Kashmir Insurgency - Hard Copy

8/2/2019 Kashmir Insurgency - Hard Copy

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A Project

On

KASHMIR

INSURGENCY


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Acknowledgement

I wish to thank _____________for their tremendous contribution and support bothmorally and financially towards the completion of this project.

I am also grateful to my project supervisor Mr./Mrs________________who

without his/her help and guidance this project would not have been completed.

I also show my gratitude to my friends and all who contributed in one way or the

other in the course of the project.

Thanking you

name

class-sec


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Introduction

Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19thcentury, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the

Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range. Contemporarily, Kashmir

denotes a larger area that includes the Indian administered state of Jammu and

Kashmir (Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh), the Pakistani administered Gilgit-

Baltistan and Azad Kashmir, and the Chinese-administered regions of Aksai Chin

and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.

The story behind the partition of

Kashmir

After the Partition of India in

1947, the princely states were

given the option of joining either

India or Pakistan. However, Hari

Singh, the maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, wanted Jammu and Kashmir to

remain independent. In order to buy some time, he signed a stand-still agreement,which sidestepped the agreement that each princely state would join either India or

Pakistan.Later there was a revolution by Muslims in the western part of the

kingdom and the raiders from North-West Frontier Province and the Tribal Areas

feared that Hari Singh might join the Indian Union.

In October 1947, supported by the Pakistani Army, they attacked Kashmir and

tried to take over control of Kashmir. Initially Hari Singh tried to resist their

progress but failed. Hari Singh then requested the Indian Union to help. India

responded that it could not help unless Kashmir joined India. So on 26 October1947, Kashmir accession papers were signed and Indian troops were airlifted to

Srinagar. Fighting ensued between the Indian Army and Pakistani Army, with

control stabilizing more or less around what is now the "Line of Control".


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In 1949, a cease-fire line separating the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of

Kashmir was formally put into effect.

Post this cease fire agreement the princely state of Kashmir was divided between

India and Pakistan.

The Pakistani government divided Kashmir into two parts

1.Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) - the narrow southern part..Azad Jammu and

Kashmir (AJK) is a self-governing state under Pakistani control but is not

constitutionally part of Pakistan.It has its own elected president, prime minister,

legislature, high court, and official flag

2.Gilgit-Baltistan formerly called Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA)

- is the much larger area to the north of AJK, it was directly administered by

Pakistan as a de facto dependent territory, i.e., a non-self-governing territory.

However it was officially granted full autonomy on August 29, 2009

The Indian occupied Kashmir

India controls the central and southern portion of Kashmir.This includes :

Jammu [main cities : Jammu,Poonch]

Ladakh in the east [main cities : Leh and Kargil]

The Kashmir valley : currently it has population of around four million, 97% of

whom are Muslim. It lies completely within Indian administration in the state of

Jammu and Kashmir. Srinagar is its main city and also the summer capital of the

state. Other main cities are Anantnag and Baramulla.

China and Kashmir

China has occupied Aksai Chin since the early 1950s and, in addition, an adjoining

region almost 8% of the territory, the Trans-Karakoram Tract was ceded by

Pakistan to China in 1963.


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Demographics of Kashmir

The population divide in the various parts of Jammu and Kashmir is as follows:

Jammu : [ 30% Muslims, 66% Hindus : the Kashmiri Pandits, 4% others]Ladakh : [50% Muslims, 46% Buddhist, 4% others]

Kashmirvalley : [most populous : 96% Muslims , 4% Hindus]

About 135,000 Hindus/Muslims in Indian Administered Kashmir are

internally displaced due to militancy

These figures would help you understand why the Kashmir valley has been the

most troubled area in the entire Jammu and Kashmir region and the one vociferous

in asking for independence from India.


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Insurgency in Kashmir

The begining of terrorism in Kashmir

The inceptionThough there had been

instances of sporadic

conflict in many regions for

many years, intensified

attacks occurred in the late

1980s, when the 1987 state

elections were rigged

although disputed ; had

resulted in some of the

'states legislative assembly''formed militant wings' later

on after the election

forming and creating the

catalyst for the insurgency

Indian Government believes Mujahideen fighters from Afghanistan slowly

infiltrated the region, with Pakistan's help, following the end of the Soviet-Afghan

War in 1989.

Reasons for insurgency demand for independent Kashmir in favour of joining Pakistan

Pakistan's role in terrorism in Kashmir A 1994 report by Human Rights Watch group lends support to both Indian

and Pakistani charges. In support of Indian claims, it states that "


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There is compelling evidence that elements of the Pakistani government have

sponsored a significant flow of arms to Kashmiri militants [from arms bazaars inthe North West Frontier Province], as well as an extensive training program.

The Council on Foreign Relations states that Pakistans military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) both include personnel who sympathize withor

even assistIslamist militants adding that "ISI has provided covert but well-

documented support to terrorist groups active in Kashmir, among other

outfits.

The UN Security Council has also confirmed the existence of terroristgroups based in [Pakistani] Kashmir and urged Pakistan to crack down on

terrorist groups which had been operating in Kashmir and killing innocent

people

Pakistan's stance on terrorism in Kashmir

Pakistan describes the separatists as "freedom fighters" and says that it supports

their effort for the cause of the Kashmiris only morally and diplomatically.

Pakistan however admits that there has been 'cross border infiltration of militants'

across the Line of Control.

In 2008, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said India has never been a threat to

Pakistan, and that militants in Kashmir are terrorists . In 2002, Pakistani president

Pervez Musharraf tried to clamp down on the militantsoperating from Pakistan.


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The various terrorist organisations in Kashmir

India frequently asserts that most of the separatist militant groups are based in

Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir (also known as Azad Kashmir). Some

like the All Parties Hurriyat

Conference and the Jammu and

Kashmir Liberation Front,

demand an independent Kashmir.

Other militant groups such as

Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-

Mohammed favour a Pakistani-

Kashmir.

These groups have contacts with

Taliban and Bin Laden. Both theorganisations no longer operate

under these names after they were

banned by the Indian and

Pakistani government, and by

other countries including the US and UK. Of the larger militant groups, the Hizbul

Mujahideen, a militant organisation based in Indian administered Kashmir, unlike

other groups, has only kept its name.

Despite casualties, the militants are still believed to number thousands rather than

hundreds. Several new separatist organizations have also emerged. According toUS Intelligence, Al-Qaeda also has a main base in Pakistani Kashmir and is

helping to foment terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir

The three important seperatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir

All Parties Hurriyat Conference : Syed Ali Shah Geelani(chairman Tehreek-e-Hurriyat a component of All Parties Hurriyat

Conference)

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front : Yasin Mailk (chief) Mirwaiz Umar Farooq : moderate Hurriyat leader / Chairman of the Awami

Action committee.


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The changing equation in Kashmir

In the angry slogans being shouted in Srinagar's streets,there's an important

ingredient that's missing - Pakistan.Is this an opportunity for India to solve the

Kashmir issue without Pakistan's interference?

The transition from militancy to street protest has overturned the Kashmir

paradigm. After three months and over 100 deaths, stone-pelters have emerged as

the defining face of a new movement.They call themselves the Sangbaaz Tehreek.

Who are these Sangbaaz Tehreek?

they already have a committed membership of over 30,000 youths of who10,000 are full time stone pelters.

thousand more are silent supporters : they operate through the internet wherethe outpouring of the Azadi sentiment is overwhelming

many are students and professionals ,products of growing middle class inKashmir that has used India's economic boom to take wings

How are they different from terrorists?

they have taken everyone by surprise : marginalised pro-Indian politics andforced the seperatist leaders to modify their pro-Pakistan tilt

these are clear headed people , vocal and unambiguous about their demandsfor an independant Kashmir

they have a social sanction which militancy never had they have lambasted Geelani for his pro-Pakistan tilt : for them Pakistan as a

concept is dead in Pakistan itself

Why are they important?

they are powerful coz they have a social sanction secondly these people are unarmed and hence using guns against them

would lead to violation of human rights

they are educated and clear headed and know what they want


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How is this an opportunity for India?

with Pakistan out of the equation ,the window has opened for a directdialogue between Srinagar and New Delhi

The stone pelters have succeded where the seperatist tried and failed.It is ironicwhat the Hurriyat could not do in six years these stone pelters did in 3

months.They have got India's attention and made it realise there is a problem in

Kashmir.

Now it's for the center to take the nex steps before it misses yet another opportunity

to bring peace to the troubled valley.


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Globalisation and the Media

On the basis of the theoretical foundations that, in

bringing information to the rest of the world, the

media not only has a wide outreach but also its owninfluence on public opinion. The long-standing

Kashmir issue should have been picked up as major

threat to security in South Asia. It merits attention

for two reasons - its long duration due to the nature

of dispute, which has led to the ongoing tense

relations between India and Pakistan, and, not the

least, the manner of the sustained suffering of the Kashmiri people in the face of

unabated brutalities they continue to face. An additional cause for concern is thatthe two major protagonistsIndia and Pakistanhave demonstrated their nuclear

capabilities. Yet regarding this issue with a long history of UN resolutions, there is

a willful undermining of the importance of the resolution of the dispute to South

Asian security and to the world. The Kashmir dispute has the capacity to unleash a

wave of greater uncertainty in the political and the economic climate of the South

Asia, which would affect Asia as a whole and the world at large.

Actors often shape information to project and protect their own vital interests and

thus present an issue in a special light. Thus an international media coverage thatcould necessitate international actions or condemnation is itself first shaped by

national interests of the home countries of the media. In short, media tends to

register truth in various formats and often in changed contexts that further

complicates the nature of the dispute and the way in which it is projected. Hence

the coloring given to conflicts, is largely a derivative of factors such as particular

power politics, specific national interests and the saliency of the issue to the parties

controlling international access to information. Thus, the Kashmir dispute can be

said to have been subjected to three kinds of media projections: the working of thepowerful international media, mostly that of the western-based news agencies and

the local media of both India and Pakistan. A new factor is that of the Kashmiri

articulation of their interests. Therefore the means of mass media such as

television, cinema, magazines and newspapers, all become power factors due to

their role in influencing and molding public opinion.


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Kashmir Dispute as a Case Study

The purpose is to examine the impact of the communications revolution on the

Kashmir dispute. What role has the media played in portraying this particular

conflict and its desired resolution? Why and how do some conflicts receivepositive media coverage, and hence international attention, while others are

ignored or negatively portrayed? And finally, how can victims of violence get into

the picture and earn international sympathy and support? This study cannot provide

definitive answers to these difficult, but important questions. Instead it seeks to

invite further discussion by highlighting their significance to the conflict resolution

processes. The Kashmir dispute is taken up as case study because it has existed on

the international agenda of problems for a long time. For all the coverage it has

been given, it still remains unresolved. Therefore, there is a need to see what are

the reasons for its misguided fate.

Role of the Media

Information is power. Its production,

processing, and dissemination carry

implications for power relations. The control

of information and information technology is

vital in the reconfiguration of power and

politics, locally and globally. Dominant

social groups can, and invariably do, use the "media as ideological weapons to

secure advantages for themselves".

As the case study of the Kashmir dispute suggests, the mass media remains a

powerful ideological informational tool. The dominant social groups use it to

backup their economic and political hegemony. In this core dispute between India

and Pakistan, the Western media has chosen to portray India in a positive light

despite its inhumane policies in Kashmir and elsewhere in India, which the Indianmedia itself has criticized. The Kashmiris are fighting against a powerful regional

ally of the West. Hence the conflict is seen more in terms of a colonial legacy, a

dispute left over by history.


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The legality of the issue, despite early UN Security Council resolutions on the

dispute and the latter day condemnation of the human rights violations by the

Indian troops against the Kashmiri population, is often to the international public

opinion, as either Indias domestic problem, or an instance of Islamic

fundamentalism, or a bilateral dispute between parties.

The liberation movement is often depicted as a terrorist militancy instigated

primarily by Pakistan. Consequently, the attempts to get a positive international

image are constantly thwarted by India. India uses these western media biases to

show the conflict in various ways and thus thwart efforts towards a bilateral

dialogue, or make meaningful concessions to the people of Kashmir.

Media coverage of this conflict was primarily based on given set of cultural

attributes specific also to the media itself, to the exclusion of a broader reference toother facts of differing social structures, or of

solution oriented processes. As the case of

Kashmir dispute suggests the media also has

the potential of precipitating the

degeneration of political conflict into

violence and warfare, within and between

states. In addition the interventionist forces,

to justify their presence in an area, often useMedia coverage of human right violations.

Such is the case of the continued Indian military presence in the Valley.

Media can repress or liberate, unite or fragment a society, as well as promote or

hold back social progress. This makes media an extremely powerful tool, a catalyst

of social, structural and cultural changes. Given the power and transformative

potential of the mass media, the question of whose reality is presented, who owns

it and whose interests it serves, become central to a critical discussion of the

impact of the media in conflict dynamics and resolution. The case study of theKashmir dispute suggests that the international media uses selective reporting, and

uses human rights violations only to justify international intervention and not put

an end to atrocities. In the case of Kashmir human rights violations have not led to

international intervention because the conflict has been constantly depicted as an

intra-state dispute. The legal and moral responsibility of the international


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community was stronger in other cases such as Mozambique, Haiti, and Tajikistan,

where the dispute was clearly an internal affair, therefore outside the framework of

the regular norms of UN intervention yet international intervention did take place.

The coverage of the happenings in these areas created the necessary conditions for

the possibility of International intervention without the costs of acting outside theframework of UN or the norms of international affairs.

UN intervention is only justified where in internal conflict is a threat to

international security. In the case of the Kashmir dispute, the growing escalation in

the conflict is a serious threat to regional security, hence it merits international

attention. International resolutions exist to support the people of Kashmir in their

fight for self-determination, yet the issue has remained on the back burner of the

international media. Bias of the international media often plays to the tune of the

dominant groups in their respective countries.


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Conclusion

The media itself works within the established framework of international security

and power politics and time and again has bent principles of objectivity to the

biases of the environment. Conflicts are picked or not picked up by theinternational media in the nationalised context of international values and domestic

audiences of the countries of origin, of the respective media.

The globalization of economies and information has had a tremendous impact on

the way a dispute is projected by the protagonist and accessed by the user of the

information. In the case of the Kashmir dispute the globalisation of the economy,

and the Wests search for bigmarkets has accentuated the

conflict in the region. It is

necessary that the dispute be

addressed with the motive to bring

political stability in the region,

even if economic reasons are the

over arching motivations. In this

context the role played by the

media is not only important but

also fundamental to the process of

Conflict resolution. It is the accurate reporting of the media, which brings pressure

on the parties involved in a conflict to realize that the time is ripe for conflict

resolution and any delay is likely to increase the costs of the conflict.

There are no simple answers to the role of the media in conflict resolution but it is

time to re examine the prevailing ideas in the use of media. How it can be

remolded to preserve peace and security of people. A truly independent

international media can be an effective trustee of future generations, hence efforts

should be made to empower media to become responsible and handle this difficult

but important task, for the benefit of the successor generations.


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There is no easy way of solving the Kashmir crisis. Attempts at resolving the

conflict have been going on for over 50 years yet have seen very little progress. It

is time for a change and a new approach to settling the situation. India and

Pakistan should strike a deal with the United Nations and work together for a more

prosperous future. Key elements of this proposal require India and Pakistan to signthe Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban

Treaty. India should declare the Line of Control the international border and also

give Kashmir more autonomy. What the UN must do in return is establish peace in

the region and guarantee no border skirmishes. It should also provide funding to

strengthen the economy of Kashmir. These steps will hopefully revitalize Kashmir

and once again, allow it to be known for immense beauty rather that for grave

atrocity.


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References

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Kashmir Insurgency - Hard Copy