After the victory of Nawaz Shareef in recent elections, many including separatist circles in Kashmir are hopeful of reviving Pakistan’s traditional policy towards Kashmir by shareef, previously downplayed by Musharraf and ignored by Zardari. This seems to be illusory and paranoia as Pakistan had never been sincere to the Kashmir’s aspirations rather always searches after its interests. When Musharraf grabbed power in 1999, similar hopes were expressed by separatists but he changed the whole course of Pakistan’s stance and tried to fallow ‘buy and sale’ formula. Similarly, Zardari’s victory in 2008 was viewed as welcome development by Huriyat conference but later that proved counterproductive, when Asif Ali Zardari after coming into power, said that, "Kashmir issue should be left aside for future generations to solve and right now India and Pakistan should focus on improving the bilateral relations by strengthening trade and economic ties" . The present aspirations for new policy will embrace same fate, as Pakistan’s interests are inconsistent with Kashmir’s interests and the developments in Kashmir are now unfavourable to Pakistan’s goal. Its goal is manifested in different slogans which Kashmiris are considering their right. However, Pakistan will never hesitate to sideline them if it is possible to achieve that goal through other means. Since beginning, Pakistan has followed inconsistent policy towards Kashmir and remained highly opportunist at times. This inconsistency usually stems from either its static objective of acceding Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan or brining at least Kashmir into its fold. For that reason, Whenever, Pakistan felt need of military means to wrest Kashmir forcefully or crash independent Kashmiri forces in order to sale off Kashmir, it doesn’t hesitate mostly at the exclusion of Kashmiris. With the result, Pakistan fallowed different Contradictory courses. First, it was itself reluctant to hold plebiscite in Kashmir and was using it as bargaining counter against Junagrah affair. From 1947-1972, Pakistan relied on adventurism but at the same time, has been willing to engage with agreements and agreed on conditions seemingly contradictory to its policy but internally supportive to it. Like in Tashkent agreement, Pakistan agreed to forgo the use of force to settle Kashmir dispute and in shimla agreement agreed to turn ceasefire line into LOC and solve Kashmir issue bilaterally. Since shimla agreement, Pakistan was expecting that it will get at least Kashmir through bilateral partition formula and waited years in hope of that. Shimla agreement appeared to abandon the principle of a referendum and move the parties at least part way toward accepting that the answer to the Kashmir question lay in partitioning the former Dogra Kingdom along the ceasefire line. Subject to some alterations, this de facto partition was meant to conclude the matter. Ironically Kashmiris were denied representation in the process. Though Pakistan adopted silence throughout decade of 1980’s but again went to the rhetorical policy of UN resolutions during1990, s when it found that India is not agreeing on partition formula. Pakistan found itself defeated with India’s strict interpretation of paragraph two of Shimla agreement, which was unacceptable to Pakistan and thus, returned on its back track. In December, 1990, Pakistan’s delegate at UN told the general assembly, "Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory and we have always maintained that this problem needs to be resolved in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions and in the spirit of Shimla agreement" . This was a contradiction itself. President Gulam Ishaq Khan was the first leader to re-invoke the slogan of Kashmir as the unfinished agenda of partition. These rhetoric slogans about right to self- determination again got exposed in the Lahore declaration of 1999, where Pakistan agreed in principle to some confidence building measures despite India again making no movement on Kashmir. For most time, Pakistan’s Kashmir policy rested mainly on, UN resolutions and overt and covert support to Kashmiri focused militants, both suited to its desired objective. while UN resolutions restricts option to only two countries with no option for Kashmir as such and because of presence of anti-Indian sentiment, Pakistan hopes to win plebiscite. Even, if Pakistan had went to bilateral approach mainly with a hope of getting at least Kashmir through bilateral partition formula. The phenomenon of militancy too confirms to Pakistan’s objective, which mainly operates under pan Islamic orientation. The evidence that Pakistan is not sincere towards Kashmir is evident through its march on JKLF activists who supported notion of independent Kashmir. Pakistan tried its best to mould the direction of insurgency confirming to Pakistan’s position. Such slogans like "Kashmir banega Pakistan" were put into the mouths of masses and religion was invoked to turn political movement by giving it religious colour, "Pakistan say rista kya, Laila,ha,ilalah" . All was done to pursue their interests. The rising sentiment for direct freedom instead of succession with Pakistan from 2001 is not worthwhile for Pakistan and it had always tried to curb such sentiments by adopting ruthless policies in Kashmir. Pakistan was providing only lip service by placing rhetorical emphasis on Kashmir cause. By the early 1990’s, when the resistance movement was in full swing, a conscious policy decision was made by Islamabad, to curb the independence sentiment that clearly lay at the foundation of this movement. According to Robert Wrising, a meeting was held in Islamabad in February1990 by Benazir Bhutto, attended by chief of army staff General Aslam Baigh and president and prime minster of Azad Kashmir. The participants were apprehensive of the possibility that the uprising could bloom rang’ on Pakistan and that Pakistan could lose not only Jammu and Kashmir but the northern areas as well. Therefore, they decided to curb the Azadi forces or discourage the elements involved in Kashmir resistance who were vying for an independent Kashmir. On 24 may 1990, Benazir Bhutto rejected the idea of independent Kashmir by describing it dangerous for the region. As the architect of the Kargil campaign, Musharraf’s credibility on the Kashmir issue was insurmountable and earlier by espousing the same traditional Pakistani position regarding Kashmir as an integral part of Pakistan and pressed for plebiscite, separatists believed that he would take hard-line -they were wrong. Soon he felt frustrated when he realized that Pakistan was not being able to secure the confidence of Kashmiri people, who reject a merger with Pakistan as a solution. Media reports alarmed him that common people in Kashmir were rapidly tired of the armed insurgency. Meanwhile, he became aware of the growing rifts within the ranks of militants, the locals disgust over the insincerity of foreign jihadists towards right to self determination and giving negative image to freedom movement by taking more interest in pan-Islamic cause. India tried to exploit fissures within militants and prime minster Vajpayee declared that his government would be willing to talk the Kashmiri militants on the basis of insaniyat (humanity) to initiate internal political dialogue with militants. This alarmed Pakistan and in order to arrest such direct engagement of Kashmiri leadership, Musharraf tried to sideline kashmiris and argued that he was willing to "move on all issues in tandem" . In other words, a solution to Kashmir did not have to precede discussion on any other issues. Musharraf went on from concessions to concessions, from unilateral ceasefire in November 2003 to hypothetical ten or twelve solutions to Kashmir dispute and later, said that "the long standing Pakistani demand for a plebiscite in Kashmir could be dropped. We are for UN resolutions but now we have left that aside" . Since India refused any change of borders or division of Kashmir, Musharraf transformed hypothetical solutions to four point plan and proposed that Kashmir be geographically defined, gradually demilitarized, given powers of self governance and that some parts of Kashmir be subjected to joint control and with this Pakistan would be willing to give up its claim on Kashmir. This was response to kashmiri independent forces, and avoided their representation in bilateral peace process altogether and let them to know that Pakistan will never allow separate settlement between Kashmir and India, evident through Musharraf’s speech, "Kashmir runs in our blood. No Pakistani can afford to sever links with Kashmir. The entire Pakistan and the whole world know this. We will never budge an inch from our principled stance on Kashmir" . The 2008 elections in Pakistan were welcomed by Kashmiri separatists especially APHC (G) who anticipated change and held Musharraf responsible for all mess in Kashmir. Syed Ali shah Geelani blamed Musharraf for compromising on Pakistan’s principle stance on Kashmir and called the results as the victory of Kashmir’s and defeat of Musharraf’s Kashmir policy and hoped that a new civilian government by revising its Kashmir policy would work towards the solution of Kashmir in the light of its traditional stance. They were disappointed when the new civilian government and president viewed, that the normalization of relations between India and Pakistan should not become hostage to the Kashmir cause and Kashmir issue should be left for future generation to settle and emphasized on improving relations with India. Such policy received a strong reaction by conservative circles in both Pakistan and Kashmir. The post-Musharraf government remained occupied with numerous internal problems leaving her no time to attend the Kashmir problem. The government did not tried to move away from peace process that was started by Musharraf government. Since 1947, Pakistan has used Kashmir as bargaining chip to further its interests and its emphasis on right to self-determination is hypocrisy, because while during 1947, it was doubtful of winning plebiscite due to sheikh Abdullah’s popularity and from 2001 is fearful of completely wiped out by pro-independence forces in Kashmir. Ironically, Pakistan never pressed for Kashmiris representation in any dialogue process but in turn was trying to have wholesale deal with India for the division of state. Presently because of several internal problems and of its realization of weakness against India, Pakistan has decided to avoid Kashmir issue in order to develop economic cooperation with India. Nawaz Shareef government will similarly dissatisfy Kashmiri separatist circles as others. The stage is set for a radical change and since Pakistan is already at war with radical religious forces, which had potential of influencing Pakistan’s policy, the Shareef government would follow the same process of engaging with India at the cost of Kashmir issue. (The author is M. Phil student of South Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and can be reached at: mnazar00@gmail)
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 05:00:39 +0000
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