Umar Jamshaid
A view from Sharda Fort, a national heritage monument in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir.
On February 14, a suicide bomber killed more than forty Indian soldiers in Kashmir in what India claimed was a terrorist attack. India retaliated by bombing a terrorist training camp, which turned out to be an uninhabited mountain top. The Pakistan Air Force shot down an Indian jet fighter, and India shot down a Pakistani plane.
Diplomats and the mainstream media focused on the danger of another war between the two nuclear armed countries. But the major media provided less information about the flashpoint for the crisis: India’s brutal occupation of Kashmir.
Assistant professor Junaid Ahmad, director of the Center for Global Dialogue at the University of Management and Technology in Lahore in Pakistan, says in a phone interview that the conflict reflects “the bitterness and anger that remains from the British partition of the region back in 1947.”
Years ago, I reported from a farm near the Pakistani controlled part of Kashmir. It was only accessible by four-wheel drive vehicle or on foot. Kashmir is spectacularly beautiful with rolling hills and a lush valley. In years past, it was a tourist destination.
But if you live near its Indian border these days, you’re hunkering down in bomb shelters to avoid errant Indian artillery fire. Civilians on India’s side of the border face the same danger when Pakistani guns overshoot their targets.
I learned from my hosts that a number of major rivers flow through Kashmir, a vital source of drinking water, irrigation, and hydroelectric power for both India and Pakistan. Whatever country controls the water has a major impact on the entire region.
Many years ago, U.S. water expert David Lilienthal wrote, “No army, with bombs and shellfire could devastate a land as thoroughly as Pakistan could be devastated by the simple expedient of India’s permanently shutting off the sources of water that keep the fields and the people of Pakistan alive.”
A 1960 treaty allows Pakistan to use most of the water, but India has consistently tried to take back as much as it can. Kashmir, Ahmad notes, is an important geopolitical location that borders India, Pakistan, and China. The country that dominates Kashmir has “strategic leverage” in the region, he says.
In 1947, when India took control of Jammu and Kashmir, as the Indian state is formally known, “battle lines were drawn,” Ahmad says. “Indian leaders refused to let go. It gives India an excuse to keep 800,000 troops near the border with Pakistan.” Western media sources estimate the number of troops at closer to 500,000.
The British colonial presence in the Indian subcontinent dates back to the 1700s. British rulers used classic divide and conquer tactics by inciting conflict between Hindus and Muslims.
When India gained independence in 1947, a bitter struggle broke out. India was to become a predominantly Hindu country while Pakistan was overwhelmingly Muslim. A Hindu maharaja ruled over the principality of Kashmir, which was mostly Muslim, and brought Kashmir into India. A war broke out; India took control of land containing the majority of the Kashmiri population and Pakistan took the thinly populated remainder. The countries fought two more wars over Kashmir in 1965 and 1999.
Indian leaders have continuously argued that Kashmir is legally part of India. The opposition to India’s rule, they claim, is fueled by Pakistan and dominated by Muslim terrorist groups. They further assert that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are happy with Indian rule.
Indian leaders have continuously argued that Kashmir is legally part of India. In reality, the people of Kashmir have never acceded to Indian occupation.
In reality, the people of Kashmir have never acceded to Indian occupation. Human rights groups, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, have accused the Indian military of detention without trial, torture, and murder. Indian repression has resulted in 100,000 civilian deaths in Jammu and Kashmir between 1989 and 2011, according to Pakistani media. The Associated Press estimates 70,000 deaths between 1989 to the present.
In 1989, Kashmiris launched an armed rebellion against Indian rule. Indian authorities claimed that the Kashmiris were armed by Pakistan and led by Muslim extremist groups. But the movement’s leading organization, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, was secular. As Ahmad explained, the movement contained both secular and religious components, much like the Arab Spring of 2011.
The key element, he says, was that the 1989 uprising “was entirely indigenous. It was a mass uprising.”
The mid-1990s saw the rise of conservative political Islamist groups, like Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), sponsored by the Pakistani military and intelligence services, which sought to control the Kashmiri movement for their own interests. JeM has bombed civilians and engaged in plane hijacking. It took credit for the suicide explosion that killed the Indian soldiers in February. JeM adheres to a right-wing ideology based on political Islam, and an extremist interpretation of Sharia law.
India accuses the Pakistani government of supporting and giving sanctuary to JeM. “If the Pakistani state is not supporting them," conceded Ahmad, "it's certainly not stopping them. That’s unfortunate because it allows India to portray the struggle as dominated by terrorists.”
Other major protests broke out in 2010 and 2016. The Kashmiri resistance includes secular and religious forces, including extremists, according to Ahmad. But the recent demonstrations indicate a unified opposition to Indian rule across ideological lines. “All of the previous divisions within the resistance have collapsed.”
For decades, Kashmiris have called for a plebiscite to determine the future of their region. But India has refused. The results of an authoritative 2010 poll by the British Chatham House explained why.
The survey found that 43 percent of respondents in both Indian and Pakistani areas supported Kashmir independence. 15 percent favored unity with Pakistan. Only 21 percent favored unity with India, and that was almost exclusively within the Indian/Hindu population.
I think that a resolution of the Kashmir crisis will require forceful diplomatic pressure. The United States claims neutrality, but has in recent years, tilted towards India. In his second term, President Barack Obama sought a strategic shift towards Asia in order to ally with India and combat China. President Donald Trump continued the tilt last year by reducing U.S. military aid to Pakistan. Trump, like his predecessors, has never forcefully condemned Indian brutality in Kashmir.
I think the United States should commit to genuine neutrality in the India-Pakistan conflict. It could be an honest broker in arranging a referendum in Kashmir and guaranteeing that all parties adhere to its results. It would be a good step forward in replacing military conflict with diplomatic action.
Editor’s note: This article has been edited to correct errors including amount of land under Indian control, and number of deaths in the region since 1989.