Kashmir Affairs - Security & Conflict Analysis of Kashmir

Falsehood of Pakistani Military dictatorship on Kashmir
Samuel Baid

07 June 2008

If Mr. Nawaz Sharif carries out his repeated threat to institute a Commission to probe the Kargil invasion in May 1999 by the Pakistani Army, the Pakistanis will know how the Army has been playing up Kashmir for the past 60 years to deny their right to rule themselves. Mr. Sharif was overthrown as the Prime Minister by his Army Chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf in October 1999 about five months after he (Musharraf) engineered this invasion. Mr. Sharif believes the aim of the invasion was to overthrow him and impose military rule on the country.

It is no secret that the Army in league with other vested interests has always exploited Kashmir to keep democratic forces under subjugation. It will, therefore, be much better for the cause of democracy in Pakistan if a bigger Commission, consisting of politicians, judges, civil rights activists, educationists, industrialists and media persons, is set up to probe how Kashmir has been exploited by vested interests to banish democracy and to keep the Pakistani society divided, poor and backward.

There should not be much opposition to such a Commission if the current Pakistan-wide yearning for democracy and for restricting the Army to its constitutional role of defending the country’s borders is serious. An opposition to such a move can come from the Army and ISI-inspired fundamentalists and a section of media.

The Pakistanis must examine with an open mind the military’s motives in invading Kashmir thrice - in 1947, in 1965 and in 1999 - and also the consequent price Pakistan had to pay in terms of political stability, national integration, socio-economic progress, civil rights and its image abroad. The fate of those parts of Kashmir, which Pakistan occupied as a result of the invasion, should also be examined.

The 1947 invasion had at least three sticking results. First, the Army men acquired an image of holy warriors and defenders of Pakistan’s ideology as Kashmir came to be described as a test case for the validity of the two-nation theory. That made politicians’ position secondary to the Army Generals in the eyes of the people. The assassination of hte country’s first Prime Minister Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951, suspectedly by the Army, was an important milestone in the downward journey of democracy in Pakistan. Hawks in the Army were angry with the Prime Minister for having accepted the UN Security Council’s call for a ceasefire in Kashmir in 1948.

The second result, therefore, was the castration of democracy on the morrow of the creation of Pakistan. Country’s first Governor-General Mohammad Ali Jinnah, credited with farsightedness, allowed the Army to invade Kashmir. Perhaps he could not foresee that a war with India would strengthen the position of the Army at home vis-a-vis politicians who were yet weak and disorganised. Thus, the 1947 invasion brought about an ambitious and comparatively strong Army in a politically weak country.

A third result was enmity with India. Pakistanis were systematically brainwashed to consider India as their eternal enemy. The contrived fear of India was used as a whip to keep Pakistanis stand behind the Army. Any voice of sanity was condemned as anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam. Free thinking and free speech were suppressed. Thus three Pakistani generations grew up with distorted views on Kashmir and India - and even social progress. Later a philosophy was propagated that for its own survival Pakistan needed India as an enemy and not as a friend. The Pakistani Urdu press played up this philosophy in February 1999 when then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Lahore to meet Nawaz Sharif. That was the time when the Army was quietly conspiring to invade Kargil.

The 1965 and 1999 invasions of Kashmir were a repeat performance of the one in 1947. Among other things, the 1965 invasion cost Pakistan its Eastern wing. The 1999 invasion strengthened the Islamist forces vis-a-vis the mainstream political parties, but subsequently they turned against Pakistan itself. Today Pakistan is in a terrible mess as a result of the Kargil invasion.

For the past 60 years the Army has exploited Kashmir to usurp political power in Pakistan. But what has it done for Kashmir? Secretary General of JKLF, Arif Shahid writes that Pakistan’s proxy war in Kashmir has cost 80,000 lives of Kashmiris since 1989. In ‘Azad’ Kashmir (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) Kashmiris are under intimidation and coercion to accede to Pakistan. But, writes Arif Shahid why should the Kashmiris join a country whose armed forces scrapped the constitution four times; where judiciary, media and the entire civil society are paralysed; where the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is begging for justice; where a full-fledged war is fought (in Kargil) without informing the Prime Minister and where leaders like Akbar Bugti are killed by the Army for demanding punishment to rapists. Arif Shahid, a nationalist from occupied Kashmir, has written many articles, papers and booklets on the sorry conditions in that part of Kashmir where the Army and Pakistani nationals loot natural resources but locals live as serfs in their own State.

Member of European Parliament Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne prepared a report on ‘Kashmir: Present Situation and Future Prospects’ for European Parliament last year. She compared democracy in Kashmir with absence of it in ‘Azad’ Kashmir and Gilgit and Baltistan and criticised human rights situation in these areas. Her report highlighted the evidence of Pakistan funding militancy in Kashmir - which has killed Kashmiris by thousands.

For years successive military civilian Governments have befooled their people in the name of the United Nations resolutions for plebiscite in Kashmir and accused India of not obeying them. But Baroness Emma’s report exposes this fallacy when it points out that the pre-conditions for a plebiscite were not met by Pakistan. Besides not withdrawing its troops and civilians from occupied Kashmir it complicated the Kashmir problem by giving a large chunk of Kashmiri territory to China in 1963.

Mr. Arif Shahid writes that Pakistani Army is not interested in the solution of the Kashmir problem. It is this problem which the Army uses to maintain its dictatorship in Pakistan. Recently Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani asserted the Army has not changed its stand on Kashmir. That was to counter PPP co-Chairperson Asif Zardari’s statement that let the next generation resolve the Kashmir problem.

If the Pakistanis fight shy of taking a realistic view of Kashmir and relations with India they will remain condemned to military dictatorship and the attendant curses.

The writer is director, Institute for Media Studies and Information Technology, YMCA, New Delhi