Schofield Victoria. Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War
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generation of educated graduates emerged. Since there was virtually no
industry in Kashmir, large numbers remained unemployed.
G. M. Sadiq, the chief minister, was becoming increasingly aware of the
problem of the educated unemployed. In he met Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi to explain the rising discontent in the state. In the presence of Inder
Gujral, he told her: ‘India spends millions on Kashmir but very little in
Kashmir. If I were to tell you that the law and order situation requires one
more division of the army, you would send it, without the blink of an eye,
but if I ask you to set up two factories, you will tell me twenty reasons why
it cannot be done and therefore what do our youth do?’ Gujral subsequently
acted as convener for a Committee of Ministers of State to deal with
Kashmir:
But I confess with a great deal of regret and dismay, that our achievements were
very marginal. We succeeded in setting up two factories, but we were unable to
make any dent on unemployment. Some progress was made in agriculture, but
that was not much of an achievement because agriculture and fruits were growing
in any case. Most of the concessions which were given were utilised by the
industries more in the Jammu area, but hardly anything in Kashmir. The major
failure is that we should have concentrated more on public sector investment.
Apart from the merits and demerits, public sector investment encourages the
private sector. And since in Kashmir disquiet was there all the time, for one
reason or the other the private sector was very reluctant to invest.
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Nevertheless Dharma Vira, a civil servant, recalled how much better off the
Kashmiris were in this period compared with their conditions under the
maharaja. ‘Then I saw people coming in large numbers, in tatters, saying:
“God give us food”. But today the standard of living has changed. It is
Indian money that has produced that change.’
80
He attributed the current
distress of the Kashmiri people to the greed of their leaders.
Algeria’s successful struggle against France and the Vietnamese resistance
against the United States, were beginning, however, to show the Kashmiri
nationalists in exile in Pakistan that there might, after all, be a way to change
the status quo. In Amanullah Khan, Maqbool Butt, and several others
had joined together to form a political party in Azad Kashmir. ‘One day they
came to my house to discuss not only the formation of the party but also
sought my participation,’ recalls Muhammad Saraf.
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‘We could not agree
because I insisted that the Party should have, as its political goal, the State’s
accession to Pakistan.’ The party was to be called the Plebiscite Front (as
distinct from the Plebiscite Front formed in the valley). The armed wing,
which gained greater notoriety, was called the Jammu and Kashmir National
Liberation Front (NLF). ‘We said there can’t be freedom unless we shed our
own blood as well as that of the enemy,’ said Amanullah Khan.
82
As Butt
later recounted: ‘Interestingly, Amanullah Khan and several others in my
group had seen eye to eye with my proposal favouring an Algerian type
struggle to free Kashmiris from Indian occupation.’
83
Butt, who had first
Until the s, Azad Jammu and Kashmir operated under the basic
democracy system first introduced by Ayub Khan in and amended in
and to accommodate the demands both of the local Azad
Kashmiris and the refugee committee, who wanted greater representation.
But although the local councils had limited powers, their funds were scarce
and they remained dependent on Pakistan. The Azad Kashmir Govern-
ment Act, passed under President Yahya Khan, instituted a presidential system
of government, which, in theory, provided for a fully democratic system.
When Bhutto framed the Constitution in Pakistan, which substituted a
parliamentary system of government for the presidential one, the same system
was also introduced for Azad Kashmir. As in Pakistan, the prime minister
was the chief executive and the president a titular head. Nonetheless, the
Azad Kashmir Council in Islamabad continued to exercise considerable
jurisdiction over the affairs of Azad Kashmir. What was most significant,
however, was that although Azad Kashmir remained administratively apart
from the rest of Pakistan, according to Leo Rose, who made a detailed study
of Azad Kashmir politics in , this was the first time Pakistan ‘assumed
a direct and open institutional role in the governance of Azad Kashmir’ in
the wake of the Simla agreement. In fact, Rose interprets the Simla agreement
as ‘a first step in the actual accession of Azad Kashmir into Pakistan, in
form as well as fact.’
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The Kashmir accord
Bhutto’s vocal support of the Kashmiris’ right of self-determination could
not hide the fact that Pakistan’s position over any further initiatives in Kashmir
was greatly weakened. The failure of the war, which Bhutto had blamed
on Ayub, and Pakistan’s defeat and the emergence of independent Bangladesh
in left those Kashmiris who would have preferred the state to be joined
to Pakistan with little hope for the future. G. M. Sadiq had died in office in
the middle of the war. He was replaced as chief minister by a former
colleague, Syed Mir Qasim, president of the Jammu and Kashmir Congress
Party formed in out of the former National Conference.
Sheikh Abdullah had wanted to participate in the forthcoming elections in
the state but, in January , the Plebiscite Front had been banned and
Abdullah was externed from the state. The Indian government still associated
the Front with the activities of the terrorist group Al Fatah. Abdullah was
scathing over the ban: ‘Over a million politically conscious members of the
outlawed Plebiscite Front were conveniently removed from the field to clear
the path for a walk-over for the Congress. The door of democratic processes
have thus been banged on the real representatives of the people’
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In the
absence of any serious opposition, when elections were held in March
Mir Qasim won with a comfortable majority. The Jamaat-i Islami, with its
pro-Pakistani leanings, won five seats and the Jana Sangh won three. Mirwaiz
