Strategy Page reports – military news about India-Pakistan –
October 18, 2004: Pakistan has offered to divide up Indian Kashmir according to the wishes of the Kashmiris. The would likely mean that the most valuable part of the province, the mostly Moslem Kashmir valley, would go to Pakistan, while the Hindu and Buddhist areas would opt for India. But maybe not. The Kashmiri Moslems are aware that India has a real democracy and a growing economy, versus dictatorship and economic chaos in Pakistan. There is much less corruption in India. Over a decade of Islamic terrorism, even if technically on their behalf, has left many Kashmiri Moslems fearful, if not outright hostile towards Islamic radicalism. Putting it all to a vote would be unpopular with nationalists in both countries, but is one solution that would end the fighting, or at least reduce it. However, India has a point in that Pakistan’s tolerance for Islamic terrorist groups in Pakistani Kashmir is the main source of the violence in Kashmir. That said, half a century of fighting over this province is wearing out a lot of Indians and Pakistanis, especially since both have nuclear weapons. This means a battlefield solution is no longer possible.
Seeing Econ Opportunity create the motive for peace warms my little libertarian heart 😉
won’t happen.
1) india needs to show that it’s ‘secular’ by making sure the vale stays with india. 2) indians are terrified that the nation could break apart if kashmir breaks away (the horror!!!).
i guess this from the fact that when i moot any proposals like the one above i get reactions from indians that aproximate i’m-a-crazy-arab-jews-rule-the-world levels of sanity. not that they aren’t right, but their arguments (and tone) smells the same.
Of course it won’t happen, and rightly so. As a Kashmiri Pandit, I certainly can testify the K.P. community doesn’t want to be part of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan! And, btw, this reluctance is shared–even if not to the same extent–by other Kashmiri minority communities (Shia, especially Gujjar, Bakkerwal, etc.).
Even the majority of Kashmiri Muslim Sunni secessionists (and, yes, I wrote that to emphasize that secessionism is not broadly shared by all Kashmiris) don’t want to split up the state of J&K. This reluctance extends even to the urban segement of that community–the most enthusiastic votaries of secessionism.
Morever, the fear of stoking religious passions is not mere ‘show’. The desire for secession is now–as always–rooted in the religious communalism of the Kashmiri Sunni Muslims. Given the history of religious rioting in India, the GOI’s fear of the consequences of a religious partition of J&K is hardly unjustified.
Democracy tends to degenerate into mere mob rule, w/o the protection of the rights of minorities. Not an original observation, but one which needs to be underlined in this discussion. Those of us who value India, the idea of India, do so precisely because it affords the best opportunity on the subcontinent at making a genuine democracy viable over the long run–despite its manifest imperfections on this score. So, yeah, I would view the break-up of India w/ some dismay, if not “horror”.
Well, given the horror caused by the last partition……..I guess I can understand the fear of splitting up Kashmir. Kumar, that is interesting. I suppose it makes sense that Kashmiris don’t want Kashmir split up.
very interesting good news Vinod, this has been such a long battle , so many innocent people murdered brutally by terrorists in that region fighting over kashmir which happens to be great tourist spot good economically for both countries. Iam glad they are coming to a solution, whatever it is. No more voilence and no more innocent deaths. And I pray people of kashmir choose well between the two countries.
ok, the last partition caused a lot of death, sure. but let’s not compare apples to granny smith apples as if they are cognate in every way.
there are plenty of african countries for example that could benefit from partition. and east timor got fucked up big time when it was hived off from indonesia…though the slow attritional genocide against the east timorese was halted, so mebee it was worth.
also, from what i know
1) the majority of pandits left the vale of kashmir because of the violence. 2) partitional violence happened because so many people were caught on the ‘wrong side’ of the border. the vale is now 99% muslim from what i gather, though jammu & ladakh have large muslim minorities, the problem always seems to be more extreme muslim majority + non-muslim minority (the riots in gujarat excepted). 3) and while we’re conjuring visions of how scary a partitioned future is, let’s not forget the shitty present.
Your consequentialist argument favoring (mildly ?) the partition of J&K is unconvincing. While the previous partition caused the death of many on the ‘wrong’ side, I doubt that is likely to remain the case.
The massacres of Muslims in Gujarat were, perversely, justified by the treatment meted out to K.P.’s. A communal partition of J&K is more likely than not to have hideous consequences for the rest of India.
I am not in the business of ‘conjuring’ up horrors to justify the accession of J&K to India. I was simply pointing out that your consequentialist argument was far too sanguine about the consequences of partition of J&K.
No, my argument against the partition of J&K is non-consequentialist. To reiterate, the majority of Kashmiris in the ‘Vale’–whatever their ethnoreligious/political slant–do not want the state partitioned.
Again, let me stress that the divide in the Valley itself is not simply Muslim vs Hindu, though religion obviously plays a prominent role. The communities in Kashmir are Sunni and Shia, Gujjar and non-Gujjar, Kashmiri Pandit and Sardar. Overlay the urban-rural divide on this mixture and you start to have an idea of the complexity of Kashmiri politics.
Political opinion is not uniform even across the various Muslim communities. It’s a fundamental reason why partition is unlikely to work w/i Kashmir itself.
Oh, and about that “shitty present”–yeah, the K.P. community is quite well-informed about it. It’s true that the vast majority of K.P.’s left the valley because of violence which directly targeted them. But K.P.’s, as well as the GOI, aren’t about to let our ethnic cleansing be ratified by any proposed partition of J&K.
Kumar
The massacres of Muslims in Gujarat were, perversely, justified by the treatment meted out to K.P.’s. A communal partition of J&K is more likely than not to have hideous consequences for the rest of India.
i would like you to elaborate on this point. i fail to see how removing a muslim majority state with ambivalent attitudes toward india would be deleterious to the health of the indian union.
p.s. you don’t need to clue me in to the ethnological detail of kashmir, i have had a personal interest in the leh area and the relationship between the shia muslims and the lamaist buddhists for years.
razib October 19, 2004 11:02 PM: i would like you to elaborate on this point. i fail to see how removing a muslim majority state with ambivalent attitudes toward india would be deleterious to the health of the indian union.
Well my argument was simply a counter to your rosy scenario about the effects of J&K’s secession on the rest of India. The arguments are rather straightforward, though they aren’t the ones I choose to make. First, the effects of secession on an already-fissiparous Indian union are not likely to be positive. Second, even if the Indian union doesn’t further disintegrate, a religious secession is likely to advance communalism in the Indian polity.
They are genuine fears, and the burden of proof rests with those who seek to change the status quo. Dismissing such fears as simply ‘conjuring’ monsters wont do, I think.
razib, October 19, 2004 11:05 PM:p.s. you don’t need to clue me in to the ethnological detail of kashmir, i have had a personal interest in the leh area and the relationship between the shia muslims and the lamaist buddhists for years.
Curious, really, that you refer to the Leh area, when I was talking of the complex ethnological mix in the Valley itself. But I’ll let that pass, and assume–for the sake of argument–that you’re knowledgeable about the ethnological mix in all of the various regions of J&K.
However, I quite disagree w/ you about the viability of secession given the complex ethnicity of the Valley. Moreover, secession means partition of J&K itself, an outcome which isn’t favored by a majority of any Kashmiri community.
what is so valuable about the Kashmiri area? Oil? farming? diamonds? what?