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| Sunday, April 4, 2004 |
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| Sunday, April 4, 2004 |
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Scene Changes in Kashmir, India and Pakistan THE book offers an incisive and insightful analysis of India-Pakistan relations since 1947, with the Kashmir issue at its core. The author has focused his attention on Partition and called it the dark hour of Indian history. According to him, the darkest part of this hour is the continuing tragedy of Jammu and Kashmir, a priceless pearl of natural and cultural beauty of India, which has been tortured by war and terror for more than 50 years. He has given the causes of this tragedy and the complex situation brought about by both external and internal factors, often beyond the control of the wily politicians who created it. The situation substantially changed after the end of the Cold War and Soviet empire’s disintegration, and much more conspicuously during the last five years. The author presents a comprehensive overview of the encouraging changes that have taken place in India-Pakistan relations in the past few years, more significantly than in the past few decades. He pinpoints the good and bad steps taken by India, follies committed by shortsighted rulers of Pakistan and the mischievous manoeuvres of Great Britain and the USA because of their strategic global interests, which caused irreparable damage to Jammu and Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations. Pakistan’s strategic location on the softest flanks of the Soviet Union and China became its undoing. This western perception of the value of Pakistan in any global conflict was exploited to the hilt by the military dictators of Pakistan during the first 40 years of its existence, not realising that by doing so, they were following the foolish policy of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. The book has been divided into three parts containing 28 chapters, which were written during the last four years at different points of time. Chapter three, Early 2000, appears to be slightly outdated today. The author writes: "The Chief Minister, Mr Farooq Abdullah, is trying to fill the vacuum with a demand for more autonomy for the state within the Indian Union. It is open to question whether the people of the state are greatly agitated over the quantum of autonomy the state has or should have, compared to their concern over the safety of their lives and a reasonable livelihood, some of the subsequent extensions of the Union’s jurisdiction might also be popular, such as those of the Supreme Court, the Election Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General, but not all." Going deeper into the issue of the autonomy, the author observes that the people of Jammu and Ladakh as against those of the Kashmir Valley, see the Union’s jurisdiction over the state as their safeguard against excessive domination by the Kashmir region and its leaders. The chapter, Aims, Gains and Traps in Kashmir, discusses the "free and fair elections" held in Jammu and Kashmir in October 2002, in which People’s Democratic Party headed by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed came to power. This was, according to the author, a stunning phenomenon seen for the first time in the state. The government fell because it had lost the confidence of the people. After the elections, it was argued that the result should not be seen as an endorsement of the state’s accession to India, because people had voted only to unseat the unpopular government. The author counters by stating that no organised group, party or prominent Independent candidate campaigned even for a review of the terms of accession, let alone question the act of accession. The most significant point is that while no one directly raised the issue of accession, it emerged quite significantly as the campaign developed into a combat between unarmed voters, who were determined to vote, and the heavily armed militants, who were determined to prevent them from doing so. The book is a brilliant record of Pakistan’s follies, political intrigues in Kashmir and the USA’s thoughtless yet calculated support to its ally. It also draws our attention to the perceptible change that has taken place in the thinking of both countries. |
