The people of Jammu and Kashmir, who are larger in number than 123 currently independent nations and who have a defined historical identity, are at present engaged in a massive, indigenous and non violent struggle to win their freedom from the foreign occupation of their land. This struggle is not motivated by bigotry or ethnic prejudice, for its sole aim is the right of self-determination of the people, irrespective of their religious affiliations and ethnic preferences.
The applicability of the principle of self-determination to the specific case of Jammu and Kashmir has been explicitly recognized by the United Nations. It was upheld equally by India and Pakistan when the Kashmir dispute was brought before the Security Council. Since, on the establishment of India and Pakistan as sovereign states, Jammu and Kashmir was not part of the territory of either, the two countries entered into an agreement to allow its people to exercise their right of self-determination under impartial auspices and in conditions free from coercion from either side. The agreement is embodied in the resolutions of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan explicitly accepted by both Governments. It is binding on both Governments and no allegation of non-performance of any of its provisions by either side can render it inoperative.
There is only one standing argument against an independent status for Kashmir. It is being contended that the emergence of another sovereign entity in the sub-continent would encourage secessionist tendencies in both India and Pakistan and lead to a collapse of their existing federal structures. The argument may be based on genuine fear or it may be only a stratagem to avoid a just solution of the Kashmir dispute; in either case, it can be faced rationally. When so faced, it proves to be untenable because it ignores two vital considerations.
The first is related to the sui generis nature of the question regarding the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. All the former provinces, states or territories which today are included in India or in Pakistan became legally parts of one or the other through a process which harmonized with the expressed will of their people; none was dragged into a union against its wishes. Kashmir is the sole exception. Among all the territories known collectively as India under British rule, Kashmir is the only one which was never provided the opportunity to decide its own status or affiliation. What, therefore, applies to Kashmir does not apply to, for example, Assam or Tamil Nadu in India or to Sind or Baluchistan in Pakistan. This is also plain from the fact that both India and Pakistan solemnly accepted an international obligation regarding Kashmir which neither as a sovereign state would accept regarding any of its constituent units — the obligation to withdraw their forces from the territory. The demilitarization of Kashmir, which is the first demand of the people of Kashmir and to which both India and Pakistan are committed legally and morally does not, therefore, mean secession and cannot encourage separation either. Kashmir cannot be regarded to have seceded from what it never acceded to in the first place.
The second consideration which the argument ignores is that Kashmir can emerge as independent in the context of the implementation of an international agreement to which both India and Pakistan are parties. By removing the perennial cause of conflict between them, by establishing their relations on the firm basis of good-neighborliness and cooperation in facing their common problems, by giving to each a recognized frontier, the process would encourage their mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and strengthen their internal cohesion. Only reliable conditions of peace and not annexationism constitute an effective safeguard against disintegration.
Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai
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