Kashmir is not Indias internal matter: Dr Fai
Washington, October 04 (KMS): The Executive Director of Kashmir Centre Washington, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, has said that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognised disputed territory and not internal matter of India.
Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai was reacting to the recent assertion of the Indian Foreign Minister, S M Krishna that the elections in Indian occupied Kashmir were a plebiscite. In a statement in Washington, Dr Fai said that the Indian Foreign Ministers claim clearly flouted the UN Security Council resolution 91 of 1951 and resolution 122 of 1957 which clearly affirm that the convening of a Constituent Assembly as recommended by the General Council of the All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference and any action that Assembly might attempt to take to determine the future shape and affiliation of the entire State or any part thereof would not constitute a disposition of the State in accordance with the above principle. Therefore, Mr. Krishnas assertion that an election in Kashmir is a substitute for plebiscite is the negation of Indias international obligations, he said.
The Executive Director said, the only election acceptable to the people of Jammu and Kashmir is one which will be conducted and supervised by an impartial agency like the United Nations and which will take place in an atmosphere free of coercion and intimidation. He clarified that Kashmir was not and could not be regarded as an internal matter of India because under all international agreements, which were agreed by both India and Pakistan, negotiated by the United Nations, endorsed by the Security Council and accepted by the international community. Kashmir is a disputed territory and does not belong to any member state of the United Nations. If that is true, then the claim of Mr. Krishna that Kashmir is an internal matter of India does not stand, he added.
Dr Fai emphasized that as far as the third party intervention was concerned, there had to be the persuasion or facilitation by a third party to impress upon both India and Pakistan to include the genuine leadership of Jammu and Kashmir in all future talks over the issue of Kashmir. The history of past sixty-three years testifies to the fact that the bilateral talks between India and Pakistan have always been fruitless. In fact any attempt to strike a deal between any two parties without the association of the third party, will fail to yield a credible settlement. The agreement between Sheikh Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1952, the pact between Sheikh Abdullah and Indira Gandhi in 1975, and an agreement between Farooq Abdullah and Rajiv Gandhi in 1980s sought to bypass Pakistan, leaving the basic issue of Kashmir unsettled. Likewise, the Tashkent Agreement of 1966 between India and Pakistan, the Simla Agreement of 1972, the Lahore Declaration of 1998, the New York Joint Communiqué between President Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2004 sought to bypass the people of Kashmir and it resulted in a failure. So the time has come that talks need to be tripartite. The reason that talks must be tripartite is that the dispute primarily involves three parties, India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir. But the primary and principal party is the people of Kashmir, because it is ultimately their future, the future of 15 million people of Kashmir that is at stake, he said.
The Executive director warned that offering the LoC as an international border by Indian Home Minister, P Chidambaram, was an absolute fallacy to begin with. He said that this was also an ideal non-existent solution. One cannot imagine a better formula for sowing a minefield in South Asia that will lead them to a nuclear disaster. Kashmiris revolted against status quo and how can status quo becomes an option. Also, Kashmiris wish to emphasize that their land is not a real estate which can be parcelled out between two disputants but the home of a nation with a history far more compact and coherent than Indias and far longer than Pakistans, he stated. He maintained that no settlement of the Kashmir dispute would be lasting unless it was explicitly based on the principles of self-determination and erased the so-called Line of Control, which was in reality the line of conflict.
The Executive Director reiterated that the concept of autonomy for Kashmiris proposed by some quarters in India was an absolute non-solution. Here you will have to rely on a provision of the Indian Constitution. All Constitutions of the world are subject to amendments and Indian Constitution is no exception. If not now, if not today, in the foreseeable future, the Parliament can delete this provision in the Constitution and the move will not even need a debate in the Indian Parliament, he said. Dr Fai further stated that the Kashmiris had had the experience of a limited autonomy, which was first practiced under a personal understanding between Nehru and Abdullah and later provided for by Section 370 of the Indian Constitution, adding that it was eroded and eventually whittled away by the forces of circumstances.
Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai pointed out that the presence of a million peacefully protesting people on the streets of Kashmir gave a loud and clear message to the world powers including the United States that they would not accept anything short of Azadi freedom. He deplored that India was seeking the candidacy of the UN Security Council while it was continuously flouting its resolutions on Kashmir. We fail to understand how can the world powers, including the Obama Administration, even consider to support a country like India to become a member of the United Nations Security Council when it has been violating the very principles for which UN stands for? This will make mockery of the principles of the United Nations and of international obligations of a member country under the United Nations Charter, he added. »
Kashmir is not India?s internal matter: Dr Fai | Kashmir Media Service
