“Why doesn’t India do a plebiscite in Kashmir?” This has become such a common question today. Yet, few who raise it have bothered to delve into the deeper issues involved. In particular, I have not seen serious analyses done where the multiplicity of factors would be considered individually. These factors cover many areas, such as: legal case; global military, political and economic ramifications; ripple effects within India and Pakistan; and precedence setting. I shall list these issues briefly below, in the hope that all these would get debated extensively rather than in superficial headlines. Legal Case: As per British rules for the Independence and Partition of India in 1947, the ruler of Kashmir signed a document merging Kashmir into India. This is the basis for India’s legal claim. Pakistan’s legal claim is based on the subsequent UN Resolution(s) calling for (1) withdrawal of all Pakistani military forces from the entire state of Kashmir, to be followed by (2) a plebiscite to be done by India. The legal situation today with respect to the UN Resolution is as follows: * Pakistan has violated provision #1 because it never withdrew its military forces from Kashmir. Note: the UN Resolution did not call for withdrawal of India’s forces from Kashmir. In fact, it acknowledged that in the interim, until a plebiscite was carried out, that the entire Kashmir would be de facto under India’s military control. Hence, this matter constitutes a breach of the UN Resolution on Pakistan’s part. * In addition to the 30% of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan today, another 20% of Kashmir is controlled by China, as a result of its war with India in 1962. Furthermore, China has merged this part of Kashmir with Tibet. Any plebiscite would also require China’s participation, and since the populations have merged with Tibet, this would bring up the broader issue of a plebiscite for Tibet as well. China is simply not interested in any talk of plebiscites, in any region under its control. * While Muslims were a majority in Kashmir in 1947, it was a slim majority, and the identity of Kashmiris had always been based, not on religion, but on its own rich heritage of language and culture – an identity they proudly call Kashmiriyat. However, recently there has been a heavy influx of population into Pakistan Controlled Kashmir, including Arabs, Afghanis, and other Pakistanis. Meanwhile, Hindus and Buddhists have been ethnically cleansed from Kashmir’s all three parts (Pakistan, China and India controlled), as a result of jihad activity sponsored by Pakistan. These massive population movements present difficulties in implementing the plebiscite that was envisioned fifty years ago at the UN. The population of Kashmir today has a substantially diminished percentage ofindigenous Kashmiris as compared to the time of the UN Resolution. Hypothetically, if push comes to shove, India could choose to allow free flow of people from within India into Kashmir. Given that Kashmir is very sparsely populated, and has approximately 1% of India’s total population, it would not take much to turn Kashmir into a Hindu majority state. Hence, the game of demographic shifts could just as easily be played by India. If this is not considered fair, then what means would one propose to reverse the demographic manipulations in Kashmir over recent decades as mentioned above? In brief, a plebiscite that accurately measures indigenous Kashmiri sentiments per se, is not easily viable today, and it is certainly not in India’s hands solely, as often alleged. The solution is to be explored looking forward and not back.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 16:40:26 +0000
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