An unbiased outlook on Kashmi crisis

 

In 1948, the United Nations created a resolution for the warring nations of India and Pakistan over the area of Kashmir that allowed for the people of Kashmir to join either nation. Pursuant to the resolution, the two nations were instructed to hold a vote in Kashmir but it was never carried out. As a result, the area was divided and ruled separately, harsh conflict has continued ever since.

            This dispute is symbolic of the “age old” Indo-Pakistani antagonism that has been pursued for centuries. The following positions hold sway still to this day: India wants to maintain the current Line of Control as border line; Pakistan refuses to acknowledge Indian jurisdiction in the area, and neither nation will accept total independence for Kashmir. Of course there is the argument that this dispute is just another battle in the secular war between Muslims and Hindus, but over time the issues has become much more political that religious.

For India, the Line of Control is an abomination, as they understand it, they are entitled to the whole of Kashmir. However, over time they have ceded to the compromise of accepting the Line of Control as an international boundary line but they refuse to give up even one more acre. One of their main concerns is that granting Kashmir any further autonomy would create a movement in other Indian controlled territories.

            For Pakistan, the Kashmir territory is a symbol of their national ethnicity and as such they feel compelled to protect Muslim interests against Hindu (Indian) aggression and attempted control. As Kashmir does have a majority of Muslims in its population, it is an extremely attractive territory for Pakistan. In summary, Kashmir itself is a symbol of the struggle for land, power and identity for the Muslims and Hindus of the Pakistan and India.

            The dispute over Kashmir has caused both governments of India and Pakistan to spend incredible amounts of money and resources to support their forces in the area.  Jammu and Kashmir is the area of the most extreme religious-based terrorism. Kashmiri militants have abuses including, “deliberate targeting of Kashmir Hindus by fundametalists, terrorists groups and foreign mercenaries.” (GlobalSecurity.org) In 2003, India and Pakistan began taking steps to ease the tensions in Kashmir by restoring roadways, railways and air links, and also observed a ceasefire along the Line of Control.

During 2004, the violence in the region slowed and both sides of the Line of Control continued their communication over the dispute although neither nation changed their respective positions on the matter. “In early 2005 India and Pakistan launched a landmark bus service across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, allowing families divided by the Line of Control to be reunited for the first time in nearly 60 years.”  After the earthquake in October of 2005, tensions between Pakistan and India slowed to accommodate the great number of displaced peoples and allow for the free movement of humanitarian aid among the region and to remote areas.

            In 2006, the President of Pakistan created a series of alternatives to the Kashmir dispute. He proposed the idea of a self-governance system for Kashmir. The Indian Foreign Ministry countered the President’s offer by stating that they would agree under the condition that the borders were rendered irrelevant. In 2009, after sixty long years of dispute over Kashmir, India still fails to completely control the area. One of the most significant reasons for this failure is due to Pakistan’s creation of an exclusivist Muslim identity that at one time did not exist in the region and now coupled with India’s own failures in their administration of the area—there is still extreme conflict in the area.

Here we are in the year 2010 and the crisis is more than critical. Even the United States has its stake in the outcome of this dispute. “Obama, who alarmed the Indian government last year by telling an interviewer that he might push for a special envoy to Kashmir…but this anger is unlikely to last. What will remain, however, is India’s resistance to international intervention in Kashmir.” “Stone-pelters”, a now common term for the rioters in Kashmir are regular figures in the cycle of demonstrations against Indian rule. “An incident sparks a surge in demonstrations. There are injuries and finally and teenager is killed, hit by a teargas canister or shot. The demonstrations turn to riots, then repression brings a fragile calm. Until another cycle starts.” There are now more than 80,000 people dead in addition to the everyday routine of arrests, curfews, raids and checkpoints enforced by the Indian military in response to Pakistani militant groups. Roughly one million troops have been amassed on both sides of the Line of Control in Kashmir, which lately has prompted international concerns of a nuclear war.

As for the international community, “India is a counterweight, at least in the fantasies of western strategists, to China.”  Obviously the United States especially is anxious for Pakistan and India to come to a resolution largely in part because it would allow for Pakistan to give more focus to the militancy along its shared border with Afghanistan. The settlement of the Kashmir crisis would indeed be a monumental milestone in the international community marking a great peace between two of the most contested nations.