.
The meeting between the NSAs got scuttled because belatedly Pakistan decided to meet the Kashmiri
leaders prior to the meeting.
Modis refusal to deny the Kashmiri leadership as being the prime stakeholder in the Kashmir issue is
contrary to all norms of humanitarian principles. The Occident, which following the cold blooded
massacre of over 2,000 Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002 under the stewardship of
Narendra Modi, had refused to grant him entry visa to their respective countries but now welcome him
with open arms only because India is a huge market and rising economy.
Under the circumstances, instead of having a knee jerk approach, Pakistan must chalk out a
comprehensive Kashmir policy and mount diplomatic pressure on India to grant Kashmiris their rights
assured by the UN. Indo-Pakistan membership into SCO is subject to both countries settling their
issues bilaterally. Perhaps this card can be played effectively to come to terms with India through
negotiations.