Jammu and Kashmir: Proxy war and ethnic cleansing

I have been thinking since long time to write about the place once being recognised as paradise of India, its strategic importance in Indian foreign policies and brief study on political issues plaguing the region. The subject has multi dimensional facets with never ending complexity to create tallest hurdles in the path of peace for the people who most of the time felt betrayed by very entity controlling the situation including Government of India. Out of many critical issues surrounding the problem two occupy most important positions are proxy war started in early 90s and ethnic cleansing just after some time when proxy war proved ineffective in attaining the goal. However as you see in any of the war torn areas of the world, Jammu and Kashmir without any exception, had people suffering as never before to struggle and earn the daily bread than it used to be. The youth found themselves in the door steps of unemployment just as the same time state couldn’t attract any investments from public and private sectors. The children and teens couldn’t get any education from crippled education system resulting in people unable to understand the situation they are in thus being victim of “brainwashers” and losing the pace with self development compared to rest of the country. Well, as expected, condition of such a State, none other than a total halt in political, economical, social and industrial development resulting in overall failure. Let us try to analyse the situations under which a renowned and most familiar paradise on tip of India became a living hell not only for the people of Jammu and Kashmir also for whole India. I shall, in below explanation, try unfolding the history and trail of errors and political reasons responsible for the problem whole of South Asian region facing today as I understand and put forward a analytical study in best of my knowledge.

Jammu and Kashmir as gifted by Mother Nature lies on foothills of Himalaya Mountains giving it a most beautiful landscapes and picturesque natural land surrounded by web of canals. The cold weather in the region with abundant rain created a bed of green pasture covered with beautiful flowers of all kinds in the valley as well as other region. People in Jammu and Kashmir had a blend of mixed religion with Muslims more concentrated in Kashmir valley, Hindus and Sikhs in Jammu region, were living harmoniously just as other parts of secular India. There were minority Kashmiri Pandits and Sikhs living among majority Muslims in the valley though the culture was totally different from each other including the religious practice. As usual the cold Jammu and Kashmir region was considered as Hill station relaxation centre for the rest of India where temperature in summer could sore up to 40 degree Celsius. So the region became the perfect tourist place and tourism has become the main industry for people for earning daily bread. Different service sectors sprung up to provide satisfactory requisites to the tourists creating thousands of jobs in tourism sector for the locals. House boats and Shikaras became the unique and famous part of Jammu and Kashmir culture thus creating an identity across various tourist spots. The point is; people of Jammu and Kashmir were proud of the geographical location they were living in, which is tip of India and had learnt to serve the needs of tourists from all over India and abroad of various religion and culture creating a peaceful and secular society thus building unique Paradise on earth.

Let us look back at the time before the independence of India during the Maharaja reins and British ruling India with iron fists with less power to the common man. Traditionally the people of Jammu and Kashmir were very hard working predominantly in farming, peace loving and religious in nature whatever the faiths being followed by them. As I described earlier people were living very harmoniously under the Hindu Maharaja ruling the Jammu and Kashmir. However when major political movement was started in North West of India lead by Mr. Mohammed Ali Jinnah for the so called Muslim cause, there were few strains showed by majority Muslims of the state. Initially the problems were related mainly to financial issues which didn’t take long time to get the religious colour with the biased questions raised on a Hindu Maharaja ruling a Muslim majority state. However Maharaja was resourceful enough to tackle the problems with the help of British forces guarding the security of Maharaja and his people. The reason behind the security provided by the British forces to any Princes in India is of very interesting but not in the scope of this article. The agitation of majority Muslims continued until British left India leaving the new land ‘Pakistan’ issue to solve between Congress and Muslim league. Congress leaders took the stand of separate land for Muslims though the policy of secularism is high in the agenda of it in newly independent country. The events like ‘Direct action day’ call of Mr. Jinnah gave people a reason for securing the land for Muslims in the North West of India and in east in the name of East Pakistan. I think that was the biggest mistake ever committed by the Congress and Muslim league leaders who should bear the responsibility for problems in Jammu and Kashmir in years to come. The idea of division itself was an unwise and hasty thought considering the minority problems in both the parts. It would be impossible task to migrate the minority communities from both the countries considering the imprudent idea of Pakistan for Muslims and India for Hindus as well as other religious communities. However, number of ‘Direct Action Day(s)’, a kind of civil war managed to create carnage in both sides of country leaving behind the problems to solve for next many generations in both the countries. However, Indian administration decided to create a secular country which made sense, asked all Muslims staying in Indian region to live as they are. The partition obviously had a tremendous effect in the Muslim majority regions of Jammu and Kashmir as well. Maharaja tried his best to contain the problem but when the miscreants created havoc in the region, he helplessly asked Indian military for a help. Indian administration mainly lead by Congress leaders (handled by home mister Mr. Vallabh Bhai Patel) took the opportunity and tried an intelligent pact with Maharaja that if he is willing to join his hands with Indian administration by joining his region with the Republic of India the military will be sent to save his public and himself. Maharaja having no choice in front of him took the help of Indian army to push back the attackers trying to occupy the region from North West Frontier Province. But it was too late and one third of hilly region was already occupied by the miscreants in the name of Pakistan. But military had the ability to regain the region occupied but the first Prime Minster of Republic of India Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru took the decision of handing over the case to United Nations which I think mainly because of gaining the support of all nations in the world for newly created, democratic and secular ‘NEW’ India which was another mistake of typical Congress leader.

Islamic state of Pakistan on the other hand failed to produce secular and democratic society and came under the rule of army generals for most of her tenure after independence from British. The army generals just for the sake of gaining the public popularity kept the fire of hatred burning between two countries and state of Jammu and Kashmir became the pawn in the hands of generals who were in true sense gamblers in disguise. There were enough communal violence between Muslims and Hindus, Sikhs in the region of North West India created a permanent scar in the minds of people not only in that region but all over the countries of India and Pakistan. Some one had to pay the price for the game being played by army generals and of course did public of Pakistan and citizens of Jammu & Kashmir, former waiting for the never lasting democratic rule. The paradise state was not the first target of Pakistan until late 80’s till then there were already two wars fought between India and Pakistan where, in one of the war India managed to separate East Pakistan to be renamed as BanglaDesh. Losing East Pakistan was painful blow for Pakistan’s will to keep the separate regions as single state which made them more determined to occupy the land of Jammu and Kashmir by any means. However, in appropriate time Pakistan had realised the ground realities to clearly identify the capabilities of its forces which could never be better than the mighty Indian army. Army generals of Pakistan wanted to keep hatred alive at any conditions made use of its intelligence wing ISI to produce an army within the Indian region. It was not very difficult for ISI to create militia hating Indian Government in Jammu and Kashmir by brainwashing the agitated youth against the Indian administration. The youth easily fell prey for the game played by ISI and started to create mayhem in the paradise by terrorising the people and Indian army. The youth militia continued the war game started and funded by ISI and other terror organisations that had their own vested interest in keeping the fire of hatred burning against the Indian administration. Thus Pakistan successfully started the proxy war against India in its own territory by raising her own citizens against. Proxy war is a fight involving visibility of single party fighting against the group of guerrilla cells backed secretly by another party for its own interest. In this context visible party is Government of India and secret party is the army of Pakistan governing the troubled state ruled most of the years by army except few years of democratically elected representatives. India, standing tall on the secular grounds, never bent against the demands of militia who wanted a separate country for Kashmir with majority Muslims in the region thinking Pakistan would donate the azad Kashmir to create a unified Kashmir. Indian military never allowed terror militia to succeed completely by curbing their strength at opportune moments and hence maintained the authority of the Jammu and Kashmir with Indian administration thus destroying the intention of Pakistan army and its intelligence agency ISI. However the state of Pakistan continued its support for the terror militia in the desire that one day an army within India shall separate the paradise from India.

It was matter of time, terror organisations were about to change the geo political situations of the world where in governments of all countries would fight against the global terror and people following Islamic faith were put under tremendous pressure to choose between the loyalty towards Islam and tolerance amongst the people following various faiths to create a secular society. It was not late before global terror organisation took complete control of the terror militia in Kashmir in the name of complete autonomy for Kashmiris for those following the Islamic faith to create an Islamic state. ISI started coordinating its supply of weapons, ammunitions and intelligence through terror organisations as well as youth militia of Kashmir thus forming an unbreakable bonding between itself, terror organisations and youth militia of Kashmir. Lack of leadership in youth militia made them slowly converting the terror style from freedom fighting guerrilla warfare to Islamic Jehad through the supporting global terror organisations; making Kashmiri youth just puppets in the hands of those master minds creating terror all over the world, in the name of Islam, hence slowly but steadily changing the phase of war in paradise altogether making life more dangerous in the valley.

As expected Proxy war though a nuisance to administration, couldn’t create required effect in attaining the aim; hence with the help of Islamic militants more effective method for gaining the land was put in practice. Through previous experience of forced migration of minorities during the partition which created a total Islamic state and also with the fundamental intolerance practiced by Jehadi elements, Youth militia were forced to go again for the similar tactics in valley as a next stage of terror. Idea seems to make Kashmir total Islamic region as a first step before trying the creation of independent state of Kashmir or inclusion of Kashmir region with the neighbouring Pakistan. Influenced by Jehadis from Pakistan and Afghanistan, youth militia in Kashmir started organised massacre of Sikh and Pandit communities just to make minorities flee the region; thus starting a unbelievable and terrible process of ethnic cleansing. Tens and thousands of minority public had to leave everything behind in their motherland and went in to camps set up by the Government of India to save themselves and their family from cruel militia. These camps bulged with more and more people in time, deteriorating the conditions inside the camp and made that atmosphere hazardous for the health of children, already facing malnutrition, and aged. Men and women faced all kinds of problems like work, food, health and what not, which made them losing all hope for the future. Nothing was worst for those people than forcing into a condition where they had to leave the home, land and wealth and live in a condition of hell without a promising future for themselves and their future generations. That was the cruelty showed by ethnic cleansing in the region which continued for quite some time before Government opened the eyes and allotted more troops to contain the situation. At this point of time BSF (border security force) guarding the minorities to make sure ethnic cleansing completely removed from the roots and they are quite successful in doing so. That step was important from the Government point of view as it has maintained the secular status since the beginning which doesn’t allow division of society based on the religion at first instance. It secured the high ground stance for Indian foreign ministry in the United Nations where most of the powerful countries are democratic and secular in nature thus weaving a web of suspicion around the Pakistan for not doing enough to secure peace in the region of Jammu and Kashmir. Most of the terrorists found and took part in global terrorism were either originated from Pakistan or at some point stayed there for religious study made its denial of being a nucleus of global terror difficult for United Nations to brush off making secular India more favourable than the neighbouring Pakistan. India, in my view, flourished economically, socially, geologically, and scientifically declaring herself secular though having troubled and divided religious people spread around the country who may not be in millions but neither in countable sums. But I must admit the administration in India does put more effort in securing the policy of unity in diversity, accepting universal policy of “United we stand, divided we fall”.

Would peace return to Jammu and Kashmir ever? Would people of Jammu and Kashmir have a normal life? More importantly would it be paradise again? Answer lies in the hands of Governments of India and Pakistan. Both being the nuclear capable nation it is more important to sort the problems before it gets out of hand; also that is one of the very important reason why developed countries show interest in solving the problem. In my opinion there is no straight forward answer to the solution, however it is important to note that the solution would be decided neither by the Jehadi elements nor by the youth militia. To be honest, I’m not resourced enough to suggest the solution at this point of time. But it is important to have a total, complete Kashmir as a single entity for any solution to be considered. Along with that, proxy war, terrorism and trouble for the public must be totally stopped and removed to make people of all religions to live peacefully as before. In that regard, all responsible parties must put their act together with single intention of making lives easier for public living in that region. Not to forget, what ever the ethnic cleansing happened must be restored in terms of returning the land, job, wealth and future for victims at first instance which is far most important than securing the peace in Jammu and Kashmir to regain the credibility of Government’s stance of secularism in India.