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| Mufti seeking to achieve the unachievable! | | |
RUSTAM
JAMMU, Feb 10: PDP patron and former J&K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is seeking to achieve the unachievable. He not only welcomes the controversial decision of New Delhi to resume dialogue process with Pakistan and expresses the view that this process must go on even if Pakistan continues to repeat the 26/11-like Mumbai terrorist attacks, but also asserts that the resolution of Kashmir problem is possible as the “problem is not that complex or difficult” to surmount. If one reads what Mufti says between the line, one can say without any hesitation that he is pleading the Pakistani cause and asking New Delhi to accord credibility to the Kashmiri Muslim identity politics, which is essentially based on primitive, intolerant and not all-inclusive ideology.
What is this Kashmir problem? The Indian-administered J&K is not a problem. The entire state of J&K became an integral part of India the day the state’s ruler exercised his authority and took a decision on the state’s future in terms of the law on the subject and as per the provisions of the Indian Independence Act of 1947, under which Pakistan came into being as an independent and sovereign country. The accession of J&K to India was not obtained by “fraud and violence” as Pakistan and its agents in Kashmir allege. To question the state’s accession would simply mean the creation of the Pakistani state itself.
This is a STARK REALITY and the likes of the Mufti must recognize it taking into consideration the fact that their insistence on seeking to achieve what they have been striving to achieve is only causing harm to the Muslims of Kashmir on whose behalf they speak and creating animosity between the regions as the people of Jammu and Ladakh, internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus and other religious and ethnic minorities, including Gujjar and Bakerwal and Shiite Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, are bitterly opposed to the demands being raised by the likes of the Mufti.
They should also realize that no government in India would ever agree to the demands the likes of the Mufti have been putting forth. For to accept their divisive and communal demands would be to embolden anti-India elements elsewhere in the country to heighten their subversive activities aimed at breaking and destroying India.
How could New Delhi ever think in terms of giving away J&K on the ground that it is a Muslim-majority area? After all, India houses more Muslims than the Muslim Pakistan houses. Mufti Sayeed and others of his ilk must give up their habit of day-dreaming and making castles in the air. Their demands ranging from self-rule to demilitarization to economic independence to dual currency to India-Pakistan joint control over J&K to rendering the borders porous to sharing of sovereignty and to what not are the demands which, if accepted and given effect to, would unsettle everything in J&K and, ultimately, lead to another partition. Even a naïve can imagine the magnitude of bloodshed another communal partition would cause across the country, which has sacrificed several of its soldiers for the cause of Kashmir, a symbol of Indian civilization.
Yes, the Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan are a problem that still remains to be resolved between India and Pakistan. These areas are under the illegal occupation of Pakistan. The Pakistani troops, regular and otherwise, occupied these areas after loot and plunder, arson, rape and murder. The reasonable Kashmiri Muslims knew it and they also know the kind of treatment the Pakistani rulers and the Punjabi Sunnis have accorded to their co-religionists, Sunnis and Shiite Muslims included, in the occupied areas.
The factual position is that even the UN Security Council resolutions on J&K candidly acknowledge that these illegally-occupied areas are an integral part of J&K, in effect, of India. That this is so is evident from the resolutions the Kashmiri separatists and Islamabad frequently refer to while demanding the right to self-determination. These resolutions require Pakistan to quit the illegally-occupied areas and withdraw its troops from the so-called Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan and recognize the right of India to station its troops in the said areas to maintain law and order.
This is no exaggeration. This is a STARK REALITY. Just look at the August 13, 1948 Security Council Resolution and see for yourself the correct position. This resolution consists of three parts. Part I contains provisions for a cease-fire. Part II, dealing with truce agreement, provides that “after the Pakistani army had completely been withdrawn from the state, India would begin to withdraw the bulk of its forces in stages in consultation with and approval of the Commission and that India would maintain such forces as are necessary for the maintenance of law and order in the state”. Part III is related to plebiscite after the first two parts of the resolution are implemented. This is the factual position.
That means plebiscite could be organized only if Pakistan fulfills all the conditions. The conditions are: (1) Pakistan must vacate the aggression, (2) both parts of the state must be re-united as the plebiscite is to be organized in the entire state as it existed on August 15, 1947 and (3) plebiscite would be organized only if there is complete peace in the state.
It would be an act of foolishness to suggest that the Mufti is not aware of these conditions and that he is also not aware of the fact that it was the British India, and not the Indian India or the 560 odd princely states, which was to be divided into two countries – India and Pakistan. He knows it for sure that as for the princely state, their rulers had the final authority to take a decision on the political future of their respective states and join one of the two newly-created Dominions – India Pakistan.
Again, it would be an immature suggestion if it is suggested that the Mufti, or for that all the Kashmir-based leaders, do not know anything about what the Indian Parliament unanimously resolved in February 1994. It bears recalling that the Indian Parliament resolved to take back by all means from Pakistan all the illegally-occupied areas and re-integrate them into J&K.
So, what is the Mufti talking about? Is he talking about the Indian-administered J&K or is he talking about the political future of the illegally-occupied areas? If he is talking about the Indian-administered J&K, then he is trying to befool himself and the Kashmiri Muslims and doing great disservice to the people, he claims, his party represents. He and other Kashmiri leaders, who could be legitimately held responsible for the ongoing orgy of death and destruction in Kashmir, would do well to desist from undertaking activities that only add to the woes of the people. Their misinformation campaign would lead them nowhere.
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