Kashmir Crisis: A challenge to world conscience

Benjamin Franklin, a signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence from Britain, and a man responsible for negotiating a treaty between the colonies and France, asked, “When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?”

Perhaps the simple answer to that is that it will occur when power is distributed among men in such a way that it cannot be abused by any individual or nation, and that both personal and national sovereignty is once and for all respected.

Franklin was in fact a loyalist, a man who believed that the king should have more power (it was simpler), but became a patriot and ultimately a believer in liberty and the self-determination of those who wanted to escape tyranny,

Franklin obviously believed that resistance by the colonies was a preferable route to capitulation. “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety”,“ he wrote,  “deserve neither safety nor liberty.” With sufficient resistance one has the strength to demand negotiations if winning outright isn’t in the cards. A man who is weak can demand nothing.

The need for both resistance and arbitration in the case of Kashmir is obvious, but we have a balance of power problem just as the colonies did in the beginning.  India’s 900,000-plus troops stationed in Kashmir combined with its control over local law enforcement presents a difficult,  if not insurmountable, challenge to those willing to resist the foreign occupation. The presence of such a large number of troops plus 73 years of conflict would seem to most observers a clear indication that Kashmir’s differences with India are intractable and irresolvable given the persistent resistance, despite the serious imbalance of power between the two.

While a lot has been said during the last few sessions of the United Nations General Assembly about international peace and security on one side and conflict resolution on the other, all emphasized the need for cooperation and not confrontation. However, in the end, it was clear that every member nation wanted cooperation that would serve only its own national interest and not cooperation to serve humanity or the interests of other nations or peoples.

The vision of former Danish PM Lars Lokke Rasmussen, “Today the world again faces a situation where cooperation and dialogue is all too often replaced by force and violence” can hardly be disputed by anyone.

Without the support of the USA, the likelihood of the Kashmir conflict dissolving into open warfare again, as it has in the past, with a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, seems unavoidable. Intervention is of paramount importance by the Biden Administration, for the sake of international peace and security in the region of South Asia and beyond.

Dr. Syed Nazir Gilani is correct when he said, “If America and Britain could take recourse to humanitarian intervention in Russia and Morocco in 1891 and 1909 to ensure the protection of Jews and Christians, the OIC should have no hesitation to live up to its duty to the Muslims of Kashmir against the inhumane and degrading treatment and killing at the hands of Indian  occupation forces”

Former US President Barack Obama said, “It is these international principles that helped constrain bigger countries from imposing our will on smaller ones… On this basis, we see some major powers assert themselves in ways that contravene international law.”

Quite true, obviously. But of course President Obama was subtly pointing fingers at Russia and perhaps it would be well if President Obama’s own foreign policy advisors had given heed. US military interorvention in numerous countries in the last three decades, directly or indirectly, such as in Syria, is a matter of history.  Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter,  had proposed that we “disarm” the Russian ships supporting Assad. President Putin had however suggested that Russia’s presence in Syria should lead to negotiations to settle the political differences involved. None of this bloodshed and the displacing of millions of Syrians would have occurred if that had been the policy to begin with.

I fail to understand who prevents these world leaders from using their moral authority to persuade violators of international laws, like India in Kashmir, to abide by these principles. Perhaps international arms sales and the general military-industrial complex that seems to have a firm grip on foreign policy priorities, might offer a clue, and when world leaders are complicit, it is rather difficult for them to hold any moral high ground with respect to one’s partners. Observing the democratic process and civility in international affairs seems too great a request for people who lack both the will to act responsibly and the maturity to understand the proper role of civil servants of society.

I believe the best way to resolve the Kashmir conflict which directly affects the peace and stability of India and Pakistan is through listening to Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation of India who said on 29 July 1947 in Delhi,  “The real sovereign of the state are the people. The ruler is a servant of the people. If he is not so then he is not the ruler. This is my firm belief, and that is why I became a rebel against the British – because the British claimed to be the rulers of India, and I refused to recognize them as such. In Kashmir too the power belongs to the public. Let them do as they want.”

The refusal by India to sit down at the table with Pakistan or those who represent the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir indicate that India is not even close to addressing the realities of Kashmir and the will of the people. This must change. Peace in the region would benefit not only those who are directly impacted by this conflict but India as well, whose economy is seriously drained by the maintenance of such a massive number of troops in Kashmir, and the diversion it creates from other challenges it faces in raising the living standards of its population. Sounder minds must prevail.  More rational methods of dealing with differences must be sought. Repeating the same mistakes while expecting different results has long ago been found to be the path of failure. Seventy-three years should demonstrate a need for a change in policy, a policy that accepts the need for coming together in a process that accepts the right of people of Jammu and Kashmir to determine their own destiny.

The USA has urged both India and Pakistan to settle the Kashmir conflict and come to the table, but it knows much better that bilateral talks have always failed. Third-party engagement or facilitation is needed as it yielded results in persuading India and Pakistan to reach a ceasefire agreement on 25 February 2021 after a lapse of 18 years.

Then Vice-President Biden shook the conscience of the world powers when he spoke about the situation in Bosnia in the United States Senate on 13 December 1995, “A decade and a half ago, war tore this country apart and left at least 100,000 dead… and millions homeless. The genocide at Srebrenica brought home the unspeakable savagery of that war to the world. It was a call to conscience. My country– for too long on the sidelines– could no longer stand by.”

President Biden should know that in Kashmir too more than 100,000 people are dead and ‘Genocide Watch’ has issued a Genocide Alert for Kashmir on 15 August 2019. Perhaps, now is the time that President Biden should listen to President John F. Kennedy who spoke at the UN General Assembly on 25 September 1961 “That continuing tide of self-determination, which runs so strong, has our sympathy and our support…My nation was once a colony, and we know what colonialism means; the exploitation and subjugation of the weak by the powerful, of the many by the few, of the governed who have given no consent to be governed, whatever their continent, their class, or their color.”

Without the support of the USA, the likelihood of the Kashmir conflict dissolving into open warfare again, as it has in the past, with a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, seems unavoidable. Intervention is of paramount importance by the Biden Administration, for the sake of international peace and security in the region of South Asia and beyond.