Kashmir: A nuclear flash-point

By Amjed Jaaved

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In an editorial, Irish Times lambasted India’s military rule in Kashmir. It called it a `dangerous provocation’.  (<https://ift.tt/30L2E0U)

Sir, Your editorial is corroborated by independent reports in Indian media and historical documents.  Indian Embassy’s His Master’s Voice reply, if anything is whitewash of a gore.

The Embassy says `context and implications of revocation of article 370 of the Indian constitution have not been understood appropriately’. The revocations of `special status ‘has nothing to do with`good governance and promote socio-economic justice and development’. As you observed it is meant to allow Indians from different states (by repealing Article 370 ad 35-A of India’s Constitution) to buy land in Kashmir and get settled there_ obviously to change aged-old democracy of Kashmir land. Could India do so in light of United Nations’ resolutions and Simla Accord? Article 1(ii) of the Simla Accord, inter alia, states `Pending the final settlement of any of the problems between the two countries, neither side shall unilaterally alter the situation and both shall prevent the organization, assistance or encouragement of any acts detrimental to the maintenance of peaceful and harmonious relations. The Embassy’s reply reflects that India regards the disputed state as just any other Indian state. Actually, even Ladakh, now truncated from the Valley, is disputed as part of China. Not only Indian media portrays Narendra Modi as Arjun and Amit Shah as Krishan, characters in Mahabharata. The fanatics regard abrogation of special status as conquest of Hindus against Muslims in a religious yuddha (war). Is annexation of a disputed state not a “deeply provocative” act?

With over eight lac troops on streets, state assembly dissolved, political leaders and workers in jails, indefinite curfews, restrictions even on Eid prayer, is not the state under a martial law?  *

India’s Business Standard reported. `Four prominent activists, who returned after spending five days travelling across the Kashmir Valley [before abrogation], have said the Centre and the state government have turned the region into “a prison under military control” (< https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/kashmir-turned-into-a-prison-under-military-control-say-activists-119081401609_1.html>.). IHK’s prisons being full, prisoners are being shifted to other jails including Agra (India Today August 24, 2019). Agra already had 1950 prisoners as against capacity of 1350 prisoners (NDTV).

Myth of Accession

India’s annexation of Kashmir is based on myths. For over seven decades, India denied Kashmiris’ their right of self-determination. While preparing to do away with veneer of Kashmir’s `accession’ to India, it continued to tell lies. India abolished Kashmir’s special status codified under Article 70 of its constitution on flimsy excuse. India claims that the occupied Kashmir’s constituent assembly had voted for accession of disputed Kashmir to India. As such, it is no longer necessary for her to let the promised plebiscite be held in Kashmir. It shrugs off reality that the constituent assembly cannot oust jurisdiction of the United Nations resolutions and conventions about self-determination (enshrined in UN charter also), signed by India itself.

Accession resolution, passed by the occupied Kashmir’s ‘constituent assembly’ also is void. This resolution violates the Security Council two resolutions to forestall the `foreseeable accession’ by the puppet assembly. They are Security Council’s Resolution No 9 of March 30, 1951 and affirmative Resolution No 122 of March 24, 1957. These resolutions outlaw accession or any other action to change status of the Jammu and Kashmir state.

USA’s stand misreported

India gives the impression that the USA considers the state’s so-called accession as legal. This is not true. On October 28, 1993, Robin Raphel, in her statement, clarified that Washington does not recognise the `Instrument of Accession to India’. In its perception, Kashmir was a disputed territory, not an integral part of India. The future status of the state remained to be determined in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir.

We hear echo of Raphel’s statement in the resolution passed by International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), based in Geneva. The Commission pointed out that the resolution, passed by occupied-Kashmir legislature concerning Kashmir’s accession to India was bogus and null and void.

How Stephen Solarz tried to warp USA’s view:

Extract of Solazrz’s conversation

At India’s behest, US Congressman Stephen Solarz elicited the statement from Bush-administration high-level diplomat, John H. Kelly, that plebiscite was no longer possible in Kashmir.

Here is an extract of Solarz’s grilling questions and the gullible answers thereto.

Mr. Solarz: What is the position of the United States with respect to whether there should be a plebiscite?

Mr. Kelly: First of all we believe that Kashmir is disputed territory…

Mr. Solarz: Well, how did we vote upon that resolution at the U.N. back in 1949?

Mr. Kelly: In favor, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Solarz:  Right. So at that time we favored a plebiscite. Do we still favor a plebiscite, or not? Or is it our position now that whether or not there should be a plebiscite is a matter, which should be determined bilaterally between India and Pakistan?

Mr. Kelly:  Basically, that’s right, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Solarz:  So we are no longer urging a plebiscite be held?

Mr. Kelly:  That’s right.

To India’s chagrin, John R. Mallot, the US State Department’s point man for South Asia in 1993, corrected Kelly’s faux pas. He told the House Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Asia and the Pacific on April 28, 1993 that John Kelly ‘misspoke’ in 1990 when he said that the United States no longer believed a plebiscite was necessary in South Asia. Mallot clarified that Kelly made his comment after ‘continued grilling’ by the panel’s (pro-India) chairman, Stephen J. Solarz of New York.

Voracious readers may refer to Solarz-Kelly conversation and corrective policy action taken by the US State Department in Robert G. Wirsing’s book India, Pakistan, and the Kashmir Dispute, published by Macmillan Press Limited, London in 1994. They may also see Mushtaqur Rehman’s Divided Kashmir: Old Problems, New Opportunities for India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri People (London, Lynne Reinner Publishers, London, 1996, pp. 162-163).

India’s perfidious plebiscite promise

On Nov 2, 1947, Nehru declared in a radio broadcast that the government of India was “prepared, when peace and order have been established in Kashmir, to have a referendum held under international auspices like the United Nations.” I am quoting from Chaudhri Mohammad Ali’s The Emergence of Pakistan. Till 1953, India was, at least verbally, committed to the plebiscite.

 India’s infructuous efforts to get rid of UN mandate

Despite promising a plebiscite, India had been making frantic efforts to warp or wilt the UN resolutions. For instance, during temporary absence of Pakistan’s rep, India tried to get the `India-Pakistan Question’ deleted from the UN agenda.  India based her plea on Security Council’s informal decision, dated July 30, 1996, about deleting dormant questions. The Question was deleted during the Pakistan’s representative’s absence, but was restored to agenda upon his return. India’s efforts to get rid of UN observers failed likewise.

Historian Alastair Lamb lambasts the `instrument’

He regards the Instrument of Accession, ‘signed’ by the maharajah of Kashmir on October 26, 1947, as fraudulent (Kashmir – A disputed legacy 1846-1990). He argues that the maharajah was travelling by road to Jammu (a distance of over 350 km). How could he sign the instrument while being on the run for safety of his life? There is no evidence of any contact between him and the Indian emissaries on October 26, 1947.

Actually, it was on October 27, 1947 that the maharajah was informed by MC Mahajan and VP Menon (who had flown into Srinagar) that an Instrument of Accession is being fabricated in New Delhi. Obviously, the maharajah could not have signed the instrument earlier than October 27, 1947. The instrument remains null and void, even if the maharajah had actually signed it. The reason, as pointed out by Alastair is that the `signatures’ were obtained under coercion. He points out Indian troops had already arrived at and secured Srinagar airfield during the middle of October 1947_ a blatant act of aggression. On October 26, 1947, a further airlift of thousands of Indian troops to Kashmir took place. He questions: “Would the maharajah have signed the Instrument of Accession, had the Indian troops not been on Kashmiri soil?”

From the foregoing, it is evident that the Instrument of Accession does not exist. The `accession’ of the disputed state, through a resolution of the puppet assembly, is null and void. This `resolution’ violates the Security Council’s directive forbidding India to forge unilateral ‘accession’ of the state.

India took the Kashmir issue to the UN in 1948 under article 35 of Chapter VI which outlines the means for a peaceful settlement of disputes. India avoided presenting the Kashmir case under the UN Chapter VII which relates to acts of aggression. Obviously, it did so because it knew that the Kashmir was a disputed state. And, issue of its integration with India or Pakistan remained to be resolved. Now it is Pakistan’s turn to do so, lest the dispute fares up into a nuclear Armageddon.

Does history or documents corroborate India’s stand? No. Following their first war on Kashmir, both India and Pakistan accepted ceasefire from January 1, 1949 under supervision of UN observers. No UN resolution incorporates India’s view that maharajah had acceded to India. There is a United Nations’ resolution that forbids India- occupied Kashmir `assembly’ from acceding to India (authenticating royal accession). The main resolutions on Kashmir are: (a) United Nations’ Commission for India Pakistan Resolution dated August 13, 1948. Para 75 (Serial110) in Part III of this resolution states ` The Government of India and the Government of Pakistan reaffirm their wish that the future status of the State of Jammu and Kashmir shall be determined in accordance with the will of the people and to that end, upon acceptance of the truce agreement, both Governments agree to enter into consultations with the Commission to determine fair and equitable conditions whereby such free expression will be assured. (b) UNCIP Resolution dated January 5, 1949 Para 51 (Serial 1196) states ‘The question of accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite’.

Since both parties agreed to a plebiscite, the question of sanctions never arose. Besides, India approached the United Nations under Chapter VI (Pacific Settlement of Disputes), not Chapter VII (Acts of Aggression).

Nehru’s perfidy on Kashmir now first-ever documented through Nehru’s Papers

Avtar Singh Bhasin in his 2018 book, India, Pakistan: Neighbours at Odds discusses Nehru’s perfidy on Kashmir in Chapter 5 titled Kashmir, India’s Constitution and Nehru’s Vacillation (pages 51-64). At heart, Nehru never cared a fig for the disputed state’s constituent assembly, Indian parliament or the UN. The book is based on Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru and author’s own compendium of documents on India-Pak relations. Let us bare a few facts. Nehru banked on so-called Instrument of Accession and its authentication by `Constituent Assembly’. Later, at a press conference on June 11, 1951 he changed his view. He clarified,  `We have made it perfectly clear that the Constituent Assembly of Kashmir was not meant to decide finally any such question , and it is not in the way of any decision which may ultimate flow from the Security Council proceedings’. He wrote to the disputed State’s prime minister that `after consideration of the problem, we are inclined to think that it [plebiscite] should be held under United Nations’ auspices (p. 28 ibid.). He reiterated in New Delhi on November3, 1951 that `we have made it perfectly clear before the Security Council that the Kashmir Constituent Assembly does not [insofar] as we are concerned come in the way of a decision by the Security Council, or the United Nations’.

He never labeled Pakistan an aggressor. But he told parliament on March 1, 1954 `that “aggression” took place in Kashmir six and a half years ago with dire consequences. Nevertheless the United States have thus far not condemned it and we are asked not to press this point in the interest of peace (Bhasan pp. 55-56).

Bhasin points out that `there was a perceptible shift in his [Nehru’s] stand on July 24 1952` about the future of the State _ if the decision of the Security Council was at variance with that of the Constituent Assembly’. Nehru said, `Unless the Security Council functioned under some other Sections of the Charter, it cannot take a decision which is binding upon us unless we agree to it. They are functioning as mediators and a mediator means getting people to agree (SWJ, Volume 19, page 241).

India: A rogue state

Isn’t it eerie that now the whole architecture of India’s stand on Kashmir is erected on the mythical `instrument of accession’ and its endorsement by the disputed state’s assembly.

Let India know that a state that flouts international treaties is a rogue state: pacta sunt servanda, treaties are to be observed and are binding on parties.

Bill Clinton called Kashmir a nuclear flashpoint. Several writers including Mushtaqur Rehman have elaborated why Kashmir is the most dangerous place in the world (Divided Kashmir: Old Problems, New Opportunities for India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri People, London, Lynne Reinner Publishers, London, 1996, pp. 162-163).

No talks, no mediation. India’s message is loud and clear: ‘snatch away Kashmir from us, if you can’. That is an open invitation to war, perhaps a nuclear Armageddon.

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