The Kashmir Story Part 2 : Creation of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (West of LOC) & China Occupied Kashmir (East of LAC)

 The Kashmir Story

Part 2 : Creation of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (West of LOC) & China Occupied Kashmir (East of LAC):

• Post Partition of undivided India in 1947, the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was acceded to India by the then ruler of J&K, Maharaja Hari Singh through an Instrument of Accession signed on October 26, 1947 post massive Pakistan infiltration. 

• The original State of J&K which acceded to India in October 1947 comprised 2,22,236 sq km. Independent India’s border in the northwest touched Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan and border to north with China Occupied Tibet (COT). Pakistan had no border with China. 

• But today India is in physical occupation of only 1,06,566 sq km of the 2,22,236 sq km of the original state of J&K. 

• Pakistan occupied Kashmir (POK) is 72,935 sq km less 5,180 sq km of Shaksgam Valley (Indian Territory) illegally leased to China in 1963. 

• China Occupied Kashmir (COK) consists of 37,555 sq km of Aksai Chin plus 5,180 sq km Shaksgam and territory nibbled over the years, all totaling up to 42,735 sq km. 

• Pakistan was considering leasing Gilgit-Baltistan (72,971 sq km) to China for 50 years. 

• Today we have a Line of Control (LOC) with Pakistan and Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.

● On Partition of India, the British conspired an invasion and capture of J&K through Mountbatten (Governor General of independent India), Lockhart (C-in-C Indian Army) and Douglas Gracey (C-in-C Pakistan army), keeping Nehru in dark and Jinnah in picture. 

Pakistani invasion of so-called Razakars had a mix of Pakistani Army regulars – all armed by Pakistan Army.

• British officers of Pakistan Army guided Pakistani infiltrators into Shyok and Nubra Valleys of Ladakh but the Nubra Guards of Ladakhis fought and made them retreat. 

• When the Indian Army was going after the retreating Pakistani infiltrators, Mountbatten and Lockhart persuaded Nehru to call a ceasefire and approach the United Nations for arbitration – another trap which Nehru fell for. 

• British plan was for Pakistan army to get a foothold in J&K, making it party to dispute when referred to UN. Importantly, British wanted to keep Gilgit–Baltistan with a country of their making (Pakistan) to fight communist threat of Russia and China on borders of Kashmir. 

• Today, currently three countries lay claim to various parts of J&K.  

• Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, and the Siachen Glacier are with us - India; 

• Pakistan occupies Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; 

• While China administers Demchok district, the Shaksgam Valley, and the Aksai Chin region.

● Our then policy makers were of the belief there will be no war. As such defence allocations were minimal and military modernisation dumped. 

• We failed to realise that China’s policy was always based on surprise, ambiguity and deceit and that it is power that China and Pakistan understand – hard power is a deterrent by itself, soft power not backed by hard power is ineffective and soft power coupled with diplomacy is no substitute for hard power. 

• The dual threat across the LOC and LAC and China baring its fangs served as a wakeup call. To add to this, Nepal has gone hostile and possible PLA deployments in Nepal will compound our problems manifold.

• China has successfully brought Communists to power in Nepal, drawing Nepal in its strategic sphere. China has announced it will bear costs of teaching Mandarin in Nepal’s schools which the government has accepted. Naturally, teachers will come from China well versed in ideological and psychological treatment of the upcoming generation. PLA deployment inside Nepal is likely in very near future.

• Unfortunately, Jawahar Lal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister was inclined excessively towards China at the cost of India’s strategic interests. 

• When General Robert Lockhart, first C-in-C of India took a strategic plan for a Government directive on defence policy to Nehru, he took one look at the paper and shouted, “Rubbish! Total rubbish! We don’t need a defence plan. Our policy is ahimsa (non-violence). We foresee no military threats. Scrap the army! The police are good enough to meet our security needs.” 

• Instead of helping Tibetans against Chinese invasion, Nehru was supplying rice to PLA. He also told US, UK and UN to go ignore Tibetan protest to UN saying that would distract from the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission in the Korean Peninsula – as scripted by former ambassador R.S. Kalha.

• India became aware that China had built a road through Aksai Chin (Indian Territory) and established PLA posts there much after all this was completed. Aksai Chin was annexed by China without firing a shot or violence – compared to killing close to one million Tibetans in Tibet till now.

• The Shaksgam valley in the trans-Karakoram tract, part of PoK, was handed over on a platter by a supine Pakistan to China through an illegal border agreement on March 2, 1963. However, the continuing Chinese occupation of Kashmir’s territory does not find adequate mention in the contemporary discourse surrounding this issue.

China occupies 5,180 square kilometres in the Shaksgam Valley in addition to approximately 38,000 square kilometres in Aksai Chin. China and Pakistan have colluded to obfuscate these facts, even as they brazenly promote the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which runs through parts of Indian territory under their respective occupation.

Pak occupied Kashmir

At the time of partition of India in 1947, the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir consisted of five regions: Jammu, Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, Gilgit Wazarat and Gilgit Agency.

In 1935, the British had had taken Gilgit Agency on a lease of 60 years from the Jammu and Kashmir Maharaja.

Before exiting India, the British cancelled the lease and handed back the region to the Maharaja.

When Pakistan invaded Kashmir Valley in October 1947, the British administrator Major William Brown revolted with the help of one influential Subedar Major Babar Khan.

The rebels killed the maharaja's governor and a small group of Sikh and Gurkha soldiers in Gilgit. They sent a message to Karachi to occupy Gilgit Wazarat and Gilgit Agency proclaiming on their own accession to Pakistan for which no document was signed. 

Pakistan, thus, occupied Gilgit Wazarat and Gilgit Agency - the region is more famously known as Gilgit-Baltistan -- by the treachery of British officers.

Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) - a portion of the Kashmir Valley that Pakistan captured in 1947 and has held since 1949 ceasefire - remained a single unit till 1971 when Pakistan carved out a separate region of Gilgit-Baltistan, renamed it as Northern Territory and placed it under direct rule of the federal government.

 Introduction of Article 370:

It was in this murky picture that the Indian Govt introduced Article 370 and Article 35 A for the state of Jammu & Kashmir - granting it a special status.

• However, for 70 years, the provision empowering the State with ‘special’ status has always been the elephant in the room. 

• Jammu & Kashmir has, along with its sensitive topography, always appeared like a foreign policy issue, instead of a domestic one due to its status in our Constitution. 

• There existed an unnecessary chasm between citizens of Kashmir and the rest of India.

Special status

• Article 370 detailed the relationship Kashmir  shared with the rest of the country; 

• Article 35-A granted permanent residents of Kashmir some special rights. From the get-go, the Constitutional relationship of India with Kashmir was always adversely lopsided. 

• India had already ensured the states with the Mizos and the Naga population with constitutional safeguards(special provisions) such as protecting their social practices. 

• India had an assortment of examples where it had performed positive discrimination for groups (Articles 15 and 16) and as mentioned – states.

● The problem, to put it succinctly,  was that with Kashmir the positive discrimination tended to be insidious. 

• Instead of taking a legislative route, Article 35-A was passed through a Presidential order. It subverted the law-making powers of the legislature, granted by the Constitution. They cannot amend the Constitution. Even an ordinance, which was most decidedly not, was to be passed by Parliament. 

• The order, passed in 1954 by the President, was due to fulfilling Article 370 (1) (d). Article 370 itself was supposed to be temporary; the first word of the Article is temporary. It was still under Part XXI which is titled “Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions“.

Kashmir's troubled timeline:

1947 - End of British rule and partition of sub-continent into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority state of Pakistan.

1947 - The Maharaja of Kashmir signs a treaty of accession with India after a Pakistani tribal army attacks. War breaks out between India and Pakistan over the region.

1948 - India raises Kashmir in the UN Security Council, which in Resolution 47 calls for a referendum on the status of the territory. The resolution also calls on Pakistan to withdraw its troops and India to cut its military presence to a minimum. A ceasefire comes into force, but Pakistan refuses to evacuate its troops. Kashmir is for practical purposes partitioned.

1951 - Elections in the  state of Jammu and Kashmir back accession to India. India says this makes a referendum unnecessary. The UN and Pakistan say a referendum needs to take into account the views of voters throughout the former princely state.

1953 - The Indian Govt dismisses and arrest Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah, leader of the governing National Conference, after he takes a pro-referendum stance and delays formal accession to India. A new Jammu and Kashmir government ratifies accession to India.

1957 - The constitution of Jammu and Kashmir defines it as part of India.

1950s - China gradually occupies eastern Kashmir (Aksai Chin).

1962 - China defeats India in a short war for control of Aksai Chin.

1963 - Pakistan cedes the Trans-Karakoram Tract of Kashmir to China.

1965 - A brief war between Indian and Pakistan over Kashmir ends in a ceasefire and a return to the previous positions.

1971-72 - Another Indo-Pakistani war ends in defeat for Pakistan and leads to the 1972 Simla Agreement.This turns the Kashmir ceasefire line into the Line of Control, pledges both sides to settle their differences through negotiations, and calls for a final settlement of the Kashmir dispute. The Agreement forms the basis of India - Pak relations thereafter.

1984 - The Indian Army seizes control of the Siachen Glacier, an area not demarcated by the Line of Control. Pakistan makes frequent attempts to capture the area in the following decades but fails.

Start of insurgency

1987 - India accuses Pakistan of fomenting the insurgency by despatching fighters across the Line of Control, which Pakistan denies.

1990 - The insurgency escalates after the Indian Army kills about 100 demonstrators at Gawakadal Bridge. Attacks, arson and threats lead to the exit of almost all Hindu Pandits from the Kashmir Valley area of the state. India imposes Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Jammu and Kashmir.

1990s - The insurgency continues, with Kashmiri militants training in Pakistan and India deploying hundreds of thousands of troops in Jammu and Kashmir. 

1999 - India and Pakistan go to war again after militants cross from Pakistan occupied Kashmir into Kargil district. India repulses the attack, accuses Pakistan of being behind it, and breaks off relations.

2001-2004 - Moves to boost relations between the two countries are punctuated by continuing violence - an attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001.

2010 - Major protests erupt in the Kashmir Valley of Jammu and Kashmir in summer after a demonstrator is killed by the Indian army. The protests abate in September after the government announces measures to ease tension.

2011 August - Chief Minister Omar Abdullah announces an amnesty for the 1,200 young men who threw stones at security forces during the anti-government protests in the Kashmir Valley the previous year.

2013 February -  Jaish-e-Mohammed member Mohammad Afzal Guru hanged over role in 2001 Indian parliament terror attack, prompting protests in which two young men are killed.

2013 September - Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan meet and agree to try reduce the number of violent incidents at the LoC border in Kashmir.

2014 August - India cancels talks with Pakistan after accusing it of interfering in India's internal affairs. The decision comes after Pakistan's High Commissioner in Delhi consulted Kashmiri separatist leaders in advance of talks.

During a visit to the  state of Jammu and Kashmir, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi accuses Pakistan of waging a proxy war against India in Kashmir.

2014 October - Pakistan and India exchange strongly-worded warnings, after a flare-up of violence across their common border leaves at least 18 people dead.

[End of Part 2]

@ Dayanand Nene

(With media inputs)