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The Kashmir Conundrum: Can the US Be an Honest Broker between India and Pakistan?(A three-part article for HamaraShehar by Ramesh N. Rao) When recently Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah shepherded the Kashmir autonomy bill through the State Assembly he did nothing more than add a little bit more tinder to the already burning issue of the status of Kashmir. There are as many parties to the dispute as there are solutions proposed, and the back-room planning and maneuvering has left many a media commentator wondering what is going to happen next in that tragic place. This piece therefore cannot be and should not be considered to offer solutions or to predict the outcome of that violence on the ground and the planning in the back-rooms. What it will do, however, is give a brief historical context for the uninitiated as well as give a quick handle for the confused reader of the daily newspaper. The modern state of Jammu and Kashmir covered an area of 137,638 square km prior to 1947. The state included, beside the Jammu region, Ladakh, Gilgit, Hunza, Nagar, Punial, and Yasin. The tiny state of Chitral, located towards the north-western side of Gilgit, used to pay tribute to the Kashmiri ruler. It was due to the efforts of Maharaja Gulab Singh (the founder of Dogra Hindu dynasty in Kashmir) that the State took its present shape and form in the second half of the 19th century. According to Hindu legend as narrated in the Nilamata Purana, a demon called Jalodbhava, who tortured and devoured people, lived near the Himalayan mountain slopes. Hearing the suffering of the people, the great saint Kashyapa came to their rescue. After performing penance for a long time, the saint was blessed, and he was able to cut through the mountains near Varahmulla (Baramulla), which blocked the water of the lake from flowing into the plains below. The lake was drained, the land appeared, and the demon was killed (Jagmohan, 1992). The saint encouraged people from India to settle in the valley. The people named the valley as Kashyapa-Mar and Kashyapa-Pura. The name Kashmir also implies land desiccated from water: "ka" (water) and "shimeera" (to desiccate). The ancient Greeks called it "Kasperia" and the Chinese pilgrim Huien-Tsang who visited the valley around 631 C.E. called it Kashi-Mi-Lo. Kashmir was a Hindu country/ region until 1339 C.E.; the Muslim period stretched from about 1561 till about 1819 when the Sikhs gained control over the region. Sikh rule spanned from 1819 to 1846, and the Dogra period from 1846 to 1947. "Modern" Kashmir has been claimed by both Pakistan and India, and after the partition of Indian and Pakistan in 1947, Kashmir which was then ruled by Hari Singh, joined the Indian Union. Ruled by a Dogra king, the population in the Kashmir Valley (not the whole of Kashmir and Jammu) was predominantly Muslim, and it is even more so now with the ethnic cleansing from the Valley of about 300,000 Kashmiri Hindu Pandits. According to the Kargil Review Committee Report, the former princely state of Jammu & Kashmir had a total area of 2,22,236 sq. km (Kamath, 2000). Of this 78,114 sq. km is under the occupation of Pakistan, of which, again, 5,180 sq. km in the Shaksgam Valley was ceded by it to China in 1963 as part of a boundary settlement (which India does not accept). Approximately 37,555 sq. km in Ladakh is presently under Chinese occupation. At present, the old princely state has five regions: Kashmir, Jammu, Ladakh, the so-called Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) and the Northern Areas. Kashmir is administratively divided into six districts with an area of 15,948 sq. km and a population of just over 4 million. The main language is Kashmiri with Gojari being spoken to a lesser extent. Most Valley Muslims are Sunni with concentrations of Shias in certain areas. The Jammu region also consists of six districts with an area of 26,293 sq. km and a population of 3.6 million. Here, Hindus comprise 66.3% of the population but Doda, Poonch and Rajouri districts have a Muslim majority, and Zanskar a Buddhist majority. Ladakh, which includes the districts of Leh and Kargil, has an area of 96,701 sq. km and a population of 171,000. Buddhists enjoy a small overall majority in the region (51%) whereas in Kargil, Muslims, mostly Shias, constitute a majority of around 78%. In Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), there are five districts (Muzzafarabad, Mirpur, Kotli, Poonch and Bagh) with an area of 13,297 sq. km and an estimated population of 3.5 million. The people of PoK are mostly Sunni Muslims speaking a mix of Punjabi, Pahari and Pushto. There are virtually no Kashmiris in PoK. The Northern Areas have a Shia majority population with significant numbers of Ismailis and Nurbakshis (a Sufi sect). Shia-Sunni tensions have frequently run high here and there have been periodic riots. The overall population on the Indian side of the LoC was estimated in 1981 at 7.7 million with Muslims (64.3%), Hindus (32.1%), Sikhs (2.16%), Buddhist (1.17%) and others, including Christians (0.26%). So, the important question to ask, both by the Indian and Pakistani sides, as well as third-party negotiators like the U.S., is how can the state be divided along strictly religious lines? Indian commentators like M. V. Kamath doubt that the Hurriyat leaders like Geelani, who say that they will accept the division of Jammu & Kashmir on religious lines, have any clue about where and how these lines would be drawn when there may be majorities of one or other religion in different sub-localities. They fear that this attempt at dividing Kashmir on religious lines will lead to another blood-bath and ethnic cleansing such as India witnessed during the partition riots in 1947. They also point out that there are no Kashmiris, Buddhists nor Dogras on the Pakistan side of the LoC. The people of PoK are mostly akin to the Punjabi and Hazara-Pathan population across the international border of Pakistan. Likewise, the population of the Northern Areas is Central Asian in character. According to the Kargil Report, "the Sufi-Rishi tradition that created Kashmiriyat is peculiar to the Valley" and the fundamentalist Islamic tradition of the jehadis launched by Pakistan to fight their proxy war in Kashmir have little sympathy for Sufi-Rishi syncretism which is almost heretical to them. Kamath cautions that these are the facts that need to be clearly understood when one talks of plebiscites and the partition of Jammu & Kashmir. It is not that Hindus, Muslims (Sunnis and Shias), Sikhs, Buddhists and the rest live in exclusive areas. Sir Owen Dixon in his report of 15 September 1950 to the U. N. Security Council had noted: "The State of Jammu & Kashmir is not really a unit geographically, demographically or economically. It is an agglomeration of territories brought under the political power of the Maharaja. That is the unity it possesses". The Kargil Report says: "The Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir was indeed a conglomerate entity which evolved over several decades with piecemeal accretions. The British encouraged the Maharaja to take control of Gilgit, Hunza, Nagar and other 'frontier illaqas' to keep the Russians from crossing the Pamir/Karakorum rampart as part of the Imperial Great Game". These ground realities raises the very important question of who it is that can speak for the entire state of Jammu & Kashmir. Certainly not the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC). The Kargil Report points out that the "veneration of saints and shrines of all religions is very much part of the Kashmiri psyche and springs from the composite culture that Kashmiriyat represents" embodying "the tolerance, harmony and religious co-existence that has fashioned the spirit of the people even in times of adversity, including periods of war and terrorism". But that spirit of religious tolerance is lost as can be seen from the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus from the Valley. Kamath asks another important question: "In a plebiscite what percentage of votes should matter? Fifty? Seventy five? A simple majority? So many questions now arise by the Hurriyat's willingness to accept partition that there can be no one answer". The APHC also wants Pakistan to be a party to any negotiations. Is that acceptable? Should the Hurriyat insist? And what steps will Pakistan take if it is kept out of the discussions? If the U.S. were to be an impartial negotiator then it will have to consider these extremely knotty problems. In this paper, I will first briefly summarize the history of Kashmir till 1947, provide another brief sketch of the conflict between Pakistan and India over the territory, and will delineate the reasons for the deadlock and heightened conflict in the region. I will point out the reasons why third-party involvement in the resolution of the conflict is difficult, and how and if the U.S. can arbitrate between Pakistan and India. References
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