In 1988 and 1989 the seeds of a violent insurgency were laid in Kashmir as armed young Kashmiri men began attacks on government officials. India fed the problem by a series of shootings of unarmed demonstrators in early 1990 that left hundreds dead in Srinagar. As more and more Kashmiris were willing to fight against India, Pakistan decided to help out in a major way. The ISI started a program of supporting the insurgency in Kashmir, and support was given mostly to fundamentalist pro-Pakistani groups rather than the more religiously moderate pro-independence Kashmiris. The ISI had a wealth of experience to draw from based on its support of the Afghan Mujahideen, and it was a rather simple thing to redirect that energy towards Kashmir.
As the years wore on, a full-scale insurgency took shape. Over the last decade, somewhere between 30 and 60 thousand Kashmiris, mostly Muslims, have died. The ongoing violation of human rights and repressive rule by India precludes any chance of winning back the “hearts and minds” of the Kashmiris. To suppress this insurgency, India has deployed a large chunk of its army, almost 500,000 men, in Kashmir. The Hindu nationalists running India know little or nothing of Kashmir, but are determined to hold onto it. For some, it is simple pride, for others the fear that letting Kashmir go its own way would open the floodgates for separatist movements in the rest of India, and for the rest a desire not to “let Pakistan win”.
In the last few years, the situation has in many ways gotten worse. No serious negotiations have taken place as India refuses to discuss the issue, either with Pakistan or with the coalition of Kashmiri political groups opposed to India. A Pakistani adventure at Kargil a few years ago did neither side much credit, as India suffered heavy military losses while Pakistan still had to retreat in the end. And the terrible Indian repression keeps Kashmiri resentment and anger at a boil.
Meanwhile, mysterious killings go uninvestigated and India’s rule further loses all credibility. In 1999, Farooq Abdullah, who had been reappointed to be Prime Minister, said that “national interest” kept him from revealing the identity of the killers of 15 Muslim villagers in the mainly Hindu Jammu region. It is also why the Indian government refuses to allow an independent investigation of the massacre of 35 Sikh villagers in March of 2000 as Bill Clinton was in Delhi. Amnesty International has put Indian intelligence agents and irregular paramilitary controlled by India on its list of those likely to be responsible for the killings. Perhaps the goal was to discredit the Kashmiri movement in Clinton’s eyes. We most likely will never know who killed the Sikhs.
One of the farcical aspects of this whole sorry mess is how poor a job the various sides do when they want to frame the other. Five days after the Sikh killing, the Indians claimed to have caught and killed five guerrillas in a gun battle who were responsible for the massacre. The bodies were quickly buried, but were later exhumed and found to have been burned and mutilated, but not shot at, and though their flesh was burned, the military fatigues they were wearing were in excellent condition. The bodies were identified as a local shepherd and a cloth merchant among others. These people had earlier been picked up (kidnapped is a better word) by armed men driving a van that was later seen parked at a police station.
The people of Kashmir should now be heard. Since 1948, India has been under UN Resolutions to hold a plebiscite in which the will of the Kashmiris could be determined democratically, and a solution finally adopted. India has refused, and pretended that a sufficiently heavy hand would turn Kashmiris into loyal Indians. This has been proven false.
Pakistan too needs to realize the limits of the Jihadi strategy. It had the moral high ground and chose to squander it away by pursuing the military option. Pakistan needs to back away from that and return to diplomacy, especially in a nuclear South Asia, where a military adventure can lead to a conflagration. It appears that President Musharraf has decided to implement this with his recent policy shift. (This was the last of three articles on Kashmir). Comments can reach the author at Nali@socal.rr.com.