Aimen Chaudhary
\n \u201cMy view is that if India continues on its present course, then
\nconsequences cannot be foreseen. I cannot say where boundaries will be drawn, but certainly
\nthe present boundaries will be changed. India must be prepared to make a reasonable
\nagreement, then the process of partition begun in 1947 will be completed.\u201d
\n\u2014 A senior Pakistani foreign policy official, Islamabad, a few days later.
\nSince the late 1989, Kashmir has been a dispute between Pakistan and India. A mutiny
\nhas been between Muslims of Kashmir, living in the capital of Jammu & Kashmir
\nSrinagar. This has been the main crisis between Islamabad and New Delhi. Every
\ncountry has the believe that dispute between Pakistan and India will lead to largescale war. A local crisis can take place between Pakistan and India that if one will
\ntrigger the military response the other will overreact to that; that will lead to clash
\nbetween the forces. The war could escalate because of exchange of nuclear weapons,
\nalthough both countries are not nuclear powers. The secretary of United Nations and
\nthe American officials has led to great deal of diplomatic activity (September,1994).
\nIn this activity both Pakistan and India were urged to engage in additional
\n\u201cConfidence building measures\u201d- CBMs-that might would slow down or decrease the
\nescalation process.
\n \u201cKashmir has always been more than a mere place. It has the quality of
\nexperience, or a state of experience, or perhaps an ideal\u201d
\n -JAN MORRIS
\nFor past years no changes could be seen of the dispute between Pakistan and India.
\nThe Kashmir crisis is no closer to resolution yet but both countries are trying to
\noccupy Kashmir. Kashmir has been a conflict between India and Pakistan for more
\nthan 70 years. Even before India and Pakistan won their independence from Britain in
\nAugust 1947, the area was hotly contested. Today, Delhi and Islamabad both claim
\nKashmir in full, but control only parts of it – territories recognized internationally as
\n“Indian-administered Kashmir” and “Pakistan-administered Kashmir”.
\nReligion is one factor: Jammu and Kashmir is more than 60% of Muslims making it
\nonly state within India where Muslims are in majority. There aren\u2019t any high hopes
\nfor peace in new century because India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire in 2003
\nafter years of bloodshed along the de facto border. In 2014, India’s current Prime
\nMinister Narendra Modi came to power promising a tough line on Pakistan, but also
\nshowed interest in holding peace talks. But a year later, India blamed Pakistan-based
\ngroups for an attack on its airbase in Pathankot in the northern state of Punjab. Mr
\nModi also cancelled a scheduled visit to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, for a
\nregional summit in 2017. Since then, there hasn’t been any progress in talks between
\nthe neighbors.
\nKashmir originally came into dispute because of a British failure of will when they
\ndivided and quit India in 1947. The mechanism by which the princely states were
\nsorted out was inadequate. Each prince or ruler was to decide whether he would
\naccede to India or Pakistan, presumably taking into account the makeup and interests
\nof his population; but there was no adequate mechanism for ensuring that each ruler
\nwould make a fair or reasonable decision, or to ensure that the \u201cthird option,\u201d
\nindependence, would not be a temptation (the British, the Indians, and the Pakistanis
\nall agreed that the further partition of the subcontinent would be wrong, and that the
\nprinces had to go to one state or the other). In the case of Kashmir, a Hindu ruler
\ngoverned a largely Muslim population, but was also considering independence. While
\nthere were other failures in the partition process, none so crippled the successor states
\nas Kashmir\u2014and the British were no longer around to repair the damage. Indians and
\nPakistanis have lived with the consequences for forty-five years, but currently blame
\neach other, rather than a faulty partition process. There is a Punjabi saying:
\n\u201cThree things are improved by beating: women, wheat, and a Jut.\u201d
\n.
\nARICLE 370:
\n The article allowed the state a certain amount of autonomy-its own constitution,
\na separate flag and freedom to make laws. Foreign affairs, defense and
\ncommunications remained the preserve of the central government.
\n Kashmiris themselves\u2014both Hindu and Muslim\u2014have now tasted
\nviolence of a sort never experienced before as they undergo a terrible ordeal. In both
\ncountries the greatest hawks on Kashmir are journalists, politicians, academics and
\nsome intelligence services especially Pakistan\u2019s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). India
\nis using troops in Kashmir. They are losing battle of hearts and minds. It’s like treating
\ncancer with Disprin. Kashmir is not viewed in the same light by all Pakistanis and all
\nIndians.
\nSince the Kashmir problem has been mismanaged by two generations of Indians and
\nPakistanis (and Kashmiris must accept responsibility also, for their own errors of
\nomission and commission), there is no age-group, except perhaps among the newest
\ngeneration of South Asians, who believe that the time has come for a solution. And
\nthe timing is crucial.
\nThe Kashmiris need an outside perspective because Pakistani and Indian are locked in
\na mindless competition over tactical advantage. Most of us think that Kashmir should
\nappear as in independent state. Most of the people over there are disappeared and their
\nfamilies are hopeless till now. Almost 8000 families have lost their loved ones and
\nmany married women are now ‘\u2018widows\u2019 and that\u2019s really heart breaking. Kashmir is
\nthe most militarized zone in the world. Kashmir has been badly facing rapes,
\nbrutalism, killings, torture cases and many other and even though the Kashmiri
\nchildren have also accepted this truth and they are now immune to this. In the absence
\nof a law, families often lodge \u201cmissing persons\u201d complaints with the police to trace
\nthose who might have been subjected to enforced disappearance. The crime
\ncategorizations commonly used in the record books include \u201cabduction\u201d,
\n\u201ckidnapping\u201d or \u201cwrongful confinement”. August 30 is marked as the International
\nDay of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
\n~Kashmir belongs to the Kashmiris. Not to Indians. Not to Pakistan.
\nShahid Afridi
\nAimen Chaudhary
\nStudent of Riphah International University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aimen Chaudhary \u201cMy view is that if India continues on its present course, then consequences cannot be foreseen. I cannot say where boundaries will be drawn, but certainly the present boundaries will be changed. India must be prepared to make a reasonable agreement, then the process of partition begun in 1947 will be completed.\u201d \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-article"],"yoast_head":"\n