Speaking before a Georgetown University audience, Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, the executive director of the Kashmiri American Council stated: “October 27th, 1948, is forever scarred in the collective minds of the Kashmiri people as the day they became occupied.”
Referring to the date as the “Black Day”, Dr. Fai reminded the gathering that it marked the beginning of Indian occupation of the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and spoke of how it is an affront to freedom and justice and a challenge to honorable people throughout the world.
Dr. Fai highlighted the extent of injustice, tyranny and inhumanity of the Indian military in its occupation of Kashmir. He continued: “At this moment in our historic struggle for self-determination, the Kashmiri people with poise, confidence and unity are taking their inalienable struggle in a new direction of nonviolence and peaceful agitation.” He described it as a struggle “receiving massive international support.”
Dr. Fai stated that the “historical conflict began in 1846 with the illegal, immoral and inhumane sale of the historic state of Jammu and Kashmir to a non-Kashmiri Dogra family for services rendered to the British Raj. From that point onward, Kashmiris have longed for self-determination. Yet, tragically, their legitimate aspirations were crushed with the grotesque, irregular and illegal ascension by the brutal foreign ruler Maharaja Hari Singh who did not have the consent of the people. With the arrival of Indian soldiers the historic Black Day of occupation began its most recent and insidious manifestation.”
Historically, the Kashmir dispute is a fallout of the partition of India. The Muslim-majority parts of British India became Pakistan, and the Hindu-majority regions became the Dominion of India. There were, at that time, some 575 princely states in India under indirect British rule. Lord Mountbatten, the last British viceroy, gave them the choice of joining either India or Pakistan, and instructed that their choice must be guided by the religious composition of their populace as well as by the borders they might share with either India or Pakistan. More than 85 percent of the population of the state of Kashmir at that time were Muslims; the major rivers in the state flowed into Pakistan; the state shared a border of over 750 kilometers with Pakistan; the only road connecting Kashmir with the outside world throughout the year passed from Srinagar to Rawalpindi; and the majority of the people of the state had cultural and historical ties with the people of Pakistan. So it was a natural assumption that the area would accede to Pakistan.
On Oct. 26, 1947, the Hindu ruler of Kashmir said his Muslim-majority kingdom would accede to India and not join newly created Islamic Pakistan. Kashmir has since been claimed by both India and Pakistan, and roiled with violence, involving Indian troops and Muslim militants. So far some 90,000 lives have been lost in the struggle for freedom.
India itself took the issue of Kashmir to the United Nations, which passed some 18 resolutions related to Kashmir, recognizing the status of the state as disputed and calling for a resolution of the conflict based on the will of the people of the state, which the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru publicly promised. Today, all that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are saying is that India should live up to this promise that it made of holding a plebiscite in accordance with the UN resolutions.
Voices in India today are calling for the same. A Hindustan Times survey late last year discovered that 87 percent of the Kashmiris want azadi (freedom). Swaminathan Aiyar of The Times of India wrote in one of his columns: “We promised Kashmiris a plebiscite six decades ago. Let us hold one now.” And Vir Sanghvi of The Hindustan Times stated, “So, here’s my question: Why are we still hanging on to Kashmir if the Kashmiris don’t want to have anything to do with us?”
So what do the people of Kashmir want? The right to self-determination is a fundamental human right and is highly valued in all societies. Kashmiris demand this right as guaranteed to them under the Security Council resolutions. Although a majority of them have expressed a preference for Pakistan, the UN resolutions calling for a plebiscite must be honored. Both India and Pakistan have much to gain if there is peace, stability and economic cooperation in South Asia. Economic interests and other internal and external forces are pushing both countries toward a common goal and that is to have peace and economic cooperation.
Whether the Kashmiris choose to align themselves with Pakistan or India should be best left to them to decide.
