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What if there was no Kashmir?
Shortsighted leaderships of both the countries has plunged the region into a fearfully dark future where thousands of kilometres of territory could be a hopeless nuclear wasteland
Nations carry their past in order to build in the present what they want for themselves in the future. Every nations past is full of glorious and not so glorious events, incidents, acts of commission and omission voluntary or involuntary. As a nation evolves over centuries, history getting used to her, treats her in relation to neighboring countries. All her responses have a reference, which can be adjudged, rationalised or anticipated fairly reasonably. But it is complicated when a country has been carved out of a larger body and asked to conduct her business of state normally like those before her. Pakistan is just such a country, which could have done better by carrying the baton from where the British had left it and then build up her own well-considered momentum rather than snapping up from her past and then invent alien, impractical and illusive state imperatives.
To begin with, it was unfair and politically illogical to expect Pakistan to follow norms and nuances of internal and international state behaviour like other fully established states. There was a need for her to develop and evolve her state traditions, major strands of diplomacy, constitution and state institutions. Instead what happened was nearly the reverse, exploitive if not altogether hostile. The US saw in Pakistan a satellite state for use as a surrogate in the region against the expanding Soviet influence and a kind of counterweight against Soviet-leaning India. Thus Pakistan signed worthless treaties like SEATO and CENTO for some military hardware and puny economic aid.
Afghanistan, a Muslim country with which Muslims of this region had intimate cultural, trade and political relations for hundreds of years, saw an opportunity to twist its tail through the Pakhtunistan demand and attempted to walk out of her Durand Line treaty obligations, thinking that a teetering Pakistan would succumb. It refused to recognise Pakistan in the hope to be able to grab its territory east of the Hindukush one day. For that, they found in India a sympathetic listener and a ready counsel. A look at Afghanistans history and folklore tells the tale of their poor regard for the people of the subcontinent, of which the present day Pakistan has the misfortune to be the immediate neighbour. Ghaznavis, Ghoris and Abdalis considered the region as their backyard and plunder zone, which they raided and sacked at will. The Afghan psyche has never been able to accept to date the state of Pakistan as their equal and the people of Pakistan as their worthy neighbours. Their scorn for the Hindu, Punjabi, Sindhi and even the Pashtuns east of the Khyber Pass is completely undisguised. That is one of the major reasons why they never wholeheartedly acknowledged Pakistans courage and hospitality for 30 years when the Soviets invaded that country. They consider our readiness to help and host millions of Afghan refugees as their birthright and our bounden humble duty. This should explain their irrational attitude towards Pakistan. A ravaged and internationally-discredited Pakistan is what we deserve because we made the historic mistake of hosting them in the hope of winning their thankfulness, which never came .Late General Zias nearly genetic fascination with their ways has cost the country dearly. After all Shah Shuja, the deposed Emir of Afghanistan, lived along with his royal entourage in Ludhiana not far from Zias ancestral city, Jullundhar, before reclaiming his throne in Kabul (1839).That feat must have left deep imprints on the local Muslims, including his impressionable folks.
India, which had the greatest moral responsibility to help the fledgling Pakistan, a sister state and country in kinship, put up a sordid show of inelastic leadership, poor neighbourliness and inadequate vision. It embarked upon a dangerous path of annexing territories like Hyderabad, Junagadh and Manavadar by use of coercive force. Then it went a step ahead in manipulating the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The message to Pakistan and its people was clear: we could not care less if you are bruised and in need of a helping hand, we will use power to get what we want out of you. The sad story of the violation of agreed division of assets is well known and recorded. Anger, mistrust and fear, is how the two states kicked off their new relationship in 1947.
In this bundle of sharps and spikes, Kashmir carries the crown. In history, nations have made a few mistakes whose consequences have run into generations and caused miseries to millions. The annexation of Kashmir by whatever dubious document of accession is not under discussion here. It is the timing, the method and more than that, the very optics that the Indian leadership elected to use. Timing was the most inauspicious. Kashmir had a special place in Pashtun hearts and was always considered an extension of their territory. They had never accepted the ignominious sale of a whole people. Kashmir was sold for a few million rupees, possibly the only case in world history where a ruler bought a state to set up his dynasty. Business and not dynasty is established by purchase. The right of conquest sets up dynasties. Kashmiris are not a business they are a people. Their lost dignity has yet to be restored. That is why Kashmir never settled peacefully ever after and the local resentment continued to rise against the Dogras. By the time of partition, serious unrest was already underway among the Valleys Muslim population against the Maharajas heavy-handedness. By then the Deobandi brand of ****** sentiment had seeped into neighbouring Sialkot, Gujranwala, Amritsar, Lahore and Sahiwal districts of Punjab as their populations had a sizeable Kashmiri component. A well-known Deobandi, Maulana Ahmad Ali Lahori, even collected money and delivered it to the Kashmiri resistance immediately after the Indian army marched into the Kashmir Valley. The historic blunder of the Indian occupation of Kashmir created a physical object to fight for and a locus standi to the simmering ****** sentiments in Punjab and Frontier. To add insult to injury, a merchant Maharaja literally signed off his mortgaged subjects to a country they did not want to go to.
On balance, the decision to occupy Kashmir militarily in 1948 had been the second monumental mistake by the Indian National Congress leadership after the fateful rejection of the Lucknow Pact (Nehru Report 1928). It could have prevented the partition of India and generational mutual hatred, massacre of millions of lives at the time of partition, useless wars and horrific miseries inflicted upon the people of both the countries. Their tragic decision to annex Kashmir by force resulted in permanent animosity between the two countries, widely poisoned respective public opinion and pushed the two people into escalating belligerence that finally resulted in nuclear weapons capability. As an evil spin-off, it generated the menace of militancy, sectarian radicalism, opportunity for foreign interests like the US, Saudi Arabia and as a reaction, Iran for their pernicious induction into the region. Opportunistic military and civil regimes were merely the willing tools and not exactly the sources of our unmitigated calamity. All that brutality and so much more of ruthlessness has been at the cost of our two people who continue to wallow in abject poverty, disease, illiteracy, poor health, hunger and above all deprived of their right to a decent life. The pointless belligerence, which is the result of the decisions and follow up reactions of terribly shortsighted leaderships of both the countries has plunged the region into a fearfully dark future where thousands of kilometres of territory could be a hopeless nuclear wasteland. Sense must prevail, there is still time to recover.
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army and can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com
Shortsighted leaderships of both the countries has plunged the region into a fearfully dark future where thousands of kilometres of territory could be a hopeless nuclear wasteland
Nations carry their past in order to build in the present what they want for themselves in the future. Every nations past is full of glorious and not so glorious events, incidents, acts of commission and omission voluntary or involuntary. As a nation evolves over centuries, history getting used to her, treats her in relation to neighboring countries. All her responses have a reference, which can be adjudged, rationalised or anticipated fairly reasonably. But it is complicated when a country has been carved out of a larger body and asked to conduct her business of state normally like those before her. Pakistan is just such a country, which could have done better by carrying the baton from where the British had left it and then build up her own well-considered momentum rather than snapping up from her past and then invent alien, impractical and illusive state imperatives.
To begin with, it was unfair and politically illogical to expect Pakistan to follow norms and nuances of internal and international state behaviour like other fully established states. There was a need for her to develop and evolve her state traditions, major strands of diplomacy, constitution and state institutions. Instead what happened was nearly the reverse, exploitive if not altogether hostile. The US saw in Pakistan a satellite state for use as a surrogate in the region against the expanding Soviet influence and a kind of counterweight against Soviet-leaning India. Thus Pakistan signed worthless treaties like SEATO and CENTO for some military hardware and puny economic aid.
Afghanistan, a Muslim country with which Muslims of this region had intimate cultural, trade and political relations for hundreds of years, saw an opportunity to twist its tail through the Pakhtunistan demand and attempted to walk out of her Durand Line treaty obligations, thinking that a teetering Pakistan would succumb. It refused to recognise Pakistan in the hope to be able to grab its territory east of the Hindukush one day. For that, they found in India a sympathetic listener and a ready counsel. A look at Afghanistans history and folklore tells the tale of their poor regard for the people of the subcontinent, of which the present day Pakistan has the misfortune to be the immediate neighbour. Ghaznavis, Ghoris and Abdalis considered the region as their backyard and plunder zone, which they raided and sacked at will. The Afghan psyche has never been able to accept to date the state of Pakistan as their equal and the people of Pakistan as their worthy neighbours. Their scorn for the Hindu, Punjabi, Sindhi and even the Pashtuns east of the Khyber Pass is completely undisguised. That is one of the major reasons why they never wholeheartedly acknowledged Pakistans courage and hospitality for 30 years when the Soviets invaded that country. They consider our readiness to help and host millions of Afghan refugees as their birthright and our bounden humble duty. This should explain their irrational attitude towards Pakistan. A ravaged and internationally-discredited Pakistan is what we deserve because we made the historic mistake of hosting them in the hope of winning their thankfulness, which never came .Late General Zias nearly genetic fascination with their ways has cost the country dearly. After all Shah Shuja, the deposed Emir of Afghanistan, lived along with his royal entourage in Ludhiana not far from Zias ancestral city, Jullundhar, before reclaiming his throne in Kabul (1839).That feat must have left deep imprints on the local Muslims, including his impressionable folks.
India, which had the greatest moral responsibility to help the fledgling Pakistan, a sister state and country in kinship, put up a sordid show of inelastic leadership, poor neighbourliness and inadequate vision. It embarked upon a dangerous path of annexing territories like Hyderabad, Junagadh and Manavadar by use of coercive force. Then it went a step ahead in manipulating the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The message to Pakistan and its people was clear: we could not care less if you are bruised and in need of a helping hand, we will use power to get what we want out of you. The sad story of the violation of agreed division of assets is well known and recorded. Anger, mistrust and fear, is how the two states kicked off their new relationship in 1947.
In this bundle of sharps and spikes, Kashmir carries the crown. In history, nations have made a few mistakes whose consequences have run into generations and caused miseries to millions. The annexation of Kashmir by whatever dubious document of accession is not under discussion here. It is the timing, the method and more than that, the very optics that the Indian leadership elected to use. Timing was the most inauspicious. Kashmir had a special place in Pashtun hearts and was always considered an extension of their territory. They had never accepted the ignominious sale of a whole people. Kashmir was sold for a few million rupees, possibly the only case in world history where a ruler bought a state to set up his dynasty. Business and not dynasty is established by purchase. The right of conquest sets up dynasties. Kashmiris are not a business they are a people. Their lost dignity has yet to be restored. That is why Kashmir never settled peacefully ever after and the local resentment continued to rise against the Dogras. By the time of partition, serious unrest was already underway among the Valleys Muslim population against the Maharajas heavy-handedness. By then the Deobandi brand of ****** sentiment had seeped into neighbouring Sialkot, Gujranwala, Amritsar, Lahore and Sahiwal districts of Punjab as their populations had a sizeable Kashmiri component. A well-known Deobandi, Maulana Ahmad Ali Lahori, even collected money and delivered it to the Kashmiri resistance immediately after the Indian army marched into the Kashmir Valley. The historic blunder of the Indian occupation of Kashmir created a physical object to fight for and a locus standi to the simmering ****** sentiments in Punjab and Frontier. To add insult to injury, a merchant Maharaja literally signed off his mortgaged subjects to a country they did not want to go to.
On balance, the decision to occupy Kashmir militarily in 1948 had been the second monumental mistake by the Indian National Congress leadership after the fateful rejection of the Lucknow Pact (Nehru Report 1928). It could have prevented the partition of India and generational mutual hatred, massacre of millions of lives at the time of partition, useless wars and horrific miseries inflicted upon the people of both the countries. Their tragic decision to annex Kashmir by force resulted in permanent animosity between the two countries, widely poisoned respective public opinion and pushed the two people into escalating belligerence that finally resulted in nuclear weapons capability. As an evil spin-off, it generated the menace of militancy, sectarian radicalism, opportunity for foreign interests like the US, Saudi Arabia and as a reaction, Iran for their pernicious induction into the region. Opportunistic military and civil regimes were merely the willing tools and not exactly the sources of our unmitigated calamity. All that brutality and so much more of ruthlessness has been at the cost of our two people who continue to wallow in abject poverty, disease, illiteracy, poor health, hunger and above all deprived of their right to a decent life. The pointless belligerence, which is the result of the decisions and follow up reactions of terribly shortsighted leaderships of both the countries has plunged the region into a fearfully dark future where thousands of kilometres of territory could be a hopeless nuclear wasteland. Sense must prevail, there is still time to recover.
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army and can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com
