Musharraf’s Agra summit: an Indian Muslim perspective

Crescent International

Jumada' al-Ula' 26, 1422 2001-08-16

Features

by Crescent International (Features, Crescent International Vol. 30, No. 12, Jumada' al-Ula', 1422)

General Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, came, saw and returned without conquering: not Kashmir but his ancestral home at Naharwali Haveli, Delhi. Yet another summit-level talk between India and Pakistan had collapsed. Both India and Pakistan were preoccupied with their own political ambitions and not really concerned with the barbarous treatment of people in Kashmir.

Any summit-level meeting excluding representatives of the people of Kashmir is invalid, so it is immaterial whether talks ‘succeed’ or fail. To address the problem of Kashmir as an “issue”, “dispute” or “core issue”, and at the same time hope for a solution, are divergent aims that neither India nor Pakistan can accommodate in their political agenda. Musharraf was apparently being bold when he insisted on Kashmir’s being a “core issue”. Indian prime minister Vajpayee, on the other hand, stuck to the view that Kashmir is at the core of “Indian nationhood”, thus betraying the anti-Muslim agenda of his Brahminist regime.

More than 700, 000 troops confront less than 5 million civilians in the valley. The experience of military repression has been brutalizing and humiliating. No chronicle can accurately depict what the people of Kashmir have endured. The atrocities include torture, gang-rape, cold-blooded murder and disappearances. Human-rights activists have documented more than seventy thousand killings and a similar number of disappearances in the valley. The horrifying number of ‘disappearances’ exceeds the scandalous proportions reached in Pinochet’s Chile. The systematic genocide practised by the Brahminist regime of India on the predominantly Muslim people of Kashmir is unforgiveable.

Any summit-level meeting ignoring this grim reality is bound to be fruitless. India’s Brahminist regime was earlier adamantly opposed to a discussion on Kashmir involving Pakistan. However, the Agra summit took shape under compelling circumstances. Huge defence-budgets involved in Kashmir were a matter of concern. Moreover, Indian commanders have consistently admitted that winning the war in Kashmir by military means alone is impossible, and demanded that political solutions be sought. As the brutality of the Indian troops increases, the determination of the mujahideen increases. The summit was intended to confuse or derail the confidence of the mujahideen. However, it is too late to play such tricks on the Kashmiris; they have realised that jihad is the only way for them to liberate themselves. Separatist movements elsewhere, especially in the northeastern part of India, have also gained momentum because of the Kashmiri mujahideen. This development has demoralised the Indian security apparatus; desperate to tackle these problems, the summit is yet another ploy to divert attention from ‘internal’ problems.

Lastly, it would be unfair to ignore the enormous pressure imposed externally on both India and Pakistan to ‘resolve’ the Kashmir problem. The location of Kashmir on the borders of China and central Asia is of great strategic importance. The US has already shown signs of being willing to interfere to ‘solve’ the dispute if necessary. Kashmir may be divided into convenient portions or told to exist ‘independently’. However, the US will make sure that it has firm control over the strategic location of Kashmir, given its proximity to China and central Asia. Interestingly, China would also be wary because of the potential influence from Kashmir on the Uighur Muslims of eastern Turkestan. The Americans, Zionists and Brahminists will never accept the people of Kashmir dictating their own terms for a real solution.The only real Kashmiri liberation possible is thus rightly identified as jihad waged by the mujahideen in Kashmir.

Courtesy: Resurgence Online. For more news from a Indian Muslim perspective, please visit www.resurgenceonline.com.