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Pak
policies, illogical & self-defeating
Yashwant
Sinha
In
international politics, it is said that no
country can escape the reality of the geography that surrounds them.
One can change friends but not neighbours. However, I often wonder
how many nations in the world have had the misfortunate of having to
live and deal with a neighbour like Pakistan which seeks to project
its raison d’etre on the basis of hostility towards India. Our
neighbour’s efforts to sponsor terrorism, fan fundamentalism and
promote secession came to a complete naught in Punjab.
Normally, this debacle should have induced Pakistan to give up such
efforts and accept the inevitability and advantages of peaceful
co-existence with India. However, what Pakistan has chosen to do
instead is to turn its targets onto the hapless people of the state
of Jammu and Kashmir as well as other parts of India.
I refer here, in particular to Pakistan’s designs over the Indian
state of Jammu and Kashmir. As this Convocation Address is being
delivered in a state which neighbours Pakistan and which in the
recent past experienced a situation similar to what J&K is
currently going through, I propose to focus today on the so - called
‘Issue of Jammu & Kashmir’ that our neighbour constantly
talks about.
As a result of the passage of time, not everyone is fully aware of
the truth behind the propaganda that Pakistan indulges in. It is
important that facts relating to the matter are clarified and widely
disseminated, especially, amongst young people like you on whom lies
the responsibility for building the future not just for India but
our entire region and the world.
Friends, the first point to understand and remember is the fact that
the accession of Jammu & Kashmir to the Union of India in 1947
was entirely lawful and in full accordance with provisions of the
relevant laws which governed integration of princely states with the
Indian Union as well as with Pakistan, namely, the Government of
India Act of 1935 and the Independence of India Act of 1947.
The accession of Jammu and Kashmir is total and irrevocable. Neither
in international law nor under the two laws that I have referred to
above, is there any provision for a ‘conditional’ accession.
With the acceptance by India of the Instrument of Accession signed
by the ruler of the State of Jammu & Kashmir, the act of
accession was complete. The state of Jammu and Kashmir is therefore
an integral and inalienable part of India.
Pakistan has always coveted and continues to covet Jammu &
Kashmir. When it saw that it could not obtain the State of Jammu
& Kashmir by legal means, Pakistan’s response was to try and
seize it by force. In October 1947, Pakistan initially sent tribal
invaders into J&K and then, followed it up with regular troops.
The presence of these troops was even publicly acknowledged by
Pakistan in May 1948. Faced with an act of such blatant aggression,
it was India which decided in January 1948 to take the matter to the
United Nations. There are those who argue that this decision was a
big mistake. This is however an issue for historians to debate. My
point here is that the roots of India-Pakistan differences over
J&K derive from this act of aggression. India’s goal in
referring the matter to the U.N. was to bring to the attention of
the international community this act of aggression by Pakistan and
its quest was to have U.N. play its role in putting an end to this
aggression.
Many of you would have noticed that despite overwhelming evidence of
Pakistani sponsorship of cross- border terrorism, the Government and
leaders of Pakistan continue to make public claims that no such
thing is taking place. Deception and falsehoods of this nature is
something Pakistan has engaged in right from the time of its
independence. The tribal invaders who launched the above aggression
were fed, clothed, armed, equipped and transported to J&K with
the direct help and assistance of Pakistan Government. But, Pakistan
kept claiming in public that it was not in any way assisting these invaders. The UN sponsored mediator
Owen Dixon did not however fail to see through this ruse. On
September 15, 1950, he clearly recorded that the crossing of the
J&K frontier by hostile elements was “contrary to
international law”. He said “and that when, in May 1948 as I
believe, units of the regular Pakistan forces moved into the
territory of the state, that too was inconsistent with international
law.” He further proposed that “the first step in
demilitarization should consist in the withdrawal of the Pakistan
Regular forces”. Sadly, such a withdrawal is still to
happen.
Pakistan whines day in and day out that India has failed to
implement U.N. Resolutions. It accuses India of not conducting the
plebiscite promised by these resolutions and of denying the people
of Jammu and Kashmir their right to Self-Determination. Let us take
a look at these U.N. Resolutions and what exactly they talk about.
The United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (in short,
UNCIP) Resolution I of August 13, 1948 and UNCIP Resolution II of
January 5, 1949 are two resolutions which were most important in
this regard. Under these resolutions, a three - step formula was
agreed to by both India and Pakistan with a ceasefire, a truce
agreement, and plebiscite - to be implemented in sequential order.
Immediately after adoption of these Resolutions, India made it clear
that full implementation of UN resolutions would be conditional upon
Pakistan fulfilling Parts (I) & (II) of the UNCIP Resolution I
of August 13, 1948, which inter alia, required that Pakistan
withdraw its troops and endeavour to secure the withdrawal of
tribesmen and Pak nationals from J&K. India’s acceptance of
UNCIP resolutions was further subject to several conditions and
assurances given by UNCIP such as that Pakistan would be excluded
from all affairs of J&K, the so-called “Azad J&K
Government” would not be recognized; sovereignty of J&K
Government over the entire territory of the State shall not be
brought into question; territory occupied by Pakistan shall not be
consolidated and Pakistani troops would be withdrawn completely.
Till today, neither the conditions nor the assurances have been
fulfilled by Pakistan. The Government of Pakistan by failing to
implement Parts I and II of the UNCIP resolution thus wrecked any
possibility of a plebiscite being held in J&K. Further, instead
of withdrawing Pakistani troops and other nationals from
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as called for by these resolutions,
Pakistan introduced huge quantities of military equipment and armed
forces into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. It also encouraged
demographic changes in the area by permitting generations of non-Kashmiris
to take residence.
After waiting for over two years for Pakistan to fulfill the
pre-conditions mentioned above, the people of Jammu and Kashmir felt
that they could not wait indefinitely to decide their future. A
Constituent Assembly was therefore convened in 1951. This Assembly
reaffirmed in 1956 the accession of the state to India and finalised
the Constitution for the State. The Jammu and Kashmir Constitution
reaffirms that “the State is and shall be an integral part of the
Union of India” and the people of J&K have since, in exercise
of their democratic rights voted in successive national and state
level elections with the most recent being the elections to the
J&K Legislative Assembly held in September-October 2002. There
were also many subsequent developments that constituted a material
change in the situation rendering the UN Resolutions irrelevant and
incapable of implementation.
In the above context, let me also point out that India and Pakistan
agreed in 1972 under the Shimla Accord to resolve all issues
including Jammu and Kashmir bilaterally. The Shimla Accord, a
bilateral agreement, provides the framework for the India-Pakistan
relationship today and supercedes previous arrangements.. And,
should agreements as sacrosanct as the Shimla Accord and the Lahore
Declaration come under challenge, then all treaties between the two
countries will automatically also come under question.
Let me now turn to the charge that India is denying the people of
Jammu and Kashmir their right to Self-Determination. At the outset
itself, I would like to state that it is completely ridiculous that
a country which is currently a military dictatorship, which has been
under military rule for almost half its existence and whose ruler
deposed an elected Prime Minister and forced him into exile chooses
to accuse India - the largest democracy in the world - of denying to
its people their right to Self Determination. Pakistan should first
provide its own people with the right to Self-Determination before
it seeks to sermonize others.
Self Determination is one of the fundamental principles of
international law. The majority of the membership of United Nations
comprises countries which regained this right after long periods of
colonial rule. Given India’s long experience with colonial rule,
it has always been committed to the right of peoples under colonial
subjugation to freely determine their political status and pursue
their economic, social and cultural development.
However, what Pakistan seeks to do is to distort this important
right and misuse it for political ends. In today’s context, this
is an endeavour doomed to failure. Pakistan’s own people have
remained deprived of their democratic rights for most of its history
and it has ruled the part of Jammu and Kashmir occupied by it
illegally as a virtual colony. Pakistan’s championing of the cause
of Self-Determination has been therefore nothing but a crude attempt
to bolster its agenda of territorial aggrandizement through
terrorism against India.
The whole world accepts the fact that the period of colonial
domination and de-colonization is now long over. We live in an age
of democracy, pluralism and multi – culturalism. As a result of
globalization and the increased movement of people across borders,
more and more societies in the world are becoming multi-ethnic,
multi-religious and multi –racial. India, of course has been so
for centuries and since independence has enriched and strengthened
her diversity even further.
The essence of Self-Determination, in relation to States that are
independent, is the regular exercise of democratic choice. Human
dignity, freedom, justice, tolerance and plurality are based on the
full and equal participation in governance of every citizen in an
open democracy. It is wrong to interpret Self-Determination as a
right which permits every sub unit that constitutes such a state to
secede and seek independence from the rest. If this was indeed the
case, then no multi-ethnic state could survive in the world. Every
one of them would be torn apart by secessionist movements. In
Pakistan itself, Baluchistan, Sindh and North West Frontier Province
have at various times sought arrangements different from what exists
today.
India, in particular, is a political laboratory where there has been
a wide variety of experiments in federal power sharing over the last
fifty-five years. There are different models in place across the
country. For J&K, there has always been a special status
provided through Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.
Pakistan’s advocacy of Self-Determination for Jammu and Kashmir is
therefore nothing but a cover for its territorial ambitions.
It is with the specific intention of preventing misuse of the right
to Self Determination for political ends that the Vienna Declaration
and Programme of Action adopted at the World Conference on Human
Rights in 1993 re-emphasized that the right to Self-Determination is
not to be construed as either authorizing or encouraging any action
both internally generated or externally sponsored which could
dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity
or political unity of sovereign and independent states.
In the world of pluralistic societies that we live in today and
particularly so, in democracies such as India where Governments
frequently change through periodic, free and fair elections; where
there exists Constitutional rule; a free press; independent
judiciary etc., the right to Self-Determination for particular
regions or groups of people within the country can only mean
internal self-governance within the overall constitutional
framework. There are in fact scholars who contend that the time has
now come for the concept of Self-Determination to give way to the
idea of ‘Joint Determination’, which is what India has been
practicing since independence.
In this connection, let me also point out how ludicrous is
Pakistan’s talk of Self-Determination in the context of the
policies it pursues vis-à-vis Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The
territories of J&K illegally occupied by Pakistan are not only
extremely poor but also singularly lacking in political rights.
Pakistan maintains a fig leaf of a so-called “AJK Government”
headed by a “Prime Minister” with very limited executive powers.
The reality however is that the Government of Pakistan maintains
direct and complete hold on the so-called “AJK” through the
“AJK Council”, a large number of whose members are non-Kashmiris.
There have never been free and fair elections in Pakistan Occupied
Kashmir and the ruling parties in Pakistan have repeatedly
manipulated results in favour of its allies, ensuring the
subservience of local political leadership.
In the Pakistani version of Self Determination that POK enjoys,
there can be no questioning of the occupation by force of these
territories by Pakistan. For example, Part 2 of Section 7 of the POK
Constitution states: "No person or political party in Azad
Jammu and Kashmir shall be permitted to propagate against or take
part in activities prejudicial or detrimental to the ideology of the
State’s accession to Pakistan". Under the POK Legislative
Assembly Election Ordinance of 1970, any person propagating any
opinion or action in any manner prejudicial to the ideology of
Pakistan, the ideology of POK's accession to Pakistan, or the
sovereignty and integrity of Pakistan can be disqualified. The same
caveat also applies to anyone who "defames or brings into
ridicule the Armed Forces of Pakistan". As a result of this
Ordinance, in the 1996 and 2001 elections in POK, parties and
candidates who wished to participate on the platform of independence
and refused to sign a declaration accepting POK’s accession to
Pakistan were denied the right to field candidates.
Residents of the sparsely populated and ethnically and
linguistically diverse so-called "Northern Areas" are even
more deprived of political rights. Northern Areas have no legal
status. It is treated neither as a province of Pakistan nor a part
of the so-called "Azad Kashmir". The people of that area
are ruled directly from Islamabad through a Northern Areas Council
that is de facto headed by Pakistan’s Minister for Kashmir
Affairs. An Islamabad-appointed Chief Executive (normally a retired
Pakistani military officer) is the local administrative head and the
Northern Areas Council meets only when Pakistan’s Minister for
Kashmir Affairs convenes it.
Consequent to these policies, there has been widespread discontent
amongst the people of these so-called Northern Areas. Many political
groups have had no option but to remain underground since any overt
organizing or expression of political will is not permitted. Even
peaceful protests have led to arbitrary arrests and long jail terms.
Demonstrations by students in Gilgit struggling against high
unemployment have been crushed and there have been many reports of
brutal suppression of dissenting voices. For a country which
indulges in such gross violations of human rights, to talk of
Self-Determination is nothing but the height of hypocrisy.
India bears no ill will whatsoever towards the people of Pakistan.
We have always stretched out our hands in friendship towards
Pakistan. Prime Minister Vajpayee had no hesitation in proclaiming
from the Minar-e-Pakistan during his visit to Lahore in February
1999 that a stable, secure and prosperous Pakistan was in India’s
interest. But what we have received in return from Pakistan is
aggression and proxy war. Pakistan’s policy of sponsoring
cross-border terrorism is nothing but an effort to unilaterally
alter the status quo on the ground and try to undermine India’s
secular fabric.
India has always been willing to discuss the issue of J&K with
Pakistan. But, Pakistan seeks parity with India in terms of ‘locus
standi’ in Kashmir. Pakistan is the aggressor. It cannot have
parity with India. Pakistan is in illegal occupation of a part of
the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The only issue that remains to
be resolved is therefore the question pertaining to this illegal
occupation and domination of the people of this area by the military
establishment based in Rawalpindi, which derives its justification
for disproportionate perks and privileges, and avoiding
accountability, through manufactured causes and mythical enemies.
The priority for the people of India as well as Pakistan is economic
development and elimination of poverty. This is the most important
task that both nations face. If Pakistan would permit economic
linkages and greater people to people contacts between our two
countries, both our countries would benefit. It is absolutely tragic
that Pakistan’s policies towards India are based on hatred and
compulsive hostility. Unfortunately, the complete domination of
Pakistan’s politics and economy by the military prevents choice of
policies that would respond to popular needs and aspirations. If
only Pakistan would be willing to shed hostility and stop using
terrorism as an instrument of national policy, there can still be a
new dawn in our relationship.
Pakistan’s policies towards India have been illogical and
self-defeating. But, I am certain that this situation cannot last
for ever. Pakistan will have to change. It cannot remain forever on
the wrong side of history. The military in Pakistan cannot
suppress the yearnings of its people for a better and more normal
life indefinitely.
Excerpts from a
speech made by the Minister of External Affairs on March 15, 2003 at
Punjabi University, Patiala
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