Kashmir, Pak Army and Jihad
It is very rare to see a Pakistani being honest and candid on Kashmir without the political baggage.
To my surprise I saw that an article where Agha Amin, a Pakistani author himself summed up his conclusions on Kashmir in very clear terms – which reviewing Arvin Bahl’s book “From Jinnah to Jihad” – something I have not seen any Pakistani do. The relationship between the ambition of the Army, Kashmir and the Destruction of the Pakistani state is something that nobody in that country truly appreciates. Read these points below:
1-Kashmir was born out of Mr Jinnahs disagreement to accept the simple majority formula of a state with Hindu majority joining India and Muslim majority joining Pakistan. This point was discussed in some detail by H.V. Hodson in his monumental book The Great Divide.
2-At the military and political level right from the start Kashmir served as a justification to military ambitions of generals and political ambitions of ambitious politicians trying to prove themselves as Bismarks, Cavours, Mustafa Kemals, Napoleons and Mahmud Ghaznavis. A means to galvanise the masses just like Daud Khan used Durand Line to galvanise the Afghans with diasatorous consequences. At the military level Pakistan missed the opportunities it had in 19447-48 and 1965 because of political and military incompetence.
3-At the ethnic level Kashmir was a case of a Punjabi speaking tract of land occupied by India. It recieved its greatest boost in General Zias time because Zia was a Punjabi. Zia laid the framework of the Kashmir low intensity war with half baked lessons from Afghan war. The same blue print has been followed by the Pakistani military to date. Even Zia the clown that he was borrowed the idea from Major General Akbar Khan who discussed this in some detail in his book Raiders in Kashmir.
4-Kashmir is a non issue in Sindh,Balochistan and now NWFP. In the past it was a non issue in East Bengal. Initially the idea was to manipulate the tribal Pashtuns in name of Jihad and loot/rapine. This was well till 2001 but when Musharraf committed the grand strategic blunder of sending the army against Pashtuns it became null and void.
5-Kashmir is a clever ploy used by the Pakistani military to assert its nuisance value.
6-Kashmir has been used by foreign powers like Britain and China to pressurise India.
7-In the aftermath of the Kargil faux pas Kashmir war became discredited and after the NWFP war of 2002-till to date Kashmir is far more discredited.
8-Kashmir is a tool to maintain primacy of the generals in Pakistani politics.
9-Kashmir will keep Pakistan a hostage to extremists and ambitious generals and politicians till the final Indo Pak war already being fought at the covert level is decided. It appears that the issue will be decided in next 5 to 10 years. Sanity will not prevail and the irrational forces in mans nature will prevail. It is the same situation as before WW One. Irrational forces will dominate and the issue will be decided after an immense amount of bloodshed. So be it because man as Freud long ago discovered is irrational.
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