The government of India revoked, on the last day 05, two articles of its Constitution that established the special status that the State of Jammu-Kashmir has enjoyed since the country's independence, in 1947. Among the legal âembezzlementâ are the right to the Constitution itself and exclusive rights for the indigenous population. With this, the region loses its autonomy and is treated like any other state in India.
What would be the consequences?
I propose to friends to revisit History:
The British Crown dominated India from 1858 a 1947. But, at the end of World War II, exhausted, she started the process of decolonizing her territories, starting with the British Raj. For so much, sent a London jurist to Delhi, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who was tasked with drawing, in an isolated office on the South Block (today headquarters of the Indian Chancellery), the borders between the countries that would be India and Pakistan. Ignoring the real situation of local populations and insensitive to the political intricacies of the issue, Sir Cyril carried out the division in the way that seemed most logical to him: Muslim majority areas would be handed over to Pakistan and non-Muslim areas (hindus, sikhs, jains, etc…) would stay in india…that is, the âchronicle of the announced deathâ. Of course! where there was a Muslim majority, there was also a non-Muslim minority…and vice versa. Mission impossible for a westerner…
The British Raj Partition traumatically displaced between ten and twelve million people across the Subcontinent: millions of Muslims left India for Pakistan; no reverse direction, non-muslims – hindus, sikhs, jains, etc.- fled to india. This forced migration has added the disastrous balance of nearly two million deaths to the millions of migrants, on both sides (you'll never know how many for sure)…
the British Raj lived together, at that time, with the so-called "Princely States", vassal local kingdoms of the Crown of London. Their monarchs were called upon to decide whether to annex India or Pakistan. Almost all decided to join the first. Only the Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh | (hindu) e o Nawab de Hyderabad, Nizam Usman Ali (Muslim) were in doubt. Hari Singh because, although he was hindu, almost the entire population of its principality was Muslim and its territory adjoins Pakistan.. O de Hyderabad, Muslim majority in a region surrounded by Hindus on all sides, did not resist and finally gave in, joining the nascent Republic of India.
Hari Singh |, when he saw his territory invaded by Pakistani militias, he called for help to the newly formed government of India, that not only helped him, otherwise it also annexed the region. Was, So, created a provisional boundary – the Control Line / L.o.C, which is still in force and is the scene of intermittent clashes.. The UN also entered the scene and, by the Resolution of the. 47 of the Security Council, adopted in April 1948, recommended the holding of a plebiscite with the local population, which never happened because of India's refusal, which considers the issue as an "internal matter" (fearful, surely, of a favorable outcome for Pakistan). This referendum would have been, perhaps, the possible solution to this disastrous heritage of history.
Kashmir became the main focus of the chronic confrontation between the two neighbors, and has already led them to three open wars, to a nuclear race - both are atomic powers not recognized by the "Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" – and also to various skirmishes, mainly from the beginning of the nineties, when resistance to the Soviets in Afghanistan took thousands of Afghan "mujahedeen" (and also from several other countries) to settle in Pakistan, and also in Kashmir, to fight in the "jhad" against the Soviet infidels. This was the beginning of terrorist activism in the region., who has already victimized more than 70 One thousand people…and also the ânurseryâ of the Taleban, da Al Qaeda, of islamic state, etc…
The ubiquitous climate of belligerence between the two neighbors has been intensifying since the âBharatya Janata Partyâ/BJP, hindu nationalist party, and its radical ideological strand - the "Hindutva"- gained greater space in the Indian political scene after the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in 2014 (recently reelected). Now, in a country with ethnic diversity, culturally and mainly religious like India, the only way to maintain social harmony has been the observance of the principle of the secular state, as the country's Constitution establishes â very simple. – in your preamble. otherwise it's chaos, as has been witnessed recently.
The Delhi government's decision further intensify the climate of belligerence between the two neighbors. The reversal of Kashmir's legal status "warmed up" the atmosphere and fueled even more the spirits of Kashmir separatist militancy. on the pakistani side, a meeting of the High Military Command was called for next week to assess possible reprisals against the neighbor if the situation gets out of control . The President of the âPakistan Muslim League-Nawazâ party, Shahbaz Sharif, he said he will ask for the intervention of the UN Security Council.
We would be on the brink of yet another India-Pakistan war? from which dimension? Catastrophist analysts have gone so far as to imagine nuclear attacks from both sides, etc… My experience on both sides of the border leads me to nuance the threats and counter-threats. know well, both India and Pakistan, the consequences of an insane act of this magnitude, for the whole region…after all, China and Russia are on the side and will certainly not remain aloof from a threat of catastrophe. The consequences would be such that, in my view â and I hope so â the war will be, in the last instance, verbal. I hope I'm right…
I suggest to friends that they read the EstadĂŁo article
