nkdatta8839

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_17-9-2004_pg3_3

The Daily Times
Friday, September 17, 2004

Going to India? Be careful!
By Khaled Ahmed

If you go to India, be careful. Or at least that was the advice one
gave to travellers some years ago. If you were reported saying good
things about India or implying a retreat from Pakistan's ‘disputes'
against India, you could be pilloried back home. There was no
allowance made for the holding of personal opinion. It was like the
Bush mantra, you either express the collective opinion or you are ‘not
with us'. Some of this still goes on and the Urdu press does a lot of
this stuff to rile the bourgeoisie.

Daily Nawa-e-Waqt (July 6, 2004) condemned Pakistani scouts visiting
Held Kashmir in a report. The report said that the scouts declared
that the Indian-held Valley was jadoo nagri (utopia) and one scout in
fact went as far as to say that Pakistan had no disputes with India.
At Gulmarg, the Pakistani scouts were found with their hands around
the waists of Hindu women. They were also found dancing obscenely with
them. They most shockingly sang songs with Indian women. The paper
quoted Azad Kashmir leader Sardar Qayyum as saying that those who sent
these scouts should be punished. He said no Pakistani could think of
going to Held Kashmir and dancing with Hindu girls. A motion was
registered against the boy scouts at the National Assembly.

Clearly, it doesn't pay to visit India if you are to be hounded by
such reports. No one said let us wait and confirm the report before
denouncing the poor boy scouts with their ridiculous knickerbockers.
Even Sardar Qayyum came out with his guns of the First Warrior blazing
in favour of Pakistan's poor man's nationalism. What should Pakistan
do with its offending boy scouts? Hang them to the nearest tree? The
National Assembly too has nothing better to do. .....

nkdatta8839

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/sep-2004/20/columns4.php

The Nation, Pakistan
Monday, September 20, 2004

Pakistan's dilemma
By IKRAM ULLAH

Ever since the birth of Pakistan the ups and downs in our national
politics have not allowed the parliamentary democracy to take root.
......

...... In India it was a different story. The Indian Constitution was
framed in 1949. According to its Article 324, which envisages setting
up of an independent election commission for holding free and fair
elections, a one-man election commission was set up on January 25,
1950. It put the Indian democracy on the rails and was further
strengthened by the political stability and strong leadership provided
by Mr Nehru till 1964. Whereas Pakistan, in its search for true
parliamentary democracy, can be compared with a blind person in a dark
room, looking for a black cat, which is not there.

In India the EC and the Lok Sabha Speaker guard the legacy of
democracy with such zeal that they are often termed dictators in the
performance of their functions. If elections to parliament could ever
be held in Pakistan matching the mammoth Indian exercise and if the
guardians of our National Assembly and the Senate could discharge
their functions with similar independence as in the Lok Sabha and
Rajya Sabha, we would not be faced with never-ending series of crises
in Pakistan. It would be in the fitness of things to briefly say a few
words about the system our neighbours have evolved over the past half
a century whereas we are still debating whether uniform has anything
to do with democracy.

The Indian elections involved political mobilisation and
organisational complexity on an amazing scale. In General Elections
2004 there were 5435 candidates for 543 seats of the Lok Sabha. Out of
671.5 million voters 389 million exercised their franchise at 687,402
polling stations. During these elections, 1.075 million Electronic
Voting Machines (EVMs) were used in all constituencies for the first
time. The direct cost of these elections was approximately Rs 13000
million (US $280 million). While around four million civil employees
were engaged in conduct of these elections with 250,000 paramilitary
and police personnel performing the law and order duty. In total six
national parties, forty-five state parties and 702 registered
unrecognised parties took part in these elections.

As for the Indian EC, initially it was single member Commission
consisting of only the CEC. Later, in 1989 and once again in 1993, it
was made a three-member Commission. At present it consists of CEC and
two election commissioners. It is the duty of the Election Commission,
under the Constitution, to hold free and fair elections, to both the
houses of the Parliament, state legislatures and of the President and
Vice-President of India. The EC, an independent constitutional
authority plays a fundamental and critical role in providing
level-playing field to various political parties. The President of
India appoints the CEC and election commissioners. The Constitution
provides the safeguard against altering their service conditions and
removal from the office. The EC is absolutely independent and has been
acclaimed internationally for its role in strengthening Indian
democracy. It is vested with the responsibility of preparing,
maintaining and periodically updating electoral rolls.

Besides registering political parties it monitors election campaign,
expenditure incurred by various candidates and allocates time on
public electronic media to various parties.

The EC headquartered in New Delhi has deputy election commissioners
and a 350-member secretariat which assists it in performing its
duties. At the state level, chief electoral officers coordinate all
election-related duties. The Commission virtually manages the
elections with the help of these DEOs who are also district
magistrates. The Commission makes elaborate arrangements for training
the personnel engaged in elections. No private individual is
associated with the process of election.

nkdatta8839

The Friday Times, Lahore, Pakistan
October 08 - 14, 2004

Kashmir: on whom is the onus of attrition?
By Khaled Ahmed

...... In 1971, Pakistan experienced civil war in East Pakistan. India
responded to a pro-India uprising there and intervened. Pakistan army
was defeated by India and Pakistan was dismembered.

One of the reasons behind the uprising was West Pakistan's security
doctrine that posited defence of East Pakistan through enhanced
military capacity in West Pakistan. In 1972 the two countries signed
the Simla Agreement, binding themselves to a resolution of the Kashmir
issue through bilateral talks. The issue went into cold storage after
1972, only to re-emerge in1989 after an uprising in Kashmir caused by
India's misrule in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan's Islamisation and Kashmir

Pakistan decided to start a low intensity conflict in Kashmir based on
the experience gained from the deniable war in Afghanistan it had
pursued in the 1980s together with the United States against the
Soviet Union. General Zia who died in 1988 had transformed Pakistan
under his strategy of Islamisation. Unwittingly, he undermined
Pakistan's Kashmir cause by introducing laws in Pakistan that reduced
the citizenship of all non-Muslims. It is moot whether he could have
done so in the midst of an uprising in Kashmir with chances of it
falling to Pakistan along with its 3 million non-Muslims. In the eyes
of the international community it was no longer acceptable to give to
Pakistan the whole or a part of Kashmir inhabited by non-Muslims.

The world therefore started thinking more in terms of compelling India
to award more genuine autonomy to the unhappy Kashmir in return for a
tacit conversion of the Line of Control (LoC) into an international
border. India stood firm against all international pressure and
hunkered down to confronting the unofficial Pakistani jihad in Kashmir
under an all-parties consensus of 1993. .....

Jihad becomes terrorism

By the end of the 1990s decade, Kashmir jihad was increasingly seen by
the world as terrorism or cross-border terrorism as labelled by India.
Pakistan-based militias began to be declared terrorist by the United
States as it began to bear the brunt of Al Qaeda attacks in different
parts of the world. ..... On the Pakistani side the popular view
remained supportive of the proxy war and no criticism of the jihadi
militias could be made public without the fear of being physically
attacked. .....

...... In 1998 the Kashmir dispute attained an extra dimension when
India and Pakistan tested their nuclear devices and became overt
nuclear powers. By the time Pakistan embarked on the Kargil Operation
in 1999, the low-intensity conflict in Kashmir was yielding mostly
negative results for Pakistan in terms of international support. The
Kargil Operation, ostensibly meant to ‘highlight' the Kashmir cause,
collapsed to make Pakistan realise that it had become too isolated
internationally for the policy of ‘highlighting' to work.

Kargil and the end of jihad

Kargil was another incident that woke the world to the possibility of
a major war in South Asia. In 1987 Indian exercise Brasstacks
triggered fears in Pakistan of an Indian invasion; in 1990 India's
military exercise Mahajan in Rajasthan is said to have brought the two
‘recessed' nuclear powers to the brink of a nuclear conflict. By 1999,
the world believed that the theory of nuclear deterrence was not
understood in South Asia the same way as had been in the West and that
India and Pakistan could actually go at each other with nuclear bombs.
Kargil caused the elected government in Pakistan to collapse; it
strengthened the rightwing Hindu nationalist party the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) under an upsurge of nationalism in the country.

The architect of Kargil, General (now President) Pervez Musharraf went
to a summit with prime minister Vajpayee at Agra in July 2001, but
failed to get a ‘flexible' response from him. The chastening of
Islamabad at Kargil was not in equal measure with the moral boost the
operation had yielded to New Delhi. The next trauma to Pakistan was
not late in coming. On 11 September 2001, Pakistan suffered a blow to
its over-all independence of policy when the United States challenged
it to join the global drive against terrorism and ban all the jihadi
militias operating in Kashmir. To compound Pakistan's problems with
the world, the jihadi militias would not go away. Jaish-e-Muhammad
struck in December 2001in New Delhi, this time in the very heart of
India's democracy, the parliament building. India moved its forces to
the border where they remained for over a year.

The world wants LOC as border

The world doesn't care for Pakistan's stand any more, that is, it
thinks that the position on plebiscite is passé and now the two states
must sit down and evolve a new solution encompassing the rights of the
Kashmiris within or without India. (The influential view outside is
for a solution within India.) The world is also conscious of India's
ability to withstand all kinds of pressures for the alteration of the
status quo. It is more or less reconciled to the Line of Control (LoC)
as a permanent frontier. But it wants to use the freezing of the LoC
as a lure for India to give genuine autonomy to the Kashmiris.
However, to keep the Pakistanis within the loop .....

nkdatta8839

http://www.dawn.com/2004/10/17/op.htm#1

[it would be sheer folly for Pakistan to let go of a territory that
has been its part for all practical purposes for more than 55 years
and whose people are Kashmiris only in some remote sense: most of
them, being Punjabi-speaking, do not even understand the Kashmiri
language]

DAWN, Karachi, Pakistan
17 October 2004 Sunday 02 Ramazan 1425

Beyond hackneyed positions
By Prof. Anwar Syed
anwarsyed@cox.net

...... Manmohan Singh is reported to have made it clear to Musharraf
that talks between the two countries will not go forward if the
infiltration of "jihadis" across the LoC continues.

General Musharraf has been telling the world that his government will
no longer invoke the UN resolutions of 1948-49 that called for a
plebiscite in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Our oft-repeated demand
for a plebiscite, he says, has become outdated, unavailing, and
dysfunctional. It has been discarded. Good, but what about India's
equally oft-repeated assertion that the state is its integral part,
and that the happenings there are none of Pakistan's business? This
position has not been discarded but it may have undergone some change.

Considering that India is willing to settle on the basis of the status
quo on the ground (LoC), it is clear that it does not claim the entire
state as its integral part. Its willingness to discuss the future
status of the part it occupies shows that its assertion under
reference is further softened. It implies the admission that the
developments in that part of the state are Pakistan's business also.

The substantive nature of the dispute has also changed. The issue of
the legality or appropriateness of the Maharaja's accession to India
has long since been abandoned. In pragmatic terms, India's
justification for its occupation of the larger part of the state
derives from its victory in its first war with Pakistan (October 1947
- January 1949). The ceasefire line, called the line of control (LoC)
following the war in 1971, has effectively remained a line of
partition in the state.

As noted above, India does not claim the areas under Pakistani
control. Pakistan does not expect to get Jammu (largely Hindu) or
Ladakh (Buddhist). It follows that the dispute in its present version
relates to the valley of Kashmir, which is overwhelmingly Muslim.

In thinking about ways of resolving the dispute, certain recently
formulated caveats should be kept in mind. First, Indian spokesmen
insist, and General Musharraf now agrees, that the dispute is
political, not religious. Second, the option of a statewide plebiscite
has been given up. Third, as General Musharraf would have it, no
solution can be viable unless it is acceptable to Pakistan, India, and
the Kashmiris.

The proposition that the issue is political, not religious, would
appear to mean that Pakistan wants Kashmir not because it is largely
Muslim but because it is a valuable piece of real estate and, more
important, because it is the source of much of the country's water
(the Jhelum river). India wants to keep the part of the state it
occupies for essentially the same reason plus the fact that it seized
it in war. .....

...... At their meeting in New York, Manmohan Singh is said to have
invited Musharraf to come up with new proposals for resolving their
dispute. What can these be? Actually, the possible elements of a
resolution are known and the job really is to find the mix that can be
made acceptable to all three parties (India, Pakistan, and the
Kashmiris).

Of late, the idea has been circulating that the state of Jammu and
Kashmir might become independent. High sounding though it may be, it
is very tricky. In the Indian part of the state Jammu and Ladakh have
no interest in independence. That leaves only the valley. There is no
lively interest in this option in Azad Kashmir, but it may develop if
Pakistan supports it with reference to the valley.

In my thinking, it would be sheer folly for Pakistan to let go of a
territory that has been its part for all practical purposes for more
than 55 years and whose people are Kashmiris only in some remote
sense: most of them, being Punjabi-speaking, do not even understand
the Kashmiri language. .....

...... In April and May of 1964, Sheikh Abdullah, with the concurrence
of Prime Minister Nehru, came to Pakistan bearing proposals for
settling the dispute. These were (1) an Indo-Pakistan "condominium"
over Kashmir with the two governments having joint responsibility for
the state's defence and foreign affairs; (2) each side giving its
portion of the state maximum autonomy and recognizing the LoC as the
border between them; (3) a confederation of India, Pakistan, and
Kashmir. These options could not be explored because of Nehru's death
in May 1964.

The idea of accepting the LoC as an international border, after India
has ceded some additional territory to Pakistan, has surfaced
periodically. .....

...... General Musharraf said in New York that his mind was closed to
the idea of a settlement through territorial adjustments along the
LoC. However, according to some Indian sources, a proposal to this
effect is actually on the table in the ongoing talks between the two
governments. In one version that I have seen, India may be willing to
cede a few hundred square kilometres.

Which way, then, shall we go? Let us first identify the problematic
options: (1) the idea of a plebiscite has been discarded by both
sides; (2) India will not give the valley away to Pakistan; (3) a
"condominium" would be very tedious to work insofar as the state's
foreign relations are concerned; (4) confederation between India,
Pakistan, and the state of Jammu and Kashmir may not be a bad idea,
but it is one whose time has not yet come.

...... Pakistan would do well to agree to consider territorial
adjustments along the LoC and try to get India to cede as much as
possible. It should also press India to allow its portion of the state
internal autonomy in all matters other than defence, foreign affairs,
and a couple of other subjects. I suggest that if these conditions are
met, it would be in our interest to accept a modified LoC as the
border between our two countries. I agree that this is not the most
desirable outcome, but it is probably the best of the options actually
available.

nkdatta8839

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_19-10-2004_pg3_5

The Daily Times, Lahore, Pakistan
Tuesday, October 19, 2004

...... This ..... is not a travelogue. It is a deadpan account of
Kashmir.

Jammu city, as the first stop for us, was a good choice from India's
point of view. It also made geographical sense since we crossed over
from Wagah-Atari. Poetry was mixed with the prose of Jammu's reality.
A Hindu-dominated city whose dwellers don't like to be referred to as
‘Kashmiris', as one of our companions was told at the Jammu
University. She apologised; a sweet, hardworking girl, a
do***entary-maker, she was not familiar with Kashmir's prose. At least
in this case, Lady Bracknell's comment about ignorance being "a
delicate exotic fruit" that mustn't be despoiled went well with the
poetic setting. The irony, however, was, and it became the leitmotif,
that the reality of Kashmir lay in the sharp contrast between the
poetic and the prosaic.

In this particular case, the indignation of the crowd at the
university auditorium on being called ‘Kashmiris' was the
manifestation of what India has tried to cultivate deliberately over
long years. Kashmir is not a monolith; it is inhabited by diverse
communities.

Corollary: there can be no such thing as a simple ‘Kashmir issue'. Are
we talking about Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs or Hindus; is it about
Kashmiris, people of Jammu, Poonchies, Mirpuris, Muzzaffarbadis,
Gilgitties, Baltis, Gujjars, Bakarwals....the list is long.

It serves the purpose of fudging the issue of boundaries at the time
of Partition. The question then was not about ‘regions' within Kashmir
and distinct ethnic and religious identities, but the accession of the
state as it existed.

But one mustn't grudge India this tactic; I don't. Adversaries locked
in conflict have legitimate reasons to upstage each other. That
reality is built into the idea of conflict. Neither is there any
reason for States to be consistent and not employ either double-speak
or even pursue contradictory policies.

Kashmiriyat is another tactic: even as India insists on distinct
regions and ethnic and religious identities within Kashmir, it also
emphasises Kashmiriyat, especially in the Valley. This is to debunk
the issue of Kashmir's accession to Pakistan on the basis of its being
a Muslim-dominated state on the one hand and prop up India's
secularism on the other. In the past decade we have seen growing
literature on the issue. Diversity there may be, which is one way of
singling out the Valley from the rest of the disputed state, but it
makes eminent sense to inject Kashmiriyat in the Valley, just in case
the game boils down to the beautiful Vale.

Interestingly, it was on this point that I got the first, and
mercifully the only, surprise of my visit. We had to visit the camps
in Jammu of Kashmiri Pundits uprooted from the Valley and living in
appalling conditions in Jammu city. They accused Pakistan of putting
them in this situation. There was no point in arguing with them on the
basis of chronology of events. Someone pointed out to them that
Kashmiri Muslim groups of nearly all hues had asked them to return to
the Valley and take possession of their lands. "Why don't you return?"
The answer was that the Pundits wouldn't go for status quo ante. "We
want our own area north and east of Jhelum, a union territory," was
the response.

Communalisation, I thought. It seemed complete. But what about
Kashmiriyat? "What Kashmiriyat?" one Pundit leader asked, adding:
"Those who talk of Kashmiriyat want to get us massacred." How, he
would not explain, but it was clear that the Kashmiriyat concept does
not live outside ****yses.

The Pundits were also cut up with the state government, which doesn't
disburse any funds for their upkeep and with the Union government for
not providing them enough. The irony is that New Delhi does not seek
help for these internally displaced persons from UNHCR (United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees) because that goes against India's
policy of linking up any aspect of the Kashmir dispute with the UN or
a third party. So, among the many cracks through which the Pundits
have fallen down, one relates to State policy at the cost of human
beings, all of whom are Hindus.
================================================== ==============================
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2004-daily/18-10-2004/oped/o3.htm

The News, Karachi, Pakistan
Monday October 18, 2004-- Ramadan 03, 1425 A.H.

There are tough lessons to be drawn
By Mariana Baabar

...... we are a group of Pakistani journalists who are here under the
aegis of the South Asia Free Media Association; our host is the
Kashmir Times. We know this is the first ever visit to J&K by
Pakistani journalists .....

...... After a backbreaking bus ride from Amritsar to Jammu, we are at
the refugee camp of those Hindus who migrated here to escape the
brutality of the Valley. I'm no stranger to the refugee phenomenon: we
hosted 3 million Afghans. But I soon realise I'm not prepared for the
stories I hear. Multiple voices repeat the accusations: we have been
displaced for the last 15 years because of Pakistan-sponsored
terrorism; go back home, tell Pervez Musharraf about our plight, what
has happened to Kashmir is because of your gunpowder. Lesson No. 1:
there's a Hindu dimension to the Kashmir problem we Pakistanis haven't
been really aware of in great detail.

We are in the auditorium of Jammu University. It's packed with people.
The Indian national anthem is sung; it feels a little odd as I spring
to my feet. I wonder whether there's a subtext to it. A group then
sings our national anthem. Though off-key, the rendition makes us
smile. Mobs of students throng us; it's incredible: they want our
autographs. Lesson No. 2: only real images of human beings can subvert
those on TV.
Srinagar stands out in sharp contrast to Jammu. Security officials
mill around, there are sandbag fortifications at every turn. .....

...... I meet people who are horrified of their memories. Women who
show me their wounded bodies. Professors at Srinagar University talk
of rising incidence of mental diseases and suicides. They talk about
the Kashmiri's confusion about his or her identity. As Prof Sabhiha
Mufti, who's researching the identity issue, asks, "Are we what the
BBC, CNN or PTV portray to their liking?" Lesson No. 3: out here, the
confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan aren't worth
their weight on paper. .....

...... it isn't all bouquets. We become punching bags for those who
detest Pakistan's Kashmir policy. At times we are goaded into
retaliating. At the Kashmir Bar Council, I tell a lawyer: "Now I know
what it is like to be tried by a kangaroo court. Don't you realise we
are only Pakistani journalists and not politicians?"

The cruellest cut comes from Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik, who together
with others makes us squirm with his accusations. He thinks our visit
is an example of wily "Punjabi statecraft", that India and Pakistan
are two pipsqueaks with "tiny" bombs. And then the knockout blow: we
are here with a ‘brief' from Pakistan and are completely ‘confused'
about the situation here. Stung, I grab the mike and reprimand: "Mr
Yasin Malik, please get your facts straight. I am certainly not
confused. You appear greatly confused. I take briefs from no one, not
even Pakistani generals." Lesson No. 5: Kashmiries don't accept
neutrality.

I quiz other Hurriyat leaders about their reluctance to contest
elections. "Why don't you demonstrate your electoral strength," I ask,
"win elections and then refuse to sit in Parliament or government?"
This is only logical, I argue, considering that every time India and
Pakistan smoke the peace pipe, the Kashmiri leaders complain that
their voices are being ignored. To Syed Ali Shah Geelani, I ask, "If
you don't fight elections, who will represent the Kashmiris?" They
fear the election would be rigged against them-if only to embarrass
them before their people. "Ask for elections under the UN then," I
suggest. Geelani seems to agree.

The mainstream Kashmiri politicians are a refreshing change. I have
never supported the democratic aberration of dynastic politics. But
meetings with Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah prompt me to revise my
views: they are genial, clear in their views, and don't duck
inconvenient questions. Lesson No. 6: Hurriyat is divided, DNA works
in politics. .....
================================================== ==============================
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2004-daily/18-10-2004/oped/o1.htm

The News, Karachi, Pakistan
Monday October 18, 2004-- Ramadan 03, 1425 A.H.

Visiting Jammu & Kashmir
By Imtiaz Alam

...... this was the first-ever journey undertaken by the Pakistani
scribes in the last 57 years and against the backdrop of ongoing
composite dialogue process. .....

...... Stay in Jammu, although without doubts and acrimony except seen
at the Pandits' camps, was too ceremonious. What was quite disturbing
to find was that after being displaced from the valley many among them
had abandoned their secular paradigm of Kashmiriat and some among them
have become communalised to the extent that they now demand carving a
Pandit state out of the valley not many among the community agree
with. The criticism about the neglect of their plight by the media in
Pakistan was right to a point since it is focused on the valley and
looked at Pandits with tinted glasses. Yet, there are nationalists,
also among the Pandits, who differ with the tendency to treat the
Kashmir question as a communal issue and insist on finding a way out
of the quagmire of a cyclical violence.

The overwhelming view among the middle classes in Jammu takes
‘accession to India' as a fait accompli, while the Punjabis and Dogras
underline the need for greater room to allow reunion of the divided
communities and are much more flexible on resolving the dispute. In
fact their political, intellectual and business representatives show
certain degrees of flexibility to bring peace to their troubled region
and for greater gains the former J&K state can reap from a
rapprochement between India and Pakistan. Their major demand was to
open Jammu-Sialkot route and allow free movement of people. The
secular view dominant among the urban people of Jammu, many among them
don't like to be called Kashmiris, preclude any division on the basis
of religion and feel at greater ease with Indian secular ethos. The
nationalists, however, demand a untied and secular J&K that will be
relatively independent of both India and Pakistan without being fully
sovereign. And there are those ‘nationalists' who
would want a reunited J&K integrated with India, given the level of
assimilation that has already taken place.

By contrast, the journey to and through Srinagar brought too much
pressure on the delegation due to an awesome deployment of security
forces, inflated demands of the Kashmiris and high passions of a
people under siege for too long. The two meetings that we had on our
way to Srinagar showed an area overburdened with the crossfire of
security agencies and the militants. The people were living under
visible harassment and intimidation. Srinagar wore the look of a
capital scrawling on its knees under the burden of both insurgency and
counter-insurgency .....

...... Alienation from India does not mean that the Kashmiris want to
join Pakistan. Yet the expectations from Pakistan are so high that
even a non-official and private visit by the Pakistani journalists on
Indian visa came under critical scrutiny, including those who practice
Indian law or demand Indian passport to travel abroad. Suspicions
about and complaints against Islamabad are on the rise after the
division of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). On the issue of
opening Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route, even those who oppose it cannot
afford the reaction from the people who are craving to meet their own
on the other side. .....

...... even the senior rank and file of National Conference of
Abdullah, People's Democratic Party of Mufti and the Kashmir unit of
Congress feel sympathetic to the aspirations of their Kashmiri
brethren. The leadership of these parties exhibits a lot of
flexibility, despite their capitulation, on possible peaceful
solutions while supporting softening of the LoC and opposing
militancy. Although Hurriyat is divided, and the Ansari faction
accuses Islamabad for the division and Geelani faction blames them of
hobnobbing with New Delhi, it can still play a crucial role if
reunited and the militant groups took the back seat. .....
================================================== ==============================

nkdatta8839

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_18-10-2004_pg3_3

The Daily Times, Lahore, Pakistan
Monday, 18 October, 2004

...... The ruling classes in Pakistan and India are these days
chattering about peace. The media is full of songs of love and
fraternity. The people are being given good tidings of a great future.
But peace and fraternity do not sit well with the cir***stances on
which the survival of the ruling classes in both countries depends.
For their survival these classes need hostility to persist. Over the
fifty-seven years the ruling classes have created and nurtured vested
interests thriving on confrontation and hostility that have by now
grown beyond their power and control.

The Kashmir dispute is no more the dispute it was fifty-five years
ago. Great monsters of vested interests have now emerged that get
provoked by the slightest effort at changing the environment of
confrontation into a rage to thwart it. In 1976, Bhutto was moving
towards a realistic solution of the dispute. According to Sardar Abdul
Qayyum he was willing to accept an appropriately modified Line of
Control as the international border. He was made a terrible example.
In 1999, Nawaz Sharif was making progress towards a much better
settlement. He too left power, later the country, in an undesirable
manner. If practical steps are now taken towards a solution in
accordance with ground realities huge explosions will be caused to
stop it. They have, in fact, begun. .....

...... Peace is not what the rulers in Islamabad and New Delhi have set
their hearts on. The intention on both sides is to use the peace and
fraternity tunes to pursue the objectives they failed to achieve
through wars. But nobody will hand over in talks what you could not
wrest from them in a war. ..... The people on both sides have been
killed and exploited in order to nurture the monsters of hatred and
hostility. The monsters will not step aside easily to make way for
peace. The Kashmir dispute has cost Pakistanis a lot. We lost the East
Paksitan and there is no telling what else we might lose. Yashwant
Sinha, the former Indian foreign minister, summed it up nicely at the
concluding session of the SAFMA conference. "One word", he said,
"holds the key to progress towards peace between India and Paksitan:
patience."

We must not be impatient for results. We must not think that the
thorns nurtured on our blood will whither away without tasting more
blood. A lot will happen before peace. It is already happening.

nkdatta8839

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_19-10-2004_pg3_5

The Daily Times, Lahore, Pakistan
Tuesday, October 19, 2004

...... This ..... is not a travelogue. It is a deadpan account of
Kashmir.

Jammu city, as the first stop for us, was a good choice from India's
point of view. It also made geographical sense since we crossed over
from Wagah-Atari. Poetry was mixed with the prose of Jammu's reality.
A Hindu-dominated city whose dwellers don't like to be referred to as
‘Kashmiris', as one of our companions was told at the Jammu
University. She apologised; a sweet, hardworking girl, a
do***entary-maker, she was not familiar with Kashmir's prose. At least
in this case, Lady Bracknell's comment about ignorance being "a
delicate exotic fruit" that mustn't be despoiled went well with the
poetic setting. The irony, however, was, and it became the leitmotif,
that the reality of Kashmir lay in the sharp contrast between the
poetic and the prosaic.

In this particular case, the indignation of the crowd at the
university auditorium on being called ‘Kashmiris' was the
manifestation of what India has tried to cultivate deliberately over
long years. Kashmir is not a monolith; it is inhabited by diverse
communities.

Corollary: there can be no such thing as a simple ‘Kashmir issue'. Are
we talking about Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs or Hindus; is it about
Kashmiris, people of Jammu, Poonchies, Mirpuris, Muzzaffarbadis,
Gilgitties, Baltis, Gujjars, Bakarwals....the list is long.

It serves the purpose of fudging the issue of boundaries at the time
of Partition. The question then was not about ‘regions' within Kashmir
and distinct ethnic and religious identities, but the accession of the
state as it existed.

But one mustn't grudge India this tactic; I don't. Adversaries locked
in conflict have legitimate reasons to upstage each other. That
reality is built into the idea of conflict. Neither is there any
reason for States to be consistent and not employ either double-speak
or even pursue contradictory policies.

Kashmiriyat is another tactic: even as India insists on distinct
regions and ethnic and religious identities within Kashmir, it also
emphasises Kashmiriyat, especially in the Valley. This is to debunk
the issue of Kashmir's accession to Pakistan on the basis of its being
a Muslim-dominated state on the one hand and prop up India's
secularism on the other. In the past decade we have seen growing
literature on the issue. Diversity there may be, which is one way of
singling out the Valley from the rest of the disputed state, but it
makes eminent sense to inject Kashmiriyat in the Valley, just in case
the game boils down to the beautiful Vale.

Interestingly, it was on this point that I got the first, and
mercifully the only, surprise of my visit. We had to visit the camps
in Jammu of Kashmiri Pundits uprooted from the Valley and living in
appalling conditions in Jammu city. They accused Pakistan of putting
them in this situation. There was no point in arguing with them on the
basis of chronology of events. Someone pointed out to them that
Kashmiri Muslim groups of nearly all hues had asked them to return to
the Valley and take possession of their lands. "Why don't you return?"
The answer was that the Pundits wouldn't go for status quo ante. "We
want our own area north and east of Jhelum, a union territory," was
the response.

Communalisation, I thought. It seemed complete. But what about
Kashmiriyat? "What Kashmiriyat?" one Pundit leader asked, adding:
"Those who talk of Kashmiriyat want to get us massacred." How, he
would not explain, but it was clear that the Kashmiriyat concept does
not live outside ****yses.

The Pundits were also cut up with the state government, which doesn't
disburse any funds for their upkeep and with the Union government for
not providing them enough. The irony is that New Delhi does not seek
help for these internally displaced persons from UNHCR (United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees) because that goes against India's
policy of linking up any aspect of the Kashmir dispute with the UN or
a third party. So, among the many cracks through which the Pundits
have fallen down, one relates to State policy at the cost of human
beings, all of whom are Hindus.
================================================== ==============================
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2004-daily/18-10-2004/oped/o3.htm

The News, Karachi, Pakistan
Monday October 18, 2004-- Ramadan 03, 1425 A.H.

There are tough lessons to be drawn
By Mariana Baabar

...... we are a group of Pakistani journalists who are here under the
aegis of the South Asia Free Media Association; our host is the
Kashmir Times. We know this is the first ever visit to J&K by
Pakistani journalists .....

...... After a backbreaking bus ride from Amritsar to Jammu, we are at
the refugee camp of those Hindus who migrated here to escape the
brutality of the Valley. I'm no stranger to the refugee phenomenon: we
hosted 3 million Afghans. But I soon realise I'm not prepared for the
stories I hear. Multiple voices repeat the accusations: we have been
displaced for the last 15 years because of Pakistan-sponsored
terrorism; go back home, tell Pervez Musharraf about our plight, what
has happened to Kashmir is because of your gunpowder. Lesson No. 1:
there's a Hindu dimension to the Kashmir problem we Pakistanis haven't
been really aware of in great detail.

We are in the auditorium of Jammu University. It's packed with people.
The Indian national anthem is sung; it feels a little odd as I spring
to my feet. I wonder whether there's a subtext to it. A group then
sings our national anthem. Though off-key, the rendition makes us
smile. Mobs of students throng us; it's incredible: they want our
autographs. Lesson No. 2: only real images of human beings can subvert
those on TV.
Srinagar stands out in sharp contrast to Jammu. Security officials
mill around, there are sandbag fortifications at every turn. .....

...... I meet people who are horrified of their memories. Women who
show me their wounded bodies. Professors at Srinagar University talk
of rising incidence of mental diseases and suicides. They talk about
the Kashmiri's confusion about his or her identity. As Prof Sabhiha
Mufti, who's researching the identity issue, asks, "Are we what the
BBC, CNN or PTV portray to their liking?" Lesson No. 3: out here, the
confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan aren't worth
their weight on paper. .....

...... it isn't all bouquets. We become punching bags for those who
detest Pakistan's Kashmir policy. At times we are goaded into
retaliating. At the Kashmir Bar Council, I tell a lawyer: "Now I know
what it is like to be tried by a kangaroo court. Don't you realise we
are only Pakistani journalists and not politicians?"

The cruellest cut comes from Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik, who together
with others makes us squirm with his accusations. He thinks our visit
is an example of wily "Punjabi statecraft", that India and Pakistan
are two pipsqueaks with "tiny" bombs. And then the knockout blow: we
are here with a ‘brief' from Pakistan and are completely ‘confused'
about the situation here. Stung, I grab the mike and reprimand: "Mr
Yasin Malik, please get your facts straight. I am certainly not
confused. You appear greatly confused. I take briefs from no one, not
even Pakistani generals." Lesson No. 5: Kashmiries don't accept
neutrality.

I quiz other Hurriyat leaders about their reluctance to contest
elections. "Why don't you demonstrate your electoral strength," I ask,
"win elections and then refuse to sit in Parliament or government?"
This is only logical, I argue, considering that every time India and
Pakistan smoke the peace pipe, the Kashmiri leaders complain that
their voices are being ignored. To Syed Ali Shah Geelani, I ask, "If
you don't fight elections, who will represent the Kashmiris?" They
fear the election would be rigged against them-if only to embarrass
them before their people. "Ask for elections under the UN then," I
suggest. Geelani seems to agree.

The mainstream Kashmiri politicians are a refreshing change. I have
never supported the democratic aberration of dynastic politics. But
meetings with Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah prompt me to revise my
views: they are genial, clear in their views, and don't duck
inconvenient questions. Lesson No. 6: Hurriyat is divided, DNA works
in politics. .....
================================================== ==============================
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2004-daily/18-10-2004/oped/o1.htm

The News, Karachi, Pakistan
Monday October 18, 2004-- Ramadan 03, 1425 A.H.

Visiting Jammu & Kashmir
By Imtiaz Alam

...... this was the first-ever journey undertaken by the Pakistani
scribes in the last 57 years and against the backdrop of ongoing
composite dialogue process. .....

...... Stay in Jammu, although without doubts and acrimony except seen
at the Pandits' camps, was too ceremonious. What was quite disturbing
to find was that after being displaced from the valley many among them
had abandoned their secular paradigm of Kashmiriat and some among them
have become communalised to the extent that they now demand carving a
Pandit state out of the valley not many among the community agree
with. The criticism about the neglect of their plight by the media in
Pakistan was right to a point since it is focused on the valley and
looked at Pandits with tinted glasses. Yet, there are nationalists,
also among the Pandits, who differ with the tendency to treat the
Kashmir question as a communal issue and insist on finding a way out
of the quagmire of a cyclical violence.

The overwhelming view among the middle classes in Jammu takes
‘accession to India' as a fait accompli, while the Punjabis and Dogras
underline the need for greater room to allow reunion of the divided
communities and are much more flexible on resolving the dispute. In
fact their political, intellectual and business representatives show
certain degrees of flexibility to bring peace to their troubled region
and for greater gains the former J&K state can reap from a
rapprochement between India and Pakistan. Their major demand was to
open Jammu-Sialkot route and allow free movement of people. The
secular view dominant among the urban people of Jammu, many among them
don't like to be called Kashmiris, preclude any division on the basis
of religion and feel at greater ease with Indian secular ethos. The
nationalists, however, demand a untied and secular J&K that will be
relatively independent of both India and Pakistan without being fully
sovereign. And there are those ‘nationalists' who
would want a reunited J&K integrated with India, given the level of
assimilation that has already taken place.

By contrast, the journey to and through Srinagar brought too much
pressure on the delegation due to an awesome deployment of security
forces, inflated demands of the Kashmiris and high passions of a
people under siege for too long. The two meetings that we had on our
way to Srinagar showed an area overburdened with the crossfire of
security agencies and the militants. The people were living under
visible harassment and intimidation. Srinagar wore the look of a
capital scrawling on its knees under the burden of both insurgency and
counter-insurgency .....

...... Alienation from India does not mean that the Kashmiris want to
join Pakistan. Yet the expectations from Pakistan are so high that
even a non-official and private visit by the Pakistani journalists on
Indian visa came under critical scrutiny, including those who practice
Indian law or demand Indian passport to travel abroad. Suspicions
about and complaints against Islamabad are on the rise after the
division of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). On the issue of
opening Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route, even those who oppose it cannot
afford the reaction from the people who are craving to meet their own
on the other side. .....

...... even the senior rank and file of National Conference of
Abdullah, People's Democratic Party of Mufti and the Kashmir unit of
Congress feel sympathetic to the aspirations of their Kashmiri
brethren. The leadership of these parties exhibits a lot of
flexibility, despite their capitulation, on possible peaceful
solutions while supporting softening of the LoC and opposing
militancy. Although Hurriyat is divided, and the Ansari faction
accuses Islamabad for the division and Geelani faction blames them of
hobnobbing with New Delhi, it can still play a crucial role if
reunited and the militant groups took the back seat. .....
================================================== ==============================

nkdatta8839

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_18-10-2004_pg3_3

The Daily Times, Lahore, Pakistan
Monday, 18 October, 2004

...... The ruling classes in Pakistan and India are these days
chattering about peace. The media is full of songs of love and
fraternity. The people are being given good tidings of a great future.
But peace and fraternity do not sit well with the cir***stances on
which the survival of the ruling classes in both countries depends.
For their survival these classes need hostility to persist. Over the
fifty-seven years the ruling classes have created and nurtured vested
interests thriving on confrontation and hostility that have by now
grown beyond their power and control.

The Kashmir dispute is no more the dispute it was fifty-five years
ago. Great monsters of vested interests have now emerged that get
provoked by the slightest effort at changing the environment of
confrontation into a rage to thwart it. In 1976, Bhutto was moving
towards a realistic solution of the dispute. According to Sardar Abdul
Qayyum he was willing to accept an appropriately modified Line of
Control as the international border. He was made a terrible example.
In 1999, Nawaz Sharif was making progress towards a much better
settlement. He too left power, later the country, in an undesirable
manner. If practical steps are now taken towards a solution in
accordance with ground realities huge explosions will be caused to
stop it. They have, in fact, begun. .....

...... Peace is not what the rulers in Islamabad and New Delhi have set
their hearts on. The intention on both sides is to use the peace and
fraternity tunes to pursue the objectives they failed to achieve
through wars. But nobody will hand over in talks what you could not
wrest from them in a war. ..... The people on both sides have been
killed and exploited in order to nurture the monsters of hatred and
hostility. The monsters will not step aside easily to make way for
peace. The Kashmir dispute has cost Pakistanis a lot. We lost the East
Paksitan and there is no telling what else we might lose. Yashwant
Sinha, the former Indian foreign minister, summed it up nicely at the
concluding session of the SAFMA conference. "One word", he said,
"holds the key to progress towards peace between India and Paksitan:
patience."

We must not be impatient for results. We must not think that the
thorns nurtured on our blood will whither away without tasting more
blood. A lot will happen before peace. It is already happening.

nkdatta8839

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/oct-2004/27/columns1.php

The Nation, Pakistan
Wednesday, October 27, 2004

A Kashmir endgame?
By HUSAIN HAQQANI
hhaqqani@nation.com.pk

...... it is clearly in Pakistan's interest to start looking beyond the
single -issue focus on Kashmir that has held back Pakistan's political
and economic progress. Beginning with the organization in 1947-1948 of
the tribal ‘lashkar' to secure Kashmir, Pakistan's approach to the
resolution of the Kashmir dispute has been characterized by a series
of tactical moves, lacking a coherent strategy or a planned end game.
Since independence, Pakistanis have complained (with justification)
that the Boundary Commission headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe cheated
them by providing India access to Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir
through Pathankot Tehsil of Gurdaspur district. But more than five
decades later, there is little realistic hope of redressing historic
grievances. Pakistan's tactics to redress this perceived wrong—which
are often ad hoc and deployed with short-term goals in mind—have
varied, ranging from airing its complaints at the United Nations to
participating in military adventurism.
Most importantly, Pakistan has paid a heavy price for pursuing the
Kashmir dream in terms of weakened state institutions, the preeminence
of the military in Pakistani society and, more recently, the growth of
Islamic militancy.

Pakistan's military-dominated decision-making process has resulted in
combinations of short-term military and diplomatic moves without a
well thought out end game for resolving the Kashmir dispute. As
pointed out by retired Air Marshal Asghar Khan, Pakistan's military
adventures have been launched in the "hope that world powers would
come to our rescue, intervene, bring about a cease fire and somehow
help us achieve our political objectives. …All our past wars with
India have been fought for no purpose (and) we have suffered
humiliation as a result."

A feeling of insecurity against a much larger and hostile neighbor was
the original source of Pakistani apprehensions about its nationhood.
The emphasis on seeking to ‘complete' Pakistan by acquiring Kashmir
was directly related to this sense of insecurity. But over the years,
structures of conflict have evolved, with the Pakistani military as
the major beneficiary of maintaining hostility. The possession of
nuclear weapons gave the Pakistani military a sense of invulnerability
and increased its willingness to consider options of unconventional
warfare leading to the Kargil debacle. The environment of the global
war against terrorism restrains Pakistan's ability to persist with its
policy of supporting Islamic militancy in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
But in the absence of a sustained peace process between India and
Pakistan, there could always be room for new tactics that prolong the
conflict and attempt to alter the status quo. For that reason, it is
important for Pakistan to go
beyond its maximalist demands on Kashmir and start looking at
alternatives.

General Musharraf's call upon Pakistanis to look at possible solutions
for Kashmir would work only if the General is willing to put it into
the broader context of Pakistan's structural flaws. Historically,
countries dominated by Praetorian armies do not easily move away from
conflict. General Musharraf might have to follow up his stated
willingness to scale down Pakistani demands over Kashmir with a
willingness to scale down the Pakistani military's extensive control
over the country's political life.

nkdatta8839

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/oct-2004/27/columns1.php

The Nation, Pakistan
Wednesday, October 27, 2004

A Kashmir endgame?
By HUSAIN HAQQANI
hhaqqani@nation.com.pk

...... it is clearly in Pakistan's interest to start looking beyond the
single -issue focus on Kashmir that has held back Pakistan's political
and economic progress. Beginning with the organization in 1947-1948 of
the tribal ‘lashkar' to secure Kashmir, Pakistan's approach to the
resolution of the Kashmir dispute has been characterized by a series
of tactical moves, lacking a coherent strategy or a planned end game.
Since independence, Pakistanis have complained (with justification)
that the Boundary Commission headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe cheated
them by providing India access to Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir
through Pathankot Tehsil of Gurdaspur district. But more than five
decades later, there is little realistic hope of redressing historic
grievances. Pakistan's tactics to redress this perceived wrong—which
are often ad hoc and deployed with short-term goals in mind—have
varied, ranging from airing its complaints at the United Nations to
participating in military adventurism.
Most importantly, Pakistan has paid a heavy price for pursuing the
Kashmir dream in terms of weakened state institutions, the preeminence
of the military in Pakistani society and, more recently, the growth of
Islamic militancy.

Pakistan's military-dominated decision-making process has resulted in
combinations of short-term military and diplomatic moves without a
well thought out end game for resolving the Kashmir dispute. As
pointed out by retired Air Marshal Asghar Khan, Pakistan's military
adventures have been launched in the "hope that world powers would
come to our rescue, intervene, bring about a cease fire and somehow
help us achieve our political objectives. …All our past wars with
India have been fought for no purpose (and) we have suffered
humiliation as a result."

A feeling of insecurity against a much larger and hostile neighbor was
the original source of Pakistani apprehensions about its nationhood.
The emphasis on seeking to ‘complete' Pakistan by acquiring Kashmir
was directly related to this sense of insecurity. But over the years,
structures of conflict have evolved, with the Pakistani military as
the major beneficiary of maintaining hostility. The possession of
nuclear weapons gave the Pakistani military a sense of invulnerability
and increased its willingness to consider options of unconventional
warfare leading to the Kargil debacle. The environment of the global
war against terrorism restrains Pakistan's ability to persist with its
policy of supporting Islamic militancy in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
But in the absence of a sustained peace process between India and
Pakistan, there could always be room for new tactics that prolong the
conflict and attempt to alter the status quo. For that reason, it is
important for Pakistan to go
beyond its maximalist demands on Kashmir and start looking at
alternatives.

General Musharraf's call upon Pakistanis to look at possible solutions
for Kashmir would work only if the General is willing to put it into
the broader context of Pakistan's structural flaws. Historically,
countries dominated by Praetorian armies do not easily move away from
conflict. General Musharraf might have to follow up his stated
willingness to scale down Pakistani demands over Kashmir with a
willingness to scale down the Pakistani military's extensive control
over the country's political life.