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Volume 2, No. 6 - November 2002 |
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Beyond Subcontinental Elections: Stabilizing Kashmir and Redefining
Restraint The recently concluded elections in South Asia have highlighted the sharp contrast between democracy and pluralism in India and religious fundamentalism and terrorism. In Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) state in India, Pakistan did its utmost to disrupt elections and expression of democracy by sending terrorists tasked with killing civilians and politicians, and attacking campaign rallies and voting booths. The people of the state displayed their disdain for the 13-year old Pakistani terrorist onslaught by coming out in better than expected numbers to vote, defying the terrorists. The defeat of the National Conference wasn't an anti-India vote, as many in the international media have insinuated, but rather a democratic replacement of a government that had failed to keep its electoral promises. Several opinion polls earlier in the year have demonstrated that even most valley Muslims have little affinity or stomach for Pakistan's designs. In Pakistan, the situation was almost a mirror opposite. Government resources were leveraged against the popular PPP party of Benazir Bhutto, who herself along with another ex-PM Nawaz Sharif, was kept out of the country to prevent their participation in the elections. The nation's politics now resembles that of Uzbekistan or Kazakhastan, where staged elections are regularly held to display a veneer of democracy, while real power is controlled by a dictator and his clique.
India has no reason
to believe that Pakistan-sponsored terrorism will end in J&K as well as
other states into which it is steadily encroaching. In 1996 and 1997,
Pakistan responded to similarly successful elections in J&K by
reorganizing the jehadi terrorist movement and handing over its
leadership to the deadly Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) group. Violence escalated
again in the state, to be followed by the Kargil invasion in 1998 and
the hijacking of Indian Airlines plane leading to the release of
Pakistani terrorists Masood Azhar and Shiekh Omar in 1999. Since
September 11 last year, the terrorists, on the run from US operations in
Afghanistan, have found sanctuary in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK),
and a secure escape hatch into India with Pakistani support. In fact,
Musharraf is likely to use the strong showing of Islamic parties in
Pakistani elections as the latest rationale for sponsoring
With the J&K
elections now over, India needs to recognize the scope of the jehadi
terrorism problem, and deal with it accordingly in a two-pronged manner.
First of all, it needs to work with the J&K state government to ensure
that fundamentalism and corruption are steadily rooted out. These two
together provide the foundation upon which Pakistan has been able to
build a secessionist movement. Furthermore, political and civil rights
of minorities need to be as much respected as those of the vociferous
Kashmiri Muslim majority which has hegemonized the state. Lack of
representation of Hindus and that of Jammu and Ladakh in the state's
political and bureaucratic apparatus needs to be rectified. Abrogation
of Article 370 is an absolute essential before any of these issues can
be tackled. For a serious tackling of the situation, the Indian
government needs to involve the state leadership
The second prong of
the approach should be to erode Pakistan's ability to export terrorism
into India without any fear of reprisal. With India having overcome
terrorism to complete the electoral process in J&K, it is now time to
cross that self-imposed line of restraint. India can and should
retaliate for terrorist infiltrations and actions by striking just
across the Line of |
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