Kashmir in Conflict by Schofield Victoria;

Author:Schofield, Victoria;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Conflict or Consensus?

Recalling ... that an environment of peace and security is in the supreme national interest of both sides and the resolution of all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, is essential for this purpose... Lahore declaration, 21 February 1999.

A decade after thousands of Kashmiris took to the streets to demand azadi there was still no clarity on how they could achieve their objective, when neither Pakistan nor India was prepared to contemplate azadi as meaning independence. Even so, commentators and observers continued to analyse the Kashmiris’ demand for self-determination in order to see what the consequences might be if a plebiscite were held. Firstly, would it be fair on all the inhabitants to hold a unitary plebiscite where the voice of the majority might prevail at the expense of the minority? Or should there be a regional plebiscite which would let ethnic groups decide according to their regions, even though this would inevitably formalise the partition of the state?

Secondly, if, on the basis of a majority vote, the inhabitants of the entire former princely state chose to become independent, how could one possibly prise the Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir away from Pakistan, and Ladakh and Jammu away from India? Or if there were a regional vote, and only the valley chose independence, how could it survive? Furthermore, how could the government of Pakistan continue to insist that the Kashmiris be given the right to determine their future and then permit them only the option to choose between India or Pakistan? Would, in reality, India and Pakistan concede anything at all? What could be the basis for a consensus or would the conflict continue?

World opinion

Throughout their struggle, the Kashmiri activists regretted the unwillingness of the rest of the world to assist them in what they perceived to be a ‘just’ cause. They believed that their inability to attract material international support was in contrast to that given to the Afghans throughout the 1980s during their struggle against the Soviet Union; the Kashmiris were also conscious of the sub-continent’s past history, in which Britain played its own imperial role. At the height of the insurgency, their optimistic belief that they had only to create enough trouble in the valley to attract international support did not materialise. No country was willing to risk its entire agenda with New Delhi over the Kashmir cause,' wrote Time correspondent Edward Desmond in 1995 ‘especially when it was clear that New Delhi had no intention of backing down.’1

In the early years of the insurgency, British Members of Parliament, MEPs, US Congressmen, human rights activists all played a part in listening to the grievances of the Kashmiris. Once they had lodged their complaints and written their reports, there was very little action they could take. International opinion was as much concerned about Pakistan’s own alleged role in ‘exporting terrorism’ and its potential nuclear capability, as it was about events in what India persistently termed an integral part of its territory. In the face of

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