THE INDIAN - PAKISTANI IMPASSE OVER CONTROL OF KASHMIR

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THE INDIAN-PAKISTANI IMPASSE ;OVER CONTROL OF KASHMIR
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THE INDIAN-PAKISTANI IMPASSE OVER CONTROL OF KASHMIR
The Kashmir dispute remains one of the bitter-
est legacies of the partition of British-ruled India
in 1947. After fifteen year;, neither Pakistan nor
India is any more willing to accept a solution which
would leave the other country in control of the cen-
tral Vale of Kashmir, regardless of other inducements
to compromise. Pakistan's frustration over its in-
ability to wrest the Vale from India is still the
basic emotion pervading its entire foreign policy.
India's policy too, even though given expression in
appealingly statesmanlike utterances, rests as far
as Kashmir is concerned on a foundation composed of
a mixture of intense patriotic and communal senti-
ment. While each side adopts legal arguments derived
from the events of 1947, when India took over the
Vale, the roots of the dispute go. far back into the
past.
Historical Background
Kashmir is a rugged land,
lying across the western in-
vasion route from Tibet and
Sinkiang into the Indian sub-
continent. The heart of the
country is a beautiful valley,
85 miles long by 25 miles wide
and a mile above sea level.
This is the Vale of Kashmir,
surrounded by inhospitable moun-
tains which include, on the north,
the Karakoram, the world's high-
est range. Outside the Vale,
the population is sparse and pov-
erty-ridden, and the docile
people of the main valley have
long feared the more warlike
tribes from the neighboring hills.
Although this whole region is in
dispute, it is the Vale that is
the heart of the matter.
nexed to the Moslem Moghul Em-
pire by the Emperor Akbar in
1587. The re-establishment of
Hindu control is a relatively
modern development; the British
turned Kashmir over to the Hindu
ruler of Jammu, which lies just
to the south, creating the
princely state of Jammu and
Kashmir in 1846. During the
rest of the 19th century the
Hindus took revenge for 500
years of Moslem rule, and the
Moslems felt themselves cruelly
oppressed. More direct British
control over the state gave the
Moslems somewhat greater freedom
to resist the Hindu ruler's re-
gime, and agitation gradually
increased during the period be-
fore World War II.
In the 14th century, Moslem
invaders converted the Kashmiris
to Islam, and the area was an-
When the British gave India
and Pakistan their independence
in August 1941 and the subcontinent
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"Kashmir is a garden of eternal spring, or an iron fort to a palace of kings---
a delightful flower-bed, and a heart-expanding heritage for dervishes. Its
pleasant meads and enchanting cascades are beyond alI description."
--Jehangir, Moghul Emperor
was partitioned, the status of
Kashmir, like that of a number
of other areas, was still un-
decided. Under the terms of the
partition operation, the Hindu
maharaja of Kashmir had the right
to opt; for either Pakistan or
India. When he delayed, many
of his Moslem subjects--who then
comprised an estimated 93 per-
cent of the population--agitated
for accession to Pakistan. By
October, the maharaja was faced
with a revolt, and, as the re-
volt spread, Pushtoon tribesmen
from Pakistan's Northwest Fron-
tier region invaded Kashmir with
Pakistani encouragement.
Unable to cope with the
situation himself, the maharaja
opted for India, and New Delhi
immediately sent troops who
drove back the tribesmen and
suppressed the local Moslem
agitation. India's claim to
the state thus has a technically
strong legal foundation in the
maharaja's act of accession.
The Pakistani advocates point
out, however, that the basic
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JAM MU
^ AND
KASHMIR
USSR
Arabian
Sea Bay of
Benpai
Boundary set by Sino-Pakistani
agreement
Boundary shown on Indian maps
Boundary shown on Western maps
Area of Sino-Indian clashes
Motorable road
rinagar
CHINA
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concept of partition was that
Pakistan was to comprise the
contiguous Moslem-majority areas
of British India. They insist
that Kashmir is such an area,
that the Kashmiri people with-
out question would have pre-
ferred to join Pakistan, and
that they were prevented from
doing so only by Hindu troops,
first those of the maharaja and
then those sent by New Delhi.
Since the cease-fire, each
side has organized its Kashmir
territory along quite different
lines. Although Pakistan has
done less administratively and
materially, its regime probably
enjoys more popular acceptance
than.the government in Indian-
held Kashmir.
Subsequent mediation efforts
and negotiations have not moved
the parties from these positions,
nor from the territory that the
respective forces occupied. In
1948 and 1949, the UN Commission
for India and Pakistan secured
the agreement of both parties
to a cease-fire, demilitarization,
and a plebiscite. With minor
interruptions, the cease-fire
has remained in effect. The
demilitarization agreement,
however, was never carried out,
and in :1956 India announced that
it therefore no longer held it-
self bound to conduct a pleb-
iscite.
At that time, India gave
Pakistani membership in Western
military pacts as its main reason
for this stand. Last summer,
it gave improved Pakistani rela-
tions with Communist China as a
reason for not negotiating. In
each case the real reason is In-
dia's determination to hold the
Vale.
Pakistan controls several
mountain districts comprising
about one third of the total
area of Jammu and Kashmir. The
districts to the north had
relatively tenuous ties with
the old princely state and are
administered as special politi-
cal agencies under the Central
Pakistani Government at Rawal-
pindi. The districts lying
along the western edge of the
Vale make up what is known as
Azad ("Free") Kashmir, supposedly
a separate, provisional govern-
ment pending the settlement of
the dispute, but actually under
the control of Rawalpindi. It
enjoys purely local autonomy,
even though President Khurshid
talks pretentiously about the
possibility of receiving mili-
tary aid directly from Commu-
nist China.
In its internal structure,
Azad Kashmir has its own ver-
sion of Pakistani President
Ayub's Basic Democracies program,
4
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Present
Population
(Approximate)
Percent
Moslem
Azad
1,000,000
100
Vale of Kashmir
2,000,000
90
Entire Indian-he
Jammu and Kas
ld
hmir 3,500,000
70
plus the usual
official
politi-
cal. pressures
and election ir-
regularities.
Opposition forces
nonetheless have enjoyed enough
freedom to seriously challenge
Khurshid in elections two years
ago. The most popular political
appeal. among the Azad Kashmiris
is to demand or promise to re-
vive the Kashmir liberation move-
ment and march on the cease-fire
line.
Pakistan has not attempted
to make Azad Kashmir a showplace;
the local administration is sup-
ported mainly by local taxation,
and Pakistan's financial contribu-
tion seems to be limited to a
few million dollars for agri-
cultural extension services and
food subsidies. Economic de-
velopment consequentlyis negligi-
ble.
As part of this integra-
tion, New Delhi is furnishing
over $44 million in various
forms--an amount equal to about
60 percent of the state gov-
ernment's planned revenues for
1963-64. This help, plus re-
sources notably superior to
those of Azad Kashmir, has en-
abled the Srinagar administra-
tion to support a relatively
impressive program of economic
development, including infrastruc-
ture and light industry projects.
Per capita expenditures in the
ordinary and capital develop-
ment budgets of the state are
in fact twice the average for
the rest of India.
Relative prosperity and
India's economic support may
have reduced the Kashmiri Mos-
lems' hostility toward New
Delhi's control, but most Kash-
miris probably would still pre-
fer to be free of Indian author-
ity. The Indian Government
evidently senses that this is
India's portion of Kashmir,
on the other hand, includes the
famous Vale and the capital city
of Srinagar, by all odds the
most desirable part of the state
and the traditional center of
power where the "true" Kashmiri
lives. The Nehru government over
the years has been gradually in-
tegrating the Vale into the In-
dian Union.
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the situation, since it keeps
in jail Nehru's old friend,
Sheik Abdullah. This "Lion
of Kashmir" has been in prison
for ten years because he ad-
vocates independence for the
Vale,
and
New Delhi apparently
feels
that
he would quickly re-
build
his
following and chal-
lenge
its
authority if he were
released.
The local Moslem leadership
thus remains essentially a ve-
neer for Indian authority. For-
mer Prime Minister'Ghulam Moham-
med i3aakshi, the new incumbent
K. Shamsuddin, and their asso-
ciates all have a personal eco-
nomic stake in the preservation
of the status quo, and thus are
genuinely pro-Indian, but they
would not long remain in power
if Indian troops were withdrawn.
Although India, like Paki-
stan, claims the whole of the
old Jammu and Kashmir state,
in fact it is fairly well satis-
fied with the present situation,
and is ready to "settle" if
Pakistan would accept only minor
adjustments of the cease-fire
line. Any proposal or develop-
ment that seems to threaten
Indian control of the Vale,
however, meets adamant opposi-
tion from the New Delhi govern-
ment generally and from Nehru
in particular.
It has often been suggested
that Nehru is personally committed
to Kashmir because of his family
background. While it is true
that his family is of Kashmiri
Brahman origin, having left
there in the 18th century, and
that he is particularly fond of
vacationing in the Vale, a more
significant factor seems to be
his strong commitment to the
concept that Indian government
and politics cannot be based on
communal--i.e., religious--con-
siderations.
To admit that Indian-held
Kashmir should now, fifteen
years after partition and the
communal strife that accompanied
it, be removed from Indian con-
trol because its population is
overwhelmingly Moslem would
undercut the whole secular,
anticommunal philosophy of the
Indian Government which Nehru's
statements symbolize and sup-
port. Such an admission, more-
over, would tend to make illogi-
cal the government's and Nehru's
running battle against the signs
of life that communalism con-
tinues to show in India--agita-
tion for new linguistic states,
for example.
At the same time that Nehru
cannot admit the force of an
argument based on communalism,
he cannot ignore the strength
of communal anti-Moslem senti-
ment among the Indian Hindu
voters. In contrast to Nehru's
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ideals and to his sense of trag-
edy over the partition of 1947,
the average Hindu probably rel-
ishes the Moslem's outrage over
Kashmir. And the Pakistani Mos-
lem knows the Indian Hindu's at-
titude.
The additional challenge
from Communist China in the La-
dakh region of Jammu and Kashmir
has, if anything, further hard-
ened New Delhi's determination
to hold Kashmir. Overland sup-
ply routes to the Ladakh front
pass through the Vale. But be-
yond any strategic implications,
India's frustration over its in-
ability to repel the Chinese
"aggressors"--strongly reminis-
cent of Pakistani feelings to-
ward India--makes the Indian
leaders all the more stubborn
in resisting proposals that might
dilute their authority in Kashmir.
While the Kashmir dispute
is only one of India's foreign
policy problems--and by no means
the one that occupies the largest
share of attention in New Delhi
--Kashmir often seems to come
close to being the very raison
d'etre for Pakistan's foreign
policy. Every Pakistani leader
has known that he could assure
his place in national history
if he could somehow bring Kash-
mir under Pakistani control.
This is especially true of Presi-
dent Ayub, who has already
promulgated a new constitution
and would like to rival the late
Mohammed Ali Jinnah as the "fa-
ther" of the country. Unable
to take steps which seemed to
be leading toward a success on
Kashmir, Ayub has made politi-
cal capital out of denouncing
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the West for undercutting Paki-
stan's, interests.
This situation springs from
the fact that, whatever arguments
Rawalpindi may bring forward,
Kashmir is simply a blight on
Pakistan's national honor and a
perpetual reminder that the Pald -
stani Moslem, whose heritage in-
cludes the glory of the Moghul
Empire, is now a citizen of a
country that is weaker, poorer,
less skilled, and generally in-
ferior to its "Hindu" counterpart.
The Pakistani, with something
of a warrior tradition behind
him, is further infuriated over
his relative impotence in the
face of India's military supe-
riority.
Proposals aimed at saving
face for Pakistan--but leaving
India in control of the Vale--
therefore have not had much ap-
peal in Rawalpindi, since pos-
session of the Vale is the es-
sence of the question.
Faced with these frustra-
tions and seemingly insurmount-
able difficulties, Pakistani
leaders have cast about for new
means of exerting leverage on
New Delhi. In 1959, Ayub first
tried to capitalize on the Sino-
Indian border difficulties by
proposing a joint Indian-Paki-
stani defense of the subcontinent
--obviously predicated on a Kash-
mir settlement. Nehru received
this coolly.
Another strategy apparently
was then developed: to wait un-
til.. Chinese pressure on the In-
dian border would oblige India
to secure its flank with Pakistan
by offering real concessions in
Kashmir. The Pakistanis evi-
dently feel, however, that this
maneuver has been upset by Paki--
stan's Western allies, who brought
military assistance to India fol-
lowing the Chinese invasion in
the fall of 1962 and thereby, in
the Pakistani view, freed India
from the necessity of entering
serious negotiations. Although
the Pakistanis in their diplo-
matic statements have emphasized
their fears that India might use
new Western equipment to attack
them, it is more probable that
disappointment over this lost
opportunity is what really lies
behind their complaints.
Most recently, Pakistan's
worry that time is on the side
of India in Kashmir has been
sharpened by announcements from
Srinagar that further steps are
Nehru and Ayub
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being taken to tighten the con-
stitutional bonds between Kash-
mir and India. In the face of
this development and the failure
of their other strategies, Paki-
stanimmilitary leaders may again
be giving some consideration to
limited paramilitary action as a
means of generating international
pressure for a settlement. In-
cidents at two points on the
cease-fire line in late October
appear to reflect Pakistan's
promotion of new tensions there.
At the same time, however, the
Pakistanis would probably want
to avoid any broad military con-
frontation, in which India would
enjoy a heavy superiority.
The Military Situation
The cease-fire line lies
mainly in the mountain districts
shirting the western and northern
edges of the Vale. On both the
Indian. and Pakistani sides out-
posts are placed roughly 500
yards back from the line. On
the Indian side these are manned
by regular Indian Army units,
while on the Pakistani side they
are manned by locally recruited
Azad K:ashmiris, who serve under
regular Pakistani Army officers.
The Indian units apparently
have a running fight with Kash-
miris from their own side who do
not understand the prohibition
against grazing in the no-man's
land. Attitudes apparently are
more relaxed toward the local
citizenry on the Pakistani side,
and in some areas the Azad forces
allow peasants to graze their
livestock right up to the line.
Firing exchanges are not
unusual, but they are ordinarily
small-scale. Company-size or
larger border clashes are more
serious politically and less
frequent in Kashmir than they
are on the East Pakistan border
with India, because the im-
portance of the issue and the
depth of emotion in Kashmir are
so much greater that each side
has been wary of a real. incident
there. A United Nations military
observer group has been on the
scene since 1949 to help pre-
vent such clashes.
Of the forces deployed
near the cease-fire line, Paki-
stan's are much the weaker.
There is one Pakistan Army bri-
gade, numbering some 3,000 men,
and 18 Azad Kashmir battalions,
comprising 22,000 men, for a
total of 25,000, all under the
command of Pakistan's 12th
Division.
Across the line, the Indian
Army has three divisions, total-
ing about 45,000 men, deployed
against Pakistani-held Kashmir.
Even during the height of the
Chinese advance in the fall of
1962, the Indians maintained
this deterrent force at about
40,000 men, drawing on other
areas for reinforcement. This
force has since been restored
to about 45,000.
The Indian units have a
strong advantage in quality as
well as in numbers. The Azad
troops, which make up the bulk
of the Pakistani forces, have
good. esprit but are poorly
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trained and are not comparable
to the regular army forces,
on either side. The Pakistani
Army brigade is probably about
equal in quality to the Indian
troops, although it does not
receive modern equipment under
the US military assistance pro-
gram.
Outlook
Intermittent attempts since
1947 to reach a settlement, or
even to put Pakistani and Indian
leaders on the road toward one,
have proven consistently futile.
Pakistan's own ploys to exact
concessions from India have
been rebuffed by New Delhi or
countered by circumstances be and
the Pakistanis' control.
"Like some supremely beautiful woman, whose
beauty is almost impersonal and above human desire,
such was Kashmir in all its feminine beauty of river
and valley and lake and graceful trees." 25X1
ers in neither capital are very
optimistic that new diplomatic
moves will lead them out of
the present impasse--an impasse,
moreover, which India gives
every sign of believing is 25X1
about the most satisfactory
situation-it can C
rJ
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