Let the People of Kashmir Decide!

I have been following Kashmir for the last two weeks, well, the region has seen India and Pakistan fight almost four wars, is constantly on the boil, international think tanks feel this is the most plausible region for a nuclear war.

But what about India?What should India do now, its been 60 Yrs, we used force, pampered Kashmir, faced the issue of ethnic cleansing of Pundits form the Valley, Rigged Elections, put down fire with fire, tolerated scoundrels and rouges for politicians and ministers, begged secularism, what more should we do?

Every Indian is taught in school that Kashmir is a special state, having its own constitution, which acceded to India in 1947, no law passed by New Delhi's parliament holds validity in the valley unless the Kashmir Assembly also approves it but still is an integral part of India. In short, effectively, except for Defense,communication and foreign policy, New Delhi doesn't have a right to decide anything else, and this already makes J&K the most autonomous state in the Indian union. Of course, I would agree that I don't belong to J&K, and hence, i would not go into the nitty gritty of human right violations, perceived injustices etc. Every Indian at some point of time in his life, in some situation does feel he is a minority and his rights have been violated. :)

OK, so far so good, so whats the problem here, the gist seems to me like this, Pakistan has Azad Kashmir( we call it POK), China has a small part of Kashmir, but well neither India, nor Pakistan, nor the Kashmiris talk about it, apart form this India has the Valley, Jammu and Ladakh. Now Jammu and Ladakh are more are less interested to be within the Indian union, there is no dissent there. Jammu is Hindu majority and Laddakh is Buddhist, India has never asked its minorities to leave, they choose the last time we divided the Subcontinent, so if we come to that unfortunate choice again, I strongly believe we should welcome those who respect the ethos of Indian state and stay back.

So lets now assume we want to address the Valley's demand for a plebiscite, so then that's tantamount to accepting the UN resolution.

If we choose to allow Kashmir ( whole of it, including POK) to vote, they would have the below three choices:
1) They merge with Pakistan
2) They stay with India
3) They become Independent country.

Before the vote, as per the UN resolution we need the below:

1) Pakistan removes all its forces from POK, even paramilitary and police forces. Can Pakistan do this? I would think NOT. but well for the sake of argument lets assume that's done.

2) India takes control of the whole region, and maintains minimum police force to maintain law and order, this also seems implausible but well OK, may be this is done.

3) What about the demographics? The UN resolution mandated that the population demographic shouldn't change, India did not allow any Indian to buy any piece of Land in Kashmir, or migrate and settle there, did Pakistan follow this? I think POK is altered demographically with Punjabi migrants.

So basically, its not possible to carry out the UN resolution as it was thought out at that point of time as the points 1 and 3 make its not enforceable.

In spite of this, i want to stress the fact that, India being the proud democracy it is, should allow the people of the valley to get what they want, let them choose, if a tragically unstable Pakistan is attractive to them, let them go, anyways only the valley would go, Jammu and Laddakh would still remain.

I don't think Kashmir can remain independent for even 15 days, even if India doesn't annex it, Pakistan or china would, and how can Kashmir protect itself, it would need one of the three countries, India china or Pakistan to take care of its defence, India does precisely that now, but Kashmiris are not happy, so yea let them choose which daemon they want to handle. I think, even if one thinks of India as an enemy, its always a softer enemy to fight, china is too ruthless, and Pakistan well, we know what it has been in 60 yrs.

Kashmir is not the poorest state in India, we pump a lot of money in the form of grants, Kashmir has an opportunity to take part in India's high growth rate and move towards a brighter 21st century, take advantages of India's democracy and secularism, however faulty they are, they are precious. I believe, we have done enough, there is no point in becoming prisoners of romantic history, we should let Kashmiris decide what they want and finish off this whole story of violence and blackmail from either side. Its draining off India in all possible ways.

Cross border trade is welcome, so is making boundaries irrelevant, but not at the cost of Kashmiris hurling abuses at India, comparing India to the British for occupying as Imperialists, and ridiculing India's democracy and Secularism. India can move on without Kashmir, let us allow the daughter marry the man she likes, how ever bad the choice is, its time to grow up for us too.

Best of luck to Kashmir, they have finally succeeded in spraining the intellectual patience of India, they might get "Azadi" but "Nijame Mustafa" ain't Kashmiriyat. :(