MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan-administered Kashmir -
This region is a confluence of three of the highest
mountain ranges in the world, the Himalayas, the
Karakoram and the Hindukush. Yet for 57 years, since the
partition of the subcontinent in 1947, this land of
beautiful rivers and high mountain peaks has remained an
area of darkness as Pakistan has kept it under an iron
curtain.
It was with a sense of history,
therefore, that a few Indian journalists, including this
Asia Times Online correspondent, began their mission,
once allowed entry into the region in the last week of
November. It was a carefully planned trip under the aegis of the South Asian
Free Media Association, which had earlier organized a
similar trip to Indian-administered Kashmir for
Pakistani journalists. Every minute of our time was
accounted for, with the local police force escorting and
watching our every move. Yet it must be said, to the
credit of President General Pervez Musharraf of
Pakistan, that true to his word, he did allow us to
interact with every segment of public opinion, including
those dissidents who are fiercely opposed to the
Pakistani administration, and some who are,
surprisingly, pro-India.
This has led
to some speculation that the president may indeed be
sincere in seeking to resolve the long-festering Kashmir
tangle, even at the cost of losing complete control of
the areas under Pakistan's control. Most observers and
residents of Pakistan-administered Kashmir find it
unimaginable that Pakistan would ever let go of this
area, but that indeed is the implication of Musharraf's
latest formula: demilitarize and change the status of
all the regions of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. [1]
He defines change of status as joint India-Pakistan
control, United Nations control or independence. This
leaves no room for exclusive Pakistani control of any
parts of Kashmir. Could it be that he is seeking through
the present media exposure to prepare Pakistani people
for a change of
status of Kashmir areas under their control?
The
most creative idea in the whole trip came from former
prime minister and former president of the part of
Kashmir that Pakistan has designated as Azad (Free)
Jammu and Kashmir, or AJK, Sardar Abdul Qayyoom Khan.
Khan's party, Muslim Conference, headed by his son
Sardar Atiq Khan, now runs the local administration.
Known for his problem-solving approach, the veteran
politician said, "Look for interim, not permanent
solutions. This way you can make even unpalatable ideas
acceptable to the different parties to the Kashmir
dispute. And who knows, in time interim solutions may
lead to a permanent solution."
Azad Jammu and
Kashmir, with an estimated population of 2.5 million,
comprises six districts of Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, Kotli,
Poonch, Bagh and Bhimber.
Azad Kashmir creates
the impression of being fairly prosperous. Mirpur in
particular appears to be quite a wealthy town. But the
residents make an effort to point out that this
prosperity is no thanks to Pakistani largess. Anyone
who points to the grand houses admiringly is told the
story behind its prosperity. What happened is that in
the early 1950s, Pakistan decided to construct a dam on
the river Jhelum to meet its electricity needs. Hundreds
were displaced from the villages on the site of the dam.
But they found work on the Mangla Dam. However, once the
dam was constructed, they had nowhere to go. So many of
them decided, encouraged by the British construction
company for which they were working, to use the little
money they had received as compensation for their land
to buy tickets to go to England. Working as factory
workers in the Midlands to begin with, they have now
become quite prosperous. It is they, I was told, who
have built these grand houses in Mirpur, more out of
nostalgia than need.
Azad Kashmir has been
used in the past decade-and-a-half as a base camp for
jihad in the areas of Kashmir controlled by India. But
this correspondent found it hard to discover any
jihadi atmosphere in the area. All the stones jutting out
of mountains overlooking the roads that criss-cross
this mountainous region have been whitewashed free of all
jihadi slogans. The only slogans left are those
proclaiming support for candidates contesting local elections.
The whitewashing has been done in the past year, after
Musharraf's announcement that he would not allow
Pakistani soil to be used for "terrorist" activities in
other countries.
Another dividend of the peace
process currently under way between India and Pakistan
is the closure of all donation camps for Kashmiri
jihad. Wherever one went in Pakistan, until a couple of
years ago, particularly in the Punjabi towns of Lahore
and Rawalpindi, and, of course, in AJK towns such
as Muzaffarabad and Mirpur, virtually every street would
have a group of people demanding "contributions" in cash
and kind for fighting what they called jihad in Kashmir.
This correspondent particularly looked for but could not
discover a single such camp anywhere in these towns now.
Also conspicuous by its absence was any
hostility toward India. The only clash that Indian
media could see was between pro-Pakistan and
pro-independence students in the campus of Azad Kashmir
University. The literacy level, particularly among
females, is very high in Pakistani Kashmir. Among those
who put questions to Indian journalists, the most
articulate and the most informed were female students,
many of them studying engineering and other technical
courses.
As for India, most Kashmiris show no
hostility, even though this area has been used for years
as a training camp for militants infiltrating into
Indian-administered Kashmir. Even in one of the refugee
camps we visited, Manak Payeen, which houses Indian
Kashmiris displaced by years of militancy, there was no
apparent hostility. Several people told us stories of
atrocities perpetrated by the Indian army, stories of
rape and custodial death and other human-rights
violations. But as soon as this correspondent got hold
of a Kashmiri away from the prying eyes of the Pakistani
officials who were managing the interaction, all that
this old man would talk about was his desire to go back
to Indian Kashmir. He was looking forward, he said, with
great anticipation to the bus service likely to start between
Muzaffarabad and Srinagar, the capital of the Indian
part of Kashmir.
This camp is situated
on Chakothi road leading to Srinagar. Once the road
opens, he told me, many people would go back to Indian
Kashmir, and if the first batch is not maltreated by
Indian authorities, as they fear, the trickle would turn into
a flood, probably taking away one of the main
propaganda planks of the Pakistani authorities. These refugees
are regularly paraded before the international media
and foreign government officials. This could be one
reason Pakistan seems so reluctant to agree to the
reopening of this traditional road that provided the
only link to the world for the Kashmiris before 1947.
No hostility, but a great deal of curiosity
about India is evident among Azad Kashmiris. From the
common man to the elite, everyone wants to visit India.
Former prime minister and president Abdul Qayyoom,
former chief justice of the Azad Kashmir High Court
Abdul Majeed Malik, and even the legendary leader of the
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Amanullah Khan, who
has a murder case against him pending in India, all
expressed a great desire to visit India.
A Kashmiri
waiter in the Sangam Hotel where we stayed, situated
on the confluence ( sangam) of the Jhelum
and Neelum rivers, was curious to know the price of
every vegetable sold in India. He hardly ever traveled
to other parts of Pakistan, but for him the most
important thing in life was to visit Ajmer, an Indian
town famous for the shrine of a saint highly revered in
the subcontinent, and Agra, the seat of the Taj Mahal.
For him and many other Kashmiris, the
most important thing is not which government controls
them, Indian or Pakistani - they are sick of
all subcontinental politicians anyway. What they miss
most in the present arrangement is access to places such
as Ajmer and Agra and Delhi, which used to be part and
parcel of their lives before partition in 1947, which
also led to the effective partition of Kashmir. It does
seem cruel indeed to divide these mountains and its
people through a Line of Control [2] that passes through
their very homes, sometimes leaving the bedroom in one
country and the living room in another.
Notes [1] The territory of Kashmir
was bitterly contested even before India and Pakistan
won their independence from Britain in August 1947.
Under the partition plan provided by the Indian
Independence Act of 1947, Kashmir was free to accede to
India or Pakistan. The Maharaja, Hari Singh, wanted to
stay independent, but eventually decided to accede to
India, signing over key powers to the Indian government
- in return for military aid and a promised referendum.
Since then, the territory has been the
flashpoint for two of the three India-Pakistan wars: the
first in 1947-48, the second in 1965. In 1999, India
fought a brief but bitter conflict with Pakistani-backed
forces who had infiltrated Indian-controlled territory
in the Kargil area.
In addition to the rival
claims of Delhi and Islamabad to the territory, there
has been a growing and often violent separatist movement
against Indian rule in Kashmir since 1989.
Islamabad says that Kashmir should have
become part of Pakistan in 1947, because Muslims are in
the majority in the region. Pakistan also argues
that Kashmiris should be allowed to vote in a referendum
on their future, after numerous United Nations
resolutions on the issue.
Delhi, however, does
not want international debate on the issue, arguing that
the Simla Agreement of 1972 provided for a resolution
through bilateral talks. India points to the Instrument
of Accession signed in October 1947 by the maharaja,
Hari Singh.
Both India and Pakistan reject the
option of Kashmir becoming an independent state.
[2] The LoC is a demarcation line
established in January 1949 as a ceasefire line after the end
of the first Kashmir war. In July 1972, after a
second conflict, the LoC was re-established under the terms
of the Simla Agreement, with minor variations on
the earlier boundary. The LoC passes through a
mountainous region about 5,000 meters high. North of the LoC,
the rival forces have been entrenched on the Siachen
Glacier (more than 6,000m high) since 1984 - the highest
battlefield in the world. The LoC divides Kashmir on an
almost two-to-one basis: Indian-administered Kashmir to
the east and south (population about 9 million), which
falls into the Indian-controlled state of Jammu and
Kashmir; and Pakistani-administered Kashmir to the north
and west (population about 3 million), which is labelled
by Pakistan as "Azad" (Free) Kashmir. China also
controls a small portion of Kashmir.
TOMORROW: The Pakistani model of
freedom
Sultan Shahin is a New
Delhi-based writer.
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PART 1: Lifting the veil
status of Kashmir areas under their control? 
