NATIONALIST CLAIMS IN AZAD KASHMIR ARE MORALLY
BANKRUPT AND HAVE NO LEGAL BASIS:
HABIB YOUSAFZAI, KASHMIR DIASPORA ALLIANCE
ASSLAAM-O-ALAIKUM!
The inhabitants of Gilgit Baltistan unequivocally accepted the advice of the Muslim League and joined Pakistan in 1947 and have just recently become its fifth province. Although there was some initial resistance from the Indian government, in the end they succeeded in their rightful and willing accession to Pakistan because they were unified. The people of this area staunchly asserted and continue to assert today that they are not Kashmiris. Rather, the people of Gilgit Baltistan first identify themselves as Muslims and then as the citizens of Pakistan. The territory of Gilgit Baltistan has no affiliation with the “disputed territory” of Azad Kashmir or Maqbooza Kashmir. In their strategic efforts to make a claim of “secularism” or a separate state, a few nationalists vying for their own self-interest are attempting to give legitimacy to their morally bankrupt stance for an autonomous and separate state in Azad Kashmir. They are doing this by attempting to attach their claims on Gilgit Baltistan. Not only do they have no basis for a separate Kashmiri state which was liberated by the Pakistani government; they are now attempting to bandwagon Gilgit Baltistan to their illegitimate cause. We must realize that the territorial designation of Jammu and Kashmir as per the borders outlined in August 14, 1947 only holds relevance to its accession to Pakistan on the basis of religion, the fundamental logic behind the two nation’s theory and the division of the Indian subcontinent. This has no relevance to Gilgit Baltistan which willfully, by choice, acceded to Pakistan due to its Muslim majority. Gilgit Baltistan may have been a part of Jammu Kashmir centuries ago, but so were many states of Central Asia. As such, Gilgit Baltistan has no relevance to the issue of Maqbooza Kashmir under the occupation of the Indian government, and is even further removed from the morally bankrupt claim of a “sovereign Azad Kashmir.”
The nationalist logic was originally strategically initiated by Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru who successfully played the nationalist card and was able to indoctrinate Sheikh Abdullah as to prevent Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan. As a result, the Indian government with the help of Hari Singh massacred more than 100,000 Muslims from the Jammu region and more than two million innocent civilians were forced to leave the territory and sought refuge in Pakistan in the third week of August in 1947. Shockingly, the atrocities by the Indian government continue until today with over 200,000 civilian deaths in Maqbooza Kashmir. Due to Sheikh Abdullah’s shortsightedness, India was disseminate the logic of nationalism, yet simultaneously occupied 42,000 square miles of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan liberated 4,200 square miles of the area which is now known as Azad Kashmir. Subsequently, it fought another two wars to regain the remaining territory and free the citizens of Kashmir from the institutional subordination and slavery of the Indian government.
In an ironic fashion, the occupier through the Indian head of state Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru approached the United Nations which passed a resolution to give the right of plebiscite to the people of Kashmir. In hypocritical fashion, there was no mention of illegally occupied Hyderabad, Junagar, and Manawa. It is essential to understand that the fundamental contradiction here is that India’s occupation of Pakistani territory actually made it a “legitimate” party instead of being reprimanded for its interference in the Muslim majority state. This is comparable to a scenario in which one can illegally occupy someone’s home and then demand that each individual be questioned as to whether they would like to side with the occupier or their prior rightful owner. Furthermore, despite approaching the UN over six decades ago, India remains the fundamental impediment to the Kashmiri peoples’ right of plebiscite.
The people of Azad Kashmir must root out and stop the propagation by nationalists which seek to make the same mistake which Sheikh Abdullah made over six decades ago. These nationalists are delegitimizing the cause of Maqbooza Kashmir and inadvertently or intentionally serving the cause of the New Delhi Administration. Pakistan is fully aware of these tactics and will not back away from its original claim over Maqbooza Kashmir and its people’s accession to Pakistan. We must realize that there is no legitimate claim or precedence available wherein sovereignty has been attained on the basis of secularism. Recently East Timor and South Sudan used their right of self-determination on the basis of their religious difference because both territories were Christian majorities. They did not want to live with the Muslim majority. Through asserting secularism as the cause for sovereignty, the overwhelming minority of nationalists in Azad Kashmir are delegitimizing the original, rightful, and applicable claim for Maqbooza Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan on the basis of religion outlined in the two nation theory.
