America’s Kashmir Problem

In February 2019, India and Pakistan almost went to war over terrorist attacks on Indian troops in Kashmir.  The countries are nuclear armed neighbors with ballistic missile capabilities, so any miscalculation could have had profound consequences not only for South Asia but for the world at large.  Yet, most American’s have no idea what Kashmir is.  But they should, since it is one of the basic reasons why we are in Afghanistan, and why Islamic terrorism came to America’s shores.  Kashmir is the reason why Pakistan does not cooperate adequately with the US in the war on fundamentalist Islam.

 

Kashmir is a part, and I repeat a part, of the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).  It is not a homogenous state but is composed of three very different regions. There is the Muslim valley of Kashmir, the desert plateau of Buddhist Ladakh, and the mountains of Hindu Jammu.  History is important here, so allow me to expand on this.

 

When the British, in their infinite wisdom, decided in 1947 to partition Colonial India into India and Pakistan along religious lines, the idea was that Hindu areas would go to India, and Muslim areas would go to Pakistan.  So far so good, with the exception that more than 1 million died in the process, but we won’t let that little bit of detail get in the way of the great legacy of the British Empire.  But we do have to deal with the two other exceptions – the states of Hyderabad and J&K.






Hyderabad had a Muslim ruler and a Hindu population.  The Muslim ruler, the Nizam, decided to join Pakistan, but India’s first Home Minister, Sardar Patel, decided otherwise.  He sent Indian troops, much against the wishes of the wishy-washy Fabian Socialist Prime Minister, Nehru, and secured Hyderabad (now Telangana and Andhra Pradesh) for India.

 

The problem with J&K was the reverse.  It had a Hindu king (Maharaja) and a Muslim population.  The people wanted to join Pakistan (or so Pakistan claimed), but the Maharaja was unsure.  Impatient, Pakistan sent tribal fighters (Rajakars) into J&K to force the Maharaja.  It had the opposite effect, and the Maharaja appealed to India for help.  That help came after he signed away his kingdom.  Once the treaty of accession was signed, Indian troops moved in and kicked out the Rajakars from most, but not all, of Kashmir. A temporary peace treaty was signed between the two newly independent countries.  A line of control (LOC) was established where Pakistan controlled part of J&K (also called Azad Kashmir) and India the rest (still called J&K).
The Pakistanis cried foul.  They claimed that India was having the cake and eating it too by holding onto both Hyderabad and J&K.  They took the case to the UN, where a resolution was passed to hold a free and fair referendum about Kashmir’s future.  More than 72 years later that referendum has not been held.  Indians claim that a referendum cannot be held so long as Pakistan holds on to parts of J&K.  Pakistan won’t give Azad Kashmir back to India hoping that the referendum will be held.

 

So, India and Pakistan have gone to war two times over J&K.  This enmity has been a boon to carnivores and arms merchants, who have played India and Pakistan against each other for their own material gain.  But now the stakes are higher.  The next war between the two countries will be a nuclear one.

 

That does not seem to bother Pakistan.  Having lost the war in 1971 to India, resulting in half the country (East Pakistan) being torn apart as a new country (Bangladesh), it has become desperate, obsessed and vengeful.  After 1971, knowing it could not defeat India militarily it began to craft a new strategy – terrorism.  And the Soviet Union played right into this by invading Afghanistan.  Pakistan’s dictator, Zia Ul Haq, took advantage of this by aligning himself with Ronald Reagan’s determination to defeat the Evil Empire by helping create the Islamic Mujahideen.
Ronald Reagan was fixated on USSR and did not understand that he his cure, in the form of carte blanche and billions of dollars to the Islamic Mujahideen, was worse than the disease.  The long-term implication of this misguided policy was that Islamic fundamentalists, supported by Pakistan, came to power in Afghanistan.  America, and the world, walked away.  Pakistan did not.  It’s spooks the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) soon created another even more fundamentalist group, the Taliban that ultimately won over the country.  That gave the Pakistanis “strategic depth” and the ability to bleed India dry by sponsoring terrorism.  The Jihadis that trained in Azad Kashmir to undertake ‘war by other means’ and the Taliban were born, bread, and nurtured by the same organization and source – the ISI. Their cross-fertilization was perhaps best illustrated by the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane that was taken to Kabul and the passengers freed after India shamefully released Kashmir terrorists.  Mysteriously, the hijackers disappeared.  So far, the ISI’s plan was performing brilliantly, but as the poet Burns said, men’s plans often go wrong.  What went wrong for the ISI was that the Taliban gave sanctuary to Osama Bin Ladin, who was more obsessed with Israel, Palestine and the US than J&K.
We all know what happened next.






Here is the current situation.  US troops are in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is living on borrowed time.  Bin Ladin is dead, and Pakistan is a failing state, with nukes.  But all Pakistan cares about is J&K.  And India cannot give up J&K for if it did, its secular constitution would fall apart, legitimizing the partition, and cementing India as a Hindu country.

 

So, how do we solve the problem of Kashmir?  The US should consider that there are four options and present them to the two belligerent nations.

 

1. Convert the LOC into an international boundary. This would make both countries equally unhappy and won’t solve the problem of Jihadis in Pakistan since both countries have sworn to its citizens to hold onto the whole of J&K, and especially for Pakistan, its enmity with India is its sole rationale for existence.
2. Convert J&K into a mutually administered territory. This concept is steeped in Nehruvian idealism and was ironically propounded by Benazir Bhutto before the Jihadis killed her, is just as impractical as the first one.  Both countries will try everything in their power to take over J&K by stealth, ultimately leading to a full out war.
3. Complete the partition. Accept the fact that the countries were divided along religious lines.  Divide J&K into its three regions, with Kashmir going to Pakistan and Ladakh and Jammu staying with India.  And with the countries now completely divided along religious lines, Muslims in India would have the choice of converting to any Indian religion (Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism) or migrating to Pakistan.  Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists in Pakistan would similarly have to either migrate to India or convert to Islam.
4. Revoke the partition and accept that it was a British blunder for which both countries have paid a dear price. This is the most difficult, given the brainwashing that has gone on for 72 years with very deep hatreds.  But the only option of lasting peace.






India does not like any external interference in Kashmir but interfere America must.  Without a solution, Islamic terrorism will continue to flourish and with ISIS gaining a foothold, it will affect America very directly.  Without a solution, a nuclear conflagration is only a matter of time.  Too much is at stake.  Will any American President understand or listen?