The agony of Kashmir: will it ever end?

The conflict in Kashmir has become a flashpoint in South Asia. William Casey, the former CIA director has declared South Asia as the most dangerous area in the world. Three wars, between India and Pakistan, several agreements and years of negotiations have utterly failed to resolve this issue. Apart from the Indian and Pakistani ruling classes the UN and other imperialist agencies have prove their inability to bring about a settlement to the Kashmir conflict. In the last 50 years the Indian and the Pakistani ruling elites have used Kashmir as a political football.

Now the chickens have come home to roost. The situation has worsened to such an extent that now this conflict threatens both the Indian and Pakistani states themselves. The recent autonomy resolution passed by the assembly of Indian occupied Kashmir has exposed the deep fissures in the different factions of the Indian ruling classes. The Kargill fiasco last year led not only to the overthrow of the Nawaz Sharif government but also opened up the conflict within the Pakistan army and the state. For the last decade or so, there has been much hue and cry about Kashmir on the part of Indian and Pakistani ruling classes. There has been wave after wave of propaganda in both the electronic and printed media. They all have a lot to say on this issue. They are all "sympathisers", "well-wishers" of the Kashmiris. The question is who is at fault and why has the life of the Kashmiri masses become such a constant nightmare? Who is responsible for this massacre? What has all this blood been spilt for?

The fault is to be found in the fact that the present capitalist system is at a dead end. For the last one hundred and fifty years or so, it has led the world to an impasse. Since it has lost all the vitality to deliver any good to humanity, it resorts to ruthless exploitation and cruel wars in an attempt to resolve its contradictions. The last century witnessed two world wars with a death toll of about 70 million people. But, during the last 55 years, since World War II, 180 million people have perished in proxy wars. These figures show the barbarism of the present capitalist system, which is based on profit and private ownership.

The present day Kashmir is an ugly legacy of this failing barbaric system. In 1940s the national awakening among the Indian masses had become so strong that it became impossible for the imperialist powers to hold their direct rule over India. They know this well. They decided to leave India before they suffered a humiliating defeat. But the imperialists could ill afford the freedom of a united India. It would have been a great threat to the existing feudal and capitalist system. The young and fresh proletariat of the Sub-continent had started to successfully intervene in the national liberation movement. This was an indication of things to come.

Stalinism also played a criminal role in this struggle. After the Yalta accord, the Communist Party of India (CPI) received orders from Moscow to collaborate with British imperialism as a worthy ally of the Stalinist Russian regime. The leadership of the CPI bowed before the orders of their big bosses. Thus, in collaboration with the national bourgeoisie leaders, the imperialist forces of reaction tore apart the living body of the Sub-continent. "Divide and rule" again became the order of the day. To prolong this division and to continue indirect imperialist rule, it was imperative to place a bone of contention between the two states. And no other principality (there were about 560) was more suitable than Kashmir. This is proved from the fact that within one year of the division of the Sub-continent, Kashmir itself was divided.

From a Marxist point of view, these states were doomed to fail from the very onset. The bourgeoisie of these countries had entered too late on the scene of world history and thus, in the face of the imperialist monopolies, they could play no progressive role whatsoever. The history of the last 53 years is ample proof of that. Fifty-five percent of the population of India and forty percent of the population of Pakistan is leading a miserable life below the poverty line. Pure drinking water, health and education facilities, are non-existent for the major part of the population of both these countries. It shows that the ruling classes of both the countries have lost all the material ground to hold their states, their system and their rule intact.

Again form a Marxist point of view, when a state becomes internally weak, on the one hand, it resorts to bitter state repression and on the other, it tries to create an external issue to divert the attention of its masses from their genuine problems. Today's Kashmir is placed between two such states - India and Pakistan.

Kashmir presents a dark, bleak and gloomy picture. Ironically, the Indian-held Kashmir enjoys a "special position" in the Indian constitution. This special status was designed to soothe the feeling of discontent of the Kashmiris. But within this system, even the most special status is the most miserable one. Since 1947, the seething feelings of the masses have been manifesting themselves. The ruling elite of Indian-held Kashmir has always used the discontent of the masses to bargain for, and strengthen, their own privileged position.

There have been many uprisings in Kashmir. These uprisings always had a very strong class character. Even the uprising of 1947 had a strong class basis. But in the absence of a genuine Marxist tendency, these uprisings have always been sabotaged on ethnic and religious grounds.

In 1988, Russia decided to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. That posed a question of survival for the Islamic fundamentalists, all over the world, and also for the Pakistani Army. Under the supervision of the ISI (Pakistan's military intelligence wing), by successfully exploiting the mass discontent of the Kashmiris, they launched a sort of guerrilla war in Indian-held Kashmir. Since then the Kashmiris have living under conditions of constant war.

However, guerillaism has its own pitfalls, particularly when it is based on individual terrorism. This sort of guerrillaism has always failed to deliver any good to the masses, rather it worsens their condition. This actually is what is now happening in Kashmir. This guerillaism has not only strengthened the Indian state but has also given rise to fundamentalism in India itself. Above all, it has provided the oppressive Indian state with an opportunity to let loose a reign of terror on the Kashmiri people. The following figures, by the upholders of this fundamentalist guerrillaism themselves, reveal the true state of affairs in the last 10 years: (a) Persons killed: 72,218, (b) disabled: 40,000, (c) Women raped: 7,500, (d) Houses burned: 67,900, (f) Shops burned: 31,900 (source Kashmir Today, May 2000, JKLF Muzaffarabad)

According to another source, 2,800 small industrial units have been closed since 1988. Another recent development in this gloomy scenery of carnage and destruction is that now not only the Indian forces but the fundamentalist/nationalist militant groups are also killing, molesting and tyrannising the Kashmiri people. After the naked exposure of the reactionary character of fundamentalism, the masses have not been co-operating with these dark forces, and hence they are being forced to do so by violent means.

The other part of Kashmir is Pakistani-held Kashmir. The Northern areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) constitute its major parts. Being strategically the most important area, Pakistan directly controls it through the Ministry for the Northern Areas and Kashmir. The Northern Area Council is the only political institution which the people of the areas have. It has no political weight whatsoever. These Areas have road links with Afghanistan, China and Central Asia. By 1935, British imperialism had achieved direct control of this region, sensing there was a threat of Russian intervention through this route. Now American imperialism has its own designs regarding the strategic importance of the region. Through NGOs and imperialist funding it is promoting the barons of Ismailite militias in order to protect imperialist interests in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and of course, in order to be able to interfere in Kashmiri affairs at some later stage. Above all, should a radical change take place in Pakistan, American imperialism would try to build an Ismailite state in the Northern Areas.

The other part of the Pakistan-held Kashmir is "Azad Kashmir". The people of this area have a president and Prime Minister of their "own". In actual fact, these are mere stooges in the hands of Islamabad and have powers only secondary to the Chief Secretary who is directly appointed by the government of Pakistan. These rulers too, like their counterparts of Indian-held Kashmir, have failed to solve even a single one of the problems of the masses. Their sole declared aim is the "liberation" of Kashmir. On this pretext they have ruled over the masses in the past. But there were material grounds for this also. Since 1947, there has been no economic development in "Azad Kashmir". The main source of income for the people was the migrant economy. The Middle East and Europe were considered gateways to prosperity. Now the deepening crisis of capitalism on a world scale has reversed all that. It definitely is not all roses. The pressure to provide jobs is mounting high on the ruling elite. Besides these bad economic conditions, mass unemployment, lack of infrastructure, undeveloped mineral and water resources, the advent of guerrillaism in Indian-held Kashmir is also taking its toll. For the last four or five years, the people living near the control line have constantly been facing the brunt of crossfire between Pakistani and Indian troops. Hundreds of people have been killed, a lot more disabled, many villages and towns have been reduced to ashes. Life is most uncertain and insecure there and people are forced to leave their houses in a state of sheer helplessness.

So, in both parts of Kashmir, there is misery, pain, torture, bloodshed and more! The imperialists, the national bourgeoisie of both India and Pakistan, the ruling elites of both sides of Kashmir, are all implicated in this heinous crime. In 1947, British imperialism committed the crime of dividing the working class of the Sub-continent. The creation of Kashmir was pre-planned, and this is shown by the fact that the Red Cliff award handed over the Gurdaspur district in East Punjab to India as it was the only land route to Kashmir. This was a district with a Muslim majority, which, according to their own reactionary principles, should have gone to Pakistan. Today, American imperialism uses this dispute as a stick for its "stick and carrot" policy. When the Pakistani state became unmanageable, it threatened to declare it a "terrorist state" for its alleged involvement in Indian-held Kashmir. To subdue the Indian bourgeoisie, it uses the weapon of "human rights violations in Kashmir".

So far as the ruling classes of India and Pakistan are concerned, they have always used it as an external issue. There have been two wars and boarder clashes are on the order of the day. But the tragedy of these rulers is that they can neither live in peace nor afford war. The memory of the Nawaz-Vajpayee hug was still fresh in peoples' memories when the heat of the Kargil affair brushed it to one side. Now, the situation has become more dangerous then ever. Both the states have become extremely fragile and weak. It means that the Kashmir dispute does not merely concern the future of the Kashmiris themselves but also the future of the whole of the sub-continent.

But all this is only one side of the coin. Dialectically, a new order is developing under the present chaotic situation. The present confusion and uncertainty are giving birth to a new awakening and a new belief. The APHC stands exposed: fundamentalism has been discredited in the eyes of the masses, the Kashmiri rulers of both sides of the divide stand exposed as do the rulers of India and Pakistan in the eyes of the masses of both countries, the exploitation and oppressive role of imperialist institutions has thoroughly been laid bare. All this leads to the radicalisation of the Kashmiri people, of the proletariat of both India and Pakistan. This will inevitably give birth to a revolutionary uprising at some stage, which will undo all the crimes of the past and lay the basis for a Socialist Federation of the Sub-continent. This is the sole guarantee against national oppression, bloodshed, exploitation and all the miseries of humanity.