Interacting with BSF jawans in Samba in the course of his one-day visit to the State that included aerial view of the vulnerable border line, the Home Minister made some forthright statements on Kashmir. “Kashmir is ours” and “third party has no business to interfere in Kashmir” etc. For some months in the past, situation on the LoC and IB has been growing tense. Incidents of jihadis trying to infiltrate into our side are at a rise, and the ceasefire agreement of 2003 seems to be thrown to winds. This is despite the two prime ministers agreeing to direct their DGMOs to work towards de-escalation of tension and restoration of cease fire. As things are opening up, there are more convincing reports that the jihadi groups especially of Lashkar-i-Toiba of Hafiz Saeed and the resurged Al Badr and some more of them, having been specially trained and equipped by ISI, are making frantic adventure of sending in more fidayeen to create disorder in the State. Both LeT and Al Badr have been banned by the US as terrorist groups.
Growing tension on the border owing of recurrent bids of infiltration, unprovoked firing and shelling that takes tool of civilian lives and property, besides inflicting injuries or fatalities on our security personnel, clouded the New York meeting between the two Prime Ministers. Dr. Manmohan Singh told Nawaz Sharif that a meaningful dialogue could continue only if the conditions on ground were conducive. What we find on the ground today, does not, in any way, prove that Pakistani Prime Minister is sincerely interested in restoring normal relations between the two countries. We did support the meeting of the two prime ministers in New York; we did agree to the opinion that a chance is given to Nawaz Sharif to try his hand at restoration of normalcy and we did understand that the army in Pakistan was out to destabilize Pakistan’s democratically elected Government. Since we want that democracy should stabilize in that country, we were prepared to lend indirect support to the elected Government. But all this has a limit and cannot be an open offer for all times. If Nawaz Sharif is not able to mend fences with the Army, ISI and jihadi organizations, he should not expect India to fight his battle.
By appealing to President Obama for intervention in Kashmir, he might be pandering to the lurking wishful of his detractors and political opponents as well as the jihadi. But it has to be made clear that we can go along only to a certain length and not beyond. Wherever our national interests are involved, we shall first and foremost defend these and then think of how best we can lend support to others. By making an appeal to President Obama, Nawaz Sharif has proved that he is not prepared to abide by the Shimla Agreement, which categorically suggests that Kashmir is a bilateral issue. This is precisely what Obama administration has reiterated. Secondly what is it that he wants Obama to intervene for in Kashmir? The Kashmir issue is the illegal occupation by Pakistan of a part of the original State of Jammu and Kashmir, which legally acceded to the Indian Union on 26 October 1947. Furthermore, Pakistan ceding more than 5,000 kilometres of the territory of the original State of Jammu and Kashmir to China is another important part of the issue. A forceful non-violent movement for liberation of Gilgit-Baltistan and PoK has been raging in those areas for some decades. Shocking stories of oppression and suppression of the people under Pakistani occupation are told by the local leadership that has sought asylum in western countries. Not only that, when Pervez Musharraf was the Corps Commander of Northern Areas, he brought about demographic change in Gilgit by settling Sunni population from Chitral and North Waziristan areas and in turn reduced the population of indigenous Shias of Gilgit and |Baltistan to a minority. Senior and important administrative and police posts are denied to the local and are given to the Punjabis. Likewise, major business concerns, contracts and other economy generating enterprises are all given in the hands of Punjabis. As if all these deprivations were not enough to level the indigenous people of Gilgit and Baltistan, Pakistan, in collusion with China, and after constructing the Karakorum Highway, has now deployed large number of PLA under the rubric of skilled labourers in the area under the plea of raising infrastructure for development.
The fact of the matter is that China is silently engaged in building up defence establishments in the entire area and is pressing on both Pakistan and Afghanistan to allow her construction of road and rail link to Kabul via the Wakhan corridor. This is a strategic move and has international strategic implications. In order to secure the Karakorum Highway, the proposed railway link and military installations along this Highway that target Indian territories and cities, both Pakistan and China are planning to wrest Kashmir from the hands of India. This is at the root of Chinese meddling with border in Ladakh, Pakistan violating LoC agreement and other similar acts. Nawaz Sharif is day-dreaming to get Kashmir through the intervention of the US and then make the path smooth for China in this entire region including Waziristan since China has been demanding Pakistan to give her a military foothold in Waziristan in retaliation to the American intervention there.
Thus we see that China and Pakistan are jointly building up pressure on India on Kashmir, and want to drag in the US as well in this fray. However, the unanimous rejection of the idea of American intervention by the entire India nation re-confirms our resolve not to succumb to any sabotage. It infuses urge in us to plan in collaboration with the freedom fighters in PoK including GB for retaking the illegally occupied part of Kashmir. This is a resolve made by a thousand million Indians way back in 1994 through a unanimous parliamentary resolution.
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