KASHMIR ERUPTS AGAIN

By

Wing Cdr Muhammad Irshad

fascination of Nehru, and the arrogance of many subsequent Indian rulers, the Kashmiris are being subjected to every possible humiliation in the book. Just a glance of the Indian atrocities might elaborate the point. Let’s look at some excerpts from the book "Flames in Kashmir" by Bhin Singh:-

• "According to a group of human rights activists, Indian Army occupied Kashmir, and ever since more than 30,000 Kashmiri women have been raped by Indian security personnel, of whom 6,000 got pregnant and delivered illegitimate babies
• Nearly 5,000 young people are in jail waiting for their trials in different places, More than 2,000 are on the list of 'Missing Persons'. Nearly 1,90,000 migrant-voters are spread all over India and are lodging in different refugee camps in Jammu, Udhampur, Delhi and elsewhere.
• Doda’s(a part of Kashmir) people have suffered a lot at the hands of indifferent administrators. No factory, no industry, no roads, no development, no dispensaries, no communication. Eighty per cent of the population is still dependent on river water for their drinking needs and that too 5 to 10 Kms away.
• "One stark factor is that all democratic institutions in the State of Jammu and Kashmir from the panchayat to the Assembly level, have collapsed. Nearly six million people of the State have been denied their basic fundamental rights to choose their representatives for the local bodies .
• Almost every family has been affected one way or the other. According to official figures, till January 1, 1997, over 16,898 people were killed during militancy, which included 7,727 civilians. The injured numbered more than 12,000. The unofficial figures are much higher. Nearly 5,000 youth are still in prison. Some 3,00,000 Kashmiris, both Muslims and Hindus, are living outside

the Valley as migrants and need immediate rehabilitation. Instead, the government, to divert the attention of the people from the real issues, has chosen to browbeat the Centre and exploit innocent Kashmiris by raising the bogey of the so-called 'greater autonomy' which has no taker except some retired drawing room leaders and intellectuals in Delhi."

Now under these miserable conditions what are kashmiris suppose to do ? Obviously they have to show their resentment in one way or the other. To crush any such possibilities, the Indians have poured in more than 300,000 armed forces for a population of about 7.3 millions, which probably is the highest ratio of oppressor versus the locals in the world. But the flames in the hearts of Kashmiris have not died down, irrespective of the price of freedom, such flames keep appearing from time to time. Although the Indians , by the sheer size and strength has always crushed and tried to silence the freedom fighters, but the problem, unless solved properly as per the United nation’s agenda shall never die and thus keeps resurfacing in one shape or the other.

Lately, It was because of the Indian decision to carry out nuclear tests last year that after decades of neglect, Kashmir came to be highlighted as an international issue. It figured, much to India’s dislike and disappointment, in all the resolutions passed by P-5, G-8 and the Security Council. The Kashmir dispute was recognised as a core issue, to Delhi’s discomfiture, and many senior Opposition leaders publicly condemned the Vajpayee government for generating something which Pakistan had failed to achieve on its own. For Pakistan, the reference made to Kashmir in the Security Council Resolution of June 6, 1998 was a windfall of great significance and value. We, however, failed to derive any mileage out of it. Even when the UN Secretary General sent a special envoy in pursuance of the Security Council deliberations and India refused to accept him, Pakistan diplomatically was found wanting and did not capitalise on India’s defiance of the United Nations. Here was an opportunity not only to effectively project the reactivated Kashmir question and pursue it with vigour and imagination in the world’s major capitals and at the United Nations, but also to pointedly draw the attention of the international community to India’s misconduct.

What may possible be considered as some kind of failure on Pakistan’s part, it did not stop the freedom fighters to keep doing whatever they can do to get rid of the oppressors. One such action by the freedom fighters or what they are commonly known as Mujahideen, is the capture of Kargil heights , i.e; occupying the higher positions nearly 12,000 to 14,000 feet, along Kargil, Daras, Batalik and Turtuk mountainous regions, some where in the early May this year.

Now this capture of area has a lot of significance from military point of view. Kargil is the middle point between Srinagar and Leh, a distance of 420 kilometers. Leh is the base for supplies to Siachen- the frozen hell and the highest battleground on earth. Indian forces took the liberty of stealthy occupying Siachen in 1984. It was the violation of Simla agreement, but Indians do not believe in observing the rules of the game. They take advantage where-ever and whenever they can manage. The occupation of Siachen was such an adventure. The cease-fire line was not marked there because no one could traverse area with 10-15 kilometers of snow on it. The people in India and Pakistan have heard a lot about Siachen but not many could feel the touch of it. When the winds blow at 22,000 ft , in perputual frozen areas, the bite is killing. In these mountains live the soldiers, where one wrong step could make a difference between life and death. Such is the prize which India chose to win. They learnt bitter lessons soon after , but it became a matter of prestige , too difficult to stay and impossible to quit-certainly very costly in terms of lives and resources. Going to Siachen by Land route, one has to take the journey from Srinagar to Zojila pass(Over 11,500 ft), then going down to Dras, a cup shaped garisson area, then one climbs again to Kargil over 8000 ft, then to descend on way to Leh-the Buddist territory.

Around this time each year the Indian army routinely carries out its logistic build-up in Kashmir for the winter season, when roads are closed down by the heavy snowfall. This time Indians came across a new tactical strategy from the Mujahideen. The freedom fighters adopted the strategy of interdiction by severing the line of communication which facilitates the build-up of supplies and troops in Siachen, Leh and Kargil areas. The real loss to Indians is the interruption of daily traffic of around 600 vehicles load , half of which carry military stores for dumping for Siachen. What if the season is wasted and the supplies do not reach Leh before first week of October ? There will be no supplies for over 3 lac population of Ladakh and the troops at Siachen. If this road cannot be made safe for traffic, India will need thousands of airlifts- a baffling requirement.

How have the Mujahideen managed to capture territory inside the Indian Held Kashmir. A sudden vision of Mujahideen must have shocked the notorious RAW and their masters. And how many are these dare-devils who have bogged down the worlds third largest army. Indian media is itself wondering how did hundred of so called "infiltrators", enter and plant themselves in the Indian Held Kashmir, one of the most heavily militarised area in the world ? On the number of "infiltrators" too there has been confusion within the Indian establishment, the Indian authorities began with 150 and are now referring them as "400 infiltrators".

The Indians are apparently confused about who theses people actually are? The Indian statements regarding the guerilla activity in Kargil, began by referring them as "militant", then talked of "infiltrators", then "Afghan Taalibaan", and finally "Pakistan Army regulars". Indians know that branding Kashmiri Mujahideen as Taalibaan will win them sympathy and even support in western and regional capitals as well as in the media.

To deal with, (as they claim) about 400 Mujahideen, the Indians already have about 50,000 soldiers that are permanently placed in the valley, but they immediately brought in more forces the quantum of which is mind boggling and leaves much to the imaginations about India’s real intentions. They immediately brought in thousands of soldiers. The present military build up, besides major troops concentration, includes airforce fighter aircraft(MiG-27 and Su-30) and gun-ship helicopters at Srinagar. Although there is an official blackout on Indian causalities, media reports from Delhi have maintained that "dozens of soldiers have died". India thought it was a strategic compulsion to flush Mujahideen out of Kargil and Daras areas, this has resulted in violation of Line Of Control, as bombs and shells have landed in Pakistan territory. Indian MiGs violated Pakistan’s Air space and two of them were shot down on May 27 by Pakistan’s Anza missiles.

Since 1990, the indigenous insurgency in the occupied Kashmir has a constant flow of volunteers from far off-places . In February this year , the Indian home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, himself said in the parliament that in the past several years , as many as 1008 foreign militants had been killed in Kashmir, including 266 Pakistanis, 157 Afghans, besides militants from places like Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, Lebnon, Bahrain, Chechnya and Bosnia. Advani also claimed that 103 foreign militants were arrested and 30,000 weapons were recovered , including 19,000 assault rifles. This assertion makes it very clear that Kashmir struggle is gradually expanding in horizontal dimensions with volunteers pouring in from the Muslim world.

This may be a fact spoken in the Parliament, but for the world in general, India would not like to confess the same, as it would amount to world’s third largest army’s failure in containing few lightly armed guerillas. But this must be the time for Indian leadership to do some inner-thinking. India is a big country with many communities, but unfortunately each one feels as aggrieved by the Indian leadership. For example, the reaction by the Sikh community could be easily gauged from a report by the Council of Khalistan, the Washington-based organization that leads the Sikh Nation’s struggle for freedom, on 1^st June 1999, they called for India to end its war on the Kashmiri freedom fighters and allow self-determination for Kashmir, as it promised in 1948, for the Sikh homeland, Punjab, Khalistan, for Christian Nagaland, and for all the other nations currently under Indian occupation.

"India’s air attacks on Kashmir are really a war on the Kashmiri freedom movement," said Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh. "By proxy, they are trying to scare the other freedom movements within their artificial borders into abandoning their quest for freedom," he charged. "The other measures India has tried to put down the freedom movements have failed," Dr. Aulakh said, "so now they have resorted to an air war against the Kashmiris. Today it is Kashmir. Tomorrow it could be any other minority group," he said. Currently there are 17 freedom movements within India’s borders.

India is not one country. It is an empire of many countries thrown together by the British for their administrative convenience. Like its ally, the former Soviet Union, it is destined to fall apart. In the June 27, 1994 issue of Strategic Investment, Dr. Jack Wheeler of the Freedom Research Foundation predicted that within ten years, India "will cease to exist as we know [it.]" Professor Stanley Wolpert of UCLA, who wrote a biography of Nehru, predicted on CNN that India will soon break up.

"India is spending crores of Rupees each day to keep Kashmir within its artificial borders while half the people in India live below the international poverty line," said Dr. Aulakh. "They have not yet learned that you cannot suppress the freedom struggle by use of the army," he added. "I call on Sikh soldiers not to fire on Kashmiri freedom fighters," he said.

"The reason for these conflicts is the lack of self-determination," said Dr. Aulakh. He noted that America periodically conducts democratic votes on the status of Puerto Rico, that Canada does the same for Quebec, and that Great Britain recently allowed Scotland and Wales to elect their own Parliaments, moving them one step closer to a vote on independence.

"These nations are major world powers," Dr. Aulakh pointed out. "Not only is a free and fair plebiscite the democratic way to settle these issues, it is how great powers conduct themselves. If India wants to be a world power and if it claims that it is democratic, then it should allow the people of Khalistan, Kashmir, Nagaland, and the other nations seeking their freedom to hold a plebiscite under international supervision on the question of independence so that this issue can be settled in a free and fair vote," he said.

To suppress the freedom struggles, the Indian government has killed over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, more than 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1948, more than 60,000 Muslims in Kashmir since 1988, and tens of thousands of others. The Sikh Nation ruled Punjab from 1710 to 1716 and again from 1765 until the British conquest of 1849. Sikhs were recognized by all the major powers of the world at the time. Since then the Sikh nation has been struggling to regain its sovereignty. No Sikh has ever signed the Indian constitution. On October 7, 1987, the Sikh Nation declared its independence, forming the separate country of Khalistan. "The Indian government has shown its weakness by again resorting to violence to control the minority nations of South Asia," said Dr. Aulakh. "The political situation is completely unstable. This is the moment to rise up and take our freedom. Now is the time to start a Shantmai Morcha to liberate Khalistan," he said.

For the world’s consumption, Indians find it convenient to blame its neighbours in general and Pakistan in particular, and if possible to use this pretext to attack Pakistan-which may result in much advantages for India- and it may not bring results of Indian liking. This might partly explain the huge Indian build-up on the line of control, so to say, against few freedom fighters. But India planners are aware that this is not 1971 when they could easily send their troops landing in the heart of Dakha to dismember , what was the East Pakistan. This time they are up against a nuclear Pakistan – Thus the stakes are obviously high. However the desire to be the real successors to British Empire is the burning desire in Indian minds, thus it was no surprise for Pakistan when immediately after the nuclear blasts of May 1998, BJP announced policy was "We will take back the part of Kashmir that is under Pakistani’s occupation: we do not covet anyone else’s territory, but we have taken a vow to take back what is ours. The congress party made a mistake in letting Pakistan control a part of Kashmir. We will correct that".

India adheres to her declared aims –the genocide and oppression in Kashmir and the action and shelling over civilian areas along the line of control is in furtherance of Indian aims. In the present situation, New Delhi has not only waged fierce battles against the heavily armed Mujahideen in the Batalik mountain ranges but has also attacked Pakistan border posts in the Marpola sector north of Darass and in Chorbat La sector along the LoC. These Indian military incursions across the LoC have been accompanied by intensified shelling of civilian targets in Neelum valley in Azad Kashmir, in which many civilians including school children have been killed.

This upsurge and escalation in a nuclearised environment, along-with the proven expansionists record of the Indian government is a cause for serious alarms, as the confrontation can inadvertently slide into a wider conflict, with potentially devastating ramifications. A point to be highlighted is the unprecedented Indian action of using air-power to bomb out Kashmiri insurgents that is the cause of present escalation, this campaign must stop as a first step towards de-escalating tensions.Not since the 1971 war, has Indian air power been deployed against Kashmiris.

There are mounting calls for restrain from leading members of international community. All the five permanent members of UN Security council, i.e; China, Russia, USA, UK and France have urged both India and Pakistan to halt the flare up in tensions. Where such call of peace are commendable, but knowing the track record that since fifty years such talks have not really helped in reduction of tension or the easing of hostilities between the two adversaries, calls for peace are not enough. At a time when the world is witnessing international engagement in conflict resolution- from east Timor to Northern Ireland, it is inexplicable why Kashmir has not seen similar mediatory efforts. The stakes are rising in the region bristling with nuclear weapons and missiles-yet the response of the international community as well as UN does not seem to match the dangers at hand-both for the region and for the world. This is the moment for the international community to go beyond simple calls for peace and engage constructively to restore peace and stability in the region , that is poised precariously between war and peace.