A New History Has Begun In Kashmir

Its territorial status will never change. Modi’s move is irreversible. And Pakistan has lost the initiative. Here is a somewhat different way of looking at Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) today.

One side in the conflict had used one description for the Kashmir issue for 70 years as if it was cast in a Pir Panjal rock: It is the unfinished business of Partition. That side was Pakistan.

India never agreed. Not even by way of emphasizing its claim on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). India’s view was this: Partition ended in 1947. We have moved on, so should you. It wasn’t stated but unambiguously implied. Pakistan disagreed. In the decade of the 1950s, it waited to strengthen its armed forces by joining United States-led military pacts. That achieved, in the 1960s, it launched a full-fledged military campaign to take Kashmir by force to settle that “unfinished business”, but failed.

It spent the 1970s recuperating from defeat and the dismemberment of 1971. Former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto turned its attention westwards towards Islamic countries, especially the Arabs and sought solace in the Ummah. The “unfinished business” wasn’t forgotten. The Pakistani establishment was biding its time.

The time came in the late 1980s. By 1989-90, Pakistan believed it now had a proven strategy. It was the one used to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. It also had a nuclear umbrella. The asymmetric war launched in Kashmir at that time is now in its 30th year.