Monthly Archives: August 2019

Democracy

Post August 2019 Status of Jammu & Kashmir and Options for Pakistan

By Syed Sharfuddin*

Following the 5 August 2019 action by India withdrawing the special status of the Indian Held Kashmir granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and declaring it as two Union Territories on 6 August 2019, there was a strong reaction in Kashmir, as well as in Pakistan but also a national consensus that despite the serious implications of India’s illegal action on the future of the disputed territory, Pakistan would not go to war with India on this action as a first option. The retaliatory but non-belligerent measures agreed by Pakistan’s National Security Committee under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister on 7 August 2019 following an angry joint session of the Pakistan Parliament were as follows:

1. Downgrading diplomatic relations with India;
2. Suspending bilateral trade with India;
3. Reviewing bilateral arrangements with India
4. Matter to be taken to the UN, including the Security Council;
5. Pakistan Independence Day on 14 August to be observed in solidarity with the brave Kashmiris and their struggle for the right of self-determination;
6. 15 August which is India’s Independence Day to be observed as a Black Day in Pakistan.

In addition to these measures, the Prime Minister of Pakistan also directed that:

1. All diplomatic channels be activated to expose the brutal Indian racist regime’s design and human rights violations;
2. Pakistan Armed Forces to continue vigilance;
3. The Special Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir to remain seized with the issue.

The measures did not include Pakistan closing its airspace for all international civilian and cargo traffic bound to/from India. The airspace was opened on 15 July after it remained closed since 26 February following India’s failed airstrike in Balakot. The Kartarpur Corridor for Sikh pilgrims was also not affected by these measures.

The problem with these measures is that these have a short shelf life and will soon be forgotten. In a couple of months the world will get tired of news about Kashmir and move on to discuss other problems. This changed status-quo of the IHK would become the new norm in India-Pakistan relations. Having lost the IHK to India forever, Pakistan will start hearing bolder and more aggressive Indian claims on Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

On social media, a number of other suggestions were circulating. These suggested that following India’s action, the Line of Control had ceased to exist and the border between India and Pakistan had reverted back to the old ceasefire line. It was suggested that Pakistan should unilaterally abrogate the 1972 Simla Accord and deny India the opportunity to take the position that India-Pakistan disputes cannot be taken to the UN and should be discussed bilaterally between the two countries.

A more daring suggestion was that Azad Kashmir government should unilaterally declare independence in consultation with Pakistan on behalf of the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed at the time of the Partition in 1947. Following this move, Azad Kashmir should apply for membership of the UN and the OIC, supported by Pakistan and other countries such as Turkey, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. The social media posts went on to say that the Muslim leadership of IHK, including Hurriyat Conference leadership was deeply concerned about its future and would readily support cessation from India. At the international level, the nature of an inter-state dispute involving two countries would change from a bilateral matter to that of self-rule for the Kashmiris, forcing the UN Security Council to intervene. A new independent State of Azad J&K can sign a defence pact with Pakistan to defend it against any Indian aggression.

These suggestions hardly make any difference to the shifting status quo in Kashmir. The problem with abrogating the Simla Accord is that at least it provides a fig leaf for considering the disputed Kashmir issue bilaterally, especially in the absence of any new international mediation or peace initiative on Kashmir. The BJP Government in India will be only too happy to bin a Congress-negotiated agreement and abandon this platform for holding a dialogue with Pakistan on Kashmir. Secondly, Azad Kashmir declaring full independence will mean giving encouragement to separatists elsewhere in Pakistan. The suggestion is also unworkable globally. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara and Kosovo have been standing in the queue for international recognition for a long time and not succeeded. More recently, Barcelona declared independence after a referendum but its declaration was shot down by the EU. It won’t happen at all in the case of Azad Kashmir.

But thinking loud and out of the box is good because conventional approaches have not forced India to sit with Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute. These have got Pakistan nowhere in the past 7 decades and are unlikely to improve the situation in the future except bring grief and more coffins.

A rather unconventional but democratic and non-Jihadi option, which might strengthen Pakistan’s claim on Kashmir in the long run is to bring Kashmiri leadership and people from all parts of Kashmir to met in a Grand Congress in the UK. In exercise of their political will in lieu of the long denied plebiscite, they should pass a people’s resolution overturning the Maharajah’s arbitrary and unfair accession to India with their democratic and popular accession to Pakistan. Following this, the Azad Kashmir Assembly should meet and pass a similar resolution and give Pakistan a clear mandate to claim the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir through a constitutional amendment in the 1973 Constitution, defining its status as the 6th province of Pakistan in Article 257 and showing its territorial boundaries as existed at the time of partition in 1947 in Article 1.

It may be recalled that in its ruling of 17 January 2019 on the granting of fundamental rights to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, including the right to self governance, the Supreme Court of Pakistan did not allow the federal government to grant a provisional provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan, pending a final settlement of the Kashmir dispute. It only allowed the government to  promulgate an Ordinance which was duly vetted by the Court. The Court was concerned that nothing in its judgement should affect the disputed nature and status of Kashmir.

India’s unilateral annexation of IHK may be used by Pakistan to invoke the well known international principle of rebus sic stantibus related to fundamental change of circumstances and claim the disputed state of Kashmir as Pakistan’s territory. This principle allows states to withdraw concessions or commitments made prior to the fundamental change of circumstances. Recently, President Trump has withdrawn from a nuclear agreement with Iran to which US was a state party along with Iran and the EU.

Using this principle, the federal government can also approach the Supreme Court of Pakistan to review its January 2019 ruling in regard to Gilgit-Baltistan becoming the 5th province of Pakistan on the basis that by its action of 5 August 2019, India has disregarded all norms of international law and UN resolutions concerning settlement of bilateral disputes, thereby freeing Pakistan of its obligations to regard Gilgit-Baltistan as a disputed territory.

There is a possibility, even though unlikely, that India’s Supreme Court might strike down the action of BJP government on the annexation of Jammu and Kashmir and find the process ultra vires, including the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act, which goes against the spirit of Article 370, if it is restored by the Court in India. However, it should not prevent Pakistan from going as far as India has already gone in its constitution in claiming the state of Jammu and Kashmir to give parity to its claim.  India’s claim was incorporated in the Indian constitution as early as 1949 following the alleged instrument of accession by the Maharajah of Kashmir which was challenged by the tribal people of Jammu and Kashmir, including Northern Areas, as well as Pakistan.

This is a democratic and constitutional solution, away from violence and agitation of the last 7 decades, but it will require patience and hard work to reach fruition. This is also the path, which the country’s founding father, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah would have taken, if he were alive today.

For details of this recommendation, also see India’s Illegal Annexation of Kashmir Opens New Opportunities for Pakistan

London 9 August 2019

*Mr Syed Sharfuddin is a former diplomat and a former Special Adviser for Asia in the Political Affairs Division of Commonwealth Secretariat London (2000-2006).

Uncategorized

India’s Illegal Annexation of Kashmir Opens New Opportunities for Pakistan

By Syed Sharfuddin*

Executive Summary

Contrary to the general feeling in Pakistan that India’s unexpected action of 5 August 2019 has sealed the fate of the Indian Held Jammu and Kashmir (IHK), the move has opened new opportunities for Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, which were not possible to avail prior to 5 August. Rather than copying India’s action in Azad Kashmir or pursuing a military solution, Pakistan should follow a constitutional and democratic process in which the political will of the people of J&K on both sides of the LOC should be the decisive factor. This process may involve a number of democratic steps without going to war with India.

It is time for the Kashmiri People living inside and outside Kashmir to adopt their own ‘23rd March Resolution’ to accede to Pakistan. It is time that Article  257 of the 1973 Constitution is amended by two-third majority of a Constituent Assembly in Pakistan to claim the whole of Kashmir as part of Pakistan. It is time that the Supreme Court of Pakistan allows the Federation of Pakistan to officially name Gilgit-Baltistan as the fifth province of Pakistan using the principle of fundamental change of circumstances. It is time that all this is accomplished swiftly to strengthen the constitutional and legal case of Pakistan on Kashmir before the dust settles and the current most significant development in IHK becomes the new normal in India-Pakistan relations.

Text

While exposing the hypocrisy of the world’s so called largest democracy in illegally applying the annulment clause in Article 370 of the Indian Constitution to withdraw the special status of Indian Held Jammu & Kashmir, and rushing through a J&K Reorganisation Bill in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha on 5 & 6 August respectively to bifurcate J&K into two Union Territories, this action has also highlighted several challenges and opportunities which may have serious implications for peace and security in the Sub-Continent.

Instead of annexation, Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan should follow a democratic process in which the political will of the people of J&K on both sides of the LOC should be the decisive factor. This process may involve a number of steps without going to war with India.

As Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said in Muzaffarabad on 14 August 2019, in the event of a breakdown of peace in the Subcontinent, the responsibility for not acting in time to restrain India will rest solely on the shoulders of the peace keeping organs of the United Nations  whose mandate includes upholding  the rule of international law, protection of human rights of minorities by ethnic cleaning and genocide and maintaining inter-state peace.

Challenges:
India’s illegal action will embolden the hawks in the BJP and act as a cue for Hindu extremists to harass Kashmiri Muslims. They will increase the Indian state sponsored repression on the Kashmiri Muslims with a view to making them flee their homes in the same way as Israel has done to the Palestinians in order to illegally acquire their lands through forced purchases, as well as armed intimidation. The process of ‘Hinduaisation’ of Kashmir will begin with a heavy Hindutwa agenda applied in education, jobs and businesses to the disadvantage of local Muslims.

The Indian State may invite non-Muslim families presently residing in Jammu and Ladakh to move to the Kashmir Valley to change the demography of the present Muslim-majority region. It may also provide financial incentives to those Kashmiri Hindus who left Kashmir in the past decades to return to the Valley and settle there in order to change the numbers of Kashmiri population.

The action of BJP Government on 5 August 2019 in regard to the State of Jammu and Kashmir has changed the seventy-year old status quo on the disputed territory on which India and Pakistan have gone to full-scale war twice and exchanged artillery fire on the Line of Actual Control without a single week passing peacefully.

The Indian State many also allow Dalai Lama and his followers to settle in Ladakh to create a buffer between India and China. Although China will not like this resettlement but it won’t be able to do anything about it because after 6 August 2019, Ladakh has effectively become a Union Territory without any legislature. If China does not challenge India’s action in Ladakh, it will mean whatever India does in Ladakh in the future will be its internal matter.

Having swallowed up the Sate of J&K in the Indian Union by repeating the pattern of earlier mergers such as Hyderabad, Junagadh and Manawadar, the Indian State will move next to claim Pakistan’s side of Kashmir, including Gilgit and Baltistan. This will effectively place Pakistan in a defensive position and make it hard to save its own part of Kashmir.

Contrary to the general feeling in Pakistan that India’s action of 5 August 2019 has sealed the fate of Jammu and Kashmir, the abrogation of IHK’s special status by India opens many opportunities for Pakistan and Kashmiris, which were not possible prior to 5 August.

Opportunities
Ironically, India’s action has given a timely opportunity to Pakistan, as well as to the people of Kashmir to revisit their strategy on Kashmir. This was not possible to be done prior to 5 August 2019.

Until now India had used Article 370 of its Constitution to fool those Kashmiris who had co-opted with the Indian State to exercise their autonomous status and have their own Legislative Assembly to enact laws for the people of Indian held Jammu and Kashmir. The withdrawal of the special status of IHK by India on 5 August 2019 has ended the delegated powers which the institutions of the State of J&K enjoyed on behalf of the people. In the absence of an autonomous State and dissolution of their own Assembly under Article 370, these delegated powers have returned back to the people of Indian held Kashmir.

The people of IHK are now free to convene a Grand Congress of Kashmiris living on both sides of the border in any neutral place, such as London, Oslo, New York or Toronto to pass a resolution expressing their political will to reject Indian rule and accede to Pakistan. Such as resolution will be no less historic than the 23rd March resolution of 1940 adopted in Lahore in favour of Pakistan.

Unlike the Indian Constitution, which claims the State of J&K as part of India with its territory immediately before the commencement of the Constitution on 26 January 1950, the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan makes no such claim about J&K, nor sets the boundaries of its territory. The only reference to J&K in the Pakistan Constitution appears in Article 257 which states that: “When the people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir decide to accede to Pakistan, the relationship between Pakistan and the State shall be determined in accordance with the wishes of the people of that State.” Of course, this is not a legislative oversight but a deliberate omission by the drafters of the 1973 Constitution to keep the high moral ground on Kashmir for a plebiscite in accordance with UN Security Council’s resolutions and India’s erstwhile promise to the international community to implement these resolutions. But as India’s illegal behaviour subsequently proved, in the ruthless exercise of power morality is never the winner.

The 5th August action by India has ironically opened up a golden opportunity for Pakistan to make a formal claim on J&K in the Pakistan Constitution. Through a Constitutional amendment of two-third majority of both Houses of Parliament, Pakistan can now claim the entire state of J&K, including the territory held by India as the territory of Pakistan just as India has done in its Constitution. Pakistan’s Constitution should also define the territorial limits of the entire State of J&K as has ben done in the First Schedule of the Indian Constitution.

This amendment could not have been possible prior to 5 August 2019 as India would have taken a serious view of it and even regarded it as an unfriendly act worth undoing by force. However, following its own illegal action in IHK, Pakistan is legally entitled to make these amendments in its Constitution and state that while it claims the entire state of J&K as part of Pakistan, the part occupied by India is challenged by Pakistan and will be acquired at an appropriate time which suits its national interest.

Annexation of Azad Kashmir to Pakistan following India’s illegal action in a tit for tat reaction will not only play into the hands of the BJP government’s strategy which may want Pakistan to do just that but it will also seal the fate of Kashmir to a permanent status quo along the line of actual control. It is also possible that President Trump’s offer to Pakistan’s Prime Minister last month for the US to mediate in resolving the Kashmir dispute may have this scenario in mind. Furthermore, annexation is not the answer because two wrongs cannot make a right. Instead of annexation, Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan should follow a democratic process in which the political will of the people of J&K on both sides of the LOC should be the decisive factor. This process may involve a number of democratic steps without going to war with India. These steps are as follows:

Democratic Step 1:
All expatriate Kashmiris living outside India and Pakistan should convene a Grand Congress in a Western country and adopt a people’s resolution asking the Azad Kashmir Government (the only neutral Kashmiri administrative unit left after the annulment of the special status of IHK) to consider their accession to Pakistan as its 6th Province (the 5th Province already decided by the Parliament of Pakistan is Gilgit & Baltistan). Kashmiri leaders inside IHK who are able to travel or send video messages should support the convening of this Grand Congress and even address it electronically from their homes where they are under house arrest, if possible.

The UK will be an ideal location for holding this Grand Congress as a large number of expatriate Kashmiris live in this country and also because the UK was the colonial empire of the Sub-Continent India and Pakistan, which masterminded the messy partition of 1947, including the disastrous decision that Princely States of the Raj will decide their own accession to either India or Pakistan without realising that India could apply double standards to Hyderabad on the one hand and Kashmir on the other. No other country is more aware of the historic injustice done to the people of Jammu and Kashmir than Britain.

There is only a small window of time available to convene the Grand Congress. If it is delayed, the opportunity will be lost and the momentum to drive all sections of the Kashmiris to agree to accession will lose steam. Pakistan should provide moral and logistical support to the Kashmiri expatriates to meet and adopt a resolution addressed to the Azad Kashmir government and its legislature.

It is time for the people of Kashmir to adopt their own 23 March 1940 Resolution to accede to Pakistan

Democratic Step 2:
Following the passage of a resolution by the people of Kashmir meeting to decide their future in a neutral and independent country, the AJK Government should take note of the free expression of the political will of the people of Jammu & Kashmir and adopt a resolution of accession to Pakistan as the 6th Province of the Federation of Pakistan and request President Masood Khan of Azad Kashmir to consent it to and forward their request to the Government of Pakistan.

It is time that Article  257 of the 1973 Constitution is amended by two-third majority of a Constituent Assembly in Pakistan to claim the whole of Kashmir as part of Pakistan.

Democratic Step 3:
Upon receipt of this request from the President of Azad Kashmir, a joint session of Pakistani Parliament should be convened to consider the accession request and declare the whole of J&K, including IHK as the territory and jurisdiction of Pakistan.

It is time that the Supreme Court of Pakistan allows the Federation of Pakistan to officially name Gilgit-Baltistan as the fifth province of Pakistan using the principle of fundamental change of circumstances.

Democratic Step 4:
The Joint Session of the Pakistan Parliament should convert into a Constituent Assembly meeting in a Special Session to amend the Constitution of Pakistan to give effect to the changes required in declaring the whole of J&K, comprising Azad Kashmir and IHK as an integral part of Pakistan. There should neither be an annexation of Azad Kashmir nor any departure from the above steps to ensure that the entire process is democratically followed to its logical conclusion.

It is time that all this is accomplished swiftly to strengthen the constitutional and legal case of Pakistan on Kashmir before the dust settles and the current most significant development in IHK becomes the new normal in India-Pakistan relations.

Democratic Step 5:
In the final step, all countries, including the UN Security Council’s five permanent members should be briefed by Pakistan on the democratic steps taken by Pakistan to ensure that Pakistan’s reaction to India’s illegal annexation of IHK in violation of international law and UN Security resolutions is proportional, peaceful, and in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir and the people of Pakistan as reflected by the decisions taken by their representative bodies.

This should be done before the dust settles and the current most significant development becomes the new normal in India-Pakistan relations.

Also see related article Post August 2019 Status of Jammu & Kashmir and Options for Pakistan

London 7 August 2019

*Mr Syed Sharfuddin is a former diplomat and a former Special Adviser on Asia in the Political Affairs Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat, London from 2000 to 2006.

Uncategorized

To Honour the Political Will of the People of AJK & IHK, Pakistan should enact Legislation to make Kashmir the 6th Province of Pakistan and then talk Peace with India.

By Syed Sharfuddin*

Executive Summary
In the aftermath of India’s revocation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on the disputed territory of Indian Held Kashmir, it is no longer feasible for Pakistan to maintain the status quo on Kashmir along the UNMOGIP observed Line of Control. As an immediate first step, Pakistan should honour the wishes of the Kashmiri people from Azad Kashmir, as well as from Indian Held Kashmir, to join Pakistan by convening an extraordinary session of the two Houses of Parliament to discuss Kashmir and amend the 1973 Constitution to make Kashmir the 6th Province of Pakistan comprising the present Azad Kashmir and the entire Indian Held Kashmir minus Ladakh. Of course, the process will start from a Congress of the Kashmiri people from both parts of Kashmir meeting in a neutral capital, such as London or Norway, or a city in the USA, and passing a resolution, similar to the historic 23rd March resolution of 1940 in Lahore, to reject India’s occupation and join Pakistan. Acting on this resolution, the Azad Kashmir Assembly should meet and pass a resolution on behalf of the people of Azad Kashmir and the people of Indian Held Kashmir requesting Pakistan to accede to their demand. This will trigger Pakistan’s own response by convening a joint session of the federal Parliament and amending the 1973 Constitution to make Kashmir the 6th province of Pakistan whose territory shall comprise the present Azad Kashmir and the territory of Indian Held Kashmir minus Ladakh. A further provision will be added in the Constitution to reflect this in the international boundary of Pakistan and suggest that the new boundary will take effect from the day Indian occupation terminates in the occupied territory. Having taken this action, Pakistan should negotiate with India a pacific settlement of the Kashmir dispute with or without international mediation from a big power guaranteeing the full implementation of the peace accord. By taking away the special status of Kashmir under duress, India has returned the delegated people’s power from the abrogated Assembly back to the Kashmiri people to decide their future without a plebiscite outside of India.

On 5 August 2019, India surprised its citizens and the outside world by revoking the autonomous status of the Indian Held Jammu & Kashmir (IHK) provided under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, and by enacting a new Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Reorganisation Bill to make the disputed State two separate territories. Under the new arrangement, J&K will become a part of the Indian Union and have a Legislative Assembly, and Ladakh will become a part of the Indian Union without a Legislature. Prior to presenting the Bill in Rajya Sabha on 5 August 2019, which was carried by a majority vote of 125, with 61 against and 1 abstention, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah said that the decision on Ladakh was taken in view of the “long pending demand of the people of Ladakh to give them the status of a Union Territory to enable them to realise their aspirations”. For J&K he used a different yardstick, promising that peace will return to J&K in a short period (five years), without answering the criticism from the opposition Indian National Congress that the ruling BJP did not hold any consultation with the political parties, as well as the Kashmiri leadership, most of whom are locked up in jails or are under house arrest.

But the Indian action on Kashmir is no surprise to India watchers. Having failed in their attempt to silence the surge in the indigenous struggle for independence by a heavy armed presence, and causing almost every household in the Valley to bury their young dead lads chanting Pakistan Zindabad and Kashmir Baneyga Pakistan, it was not unforeseen that the new BJP government would carryout its long-standing pledge to formalise Kashmir’s merger in the Union by repealing its constitutionally protected special status and opening the disputed territory to Indians from the rest of the Union to buy property and businesses and change the demographics of IHK and ‘Indianise’ the disputed Muslim-majority Pro-Pakistan State according to the BJP text book of Hindutva.

It is also not surprising that the majority of Kashmiris feel cheated for the second time in their national struggle to free themselves form Indian occupation in three successive generations.

It is also not surprising that the majority of Kashmiris feel cheated for the second time in their national struggle to free themselves form Indian occupation in three successive generations since the messy partition of India overseen by the British in 1947. Through its latest action, the Modi government has removed the fig leaf of J&K as a disputed territory and made the people of J&K victims of tyranny of majority by using the heavy hand of the Indian Union’s democratic institutions comprising the Executive and Parliament. There is little doubt that the 5 August action taken by India in regard to IHK will be reversible even if a constitutional petition is filed at the Indian Supreme Court against today’s vote. As stated in Rajya Sabha today, the government would take the position that it will hold fresh elections in J&K and ask the new Legislative Assembly to sign a fresh instrument of accession by J&K to join the Indian Union.

With a curfew fully in place in the IHK, its past and current Muslim leadership under arrest, its democratically elected Legislative Assembly suspended and the people of Kashmir having no human rights and no say in the new reorganisation their State, the Indian Union’s theatre of the absurd in the Parliament lacks political legitimacy and is short of civilised democratic norms. However, it is a historic motion because it formally divides the Muslim-majority J&K from the Buddhist-majority Ladakh.

India could, in the future, find it easy to negotiate with the Kashmiri leadership a political settlement, which could be acceptable to them, as well as to Pakistan while keeping Ladakh out of the equation.

This development also gives Pakistan an urgent one-time opportunity to rethink its response and strengthen its position toward negotiating a final deal on J&K with India in the future.

What gives Pakistan and Kashmir a permanent advantage over India is the undeniable fact, proven by the last seventy years that until Kashmiris and Pakistan agree on a peace deal, there can be no peace in the Sub-continent, which India badly needs to keep its economic development at par with the other emerging economies in the G15.

Having binned its own political arrangement put in place to do away with the plebiscite, which supposedly placed the voice of the people of IHK in the hands of an elected Legislative Assembly deriving its so called ‘legitimacy’ from Article 370, the political power delegated by the people of Kashmir to their representatives has returned to them. They are now free to express their political will outside the Indian political process and demand independence from India and express their desire to join Pakistan from any platform. A Congress of Indian Kashmiri expatriates held in any European capital such as London or Norway, or even in the US can provide a substitute for their lost Assembly. They can invite IHK’s Kashmiri leaders online or through messages sent by them to pass a resolution condemning the failure of the previous governments in India to fulfil Jawaharlal Nehru’s commitment for holding a UN-supervised plebiscite in Kashmir; and they can reject the action of the present Indian government for annulling Kashmir’s special status and its reorganisation through a parliamentary act on 5 August 2019. Through a simple majority resolution such as the historic 23 March resolution of Pakistan, the Indian Kashmiris can declare that as a substitute for the plebiscite, they have now decided that the J&K territory in the IHK is now a part of Pakistan.

The Azad Kashmir Assembly can request the State of Pakistan to grant the people of Azad Kashmir, as well as the Kashmiri people of IHK the status of a separate and full Province in Pakistan with all the rights, as enjoyed by the constituent parts of the Federation of Pakistan.

Responding to this resolution from the Congress of the people of IHK, the Legislative Assembly of Azad Kashmir on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control can convene an emergency session and pass a resolution expressing their solidarity with the people of IHK and take a positive view of the resolution passed in their Congress. The Azad Kashmir Assembly can further request the State of Pakistan to grant the people of Azad Kashmir, as well as the Kashmiri people of IHK the status of a separate and full Province in Pakistan with all the rights, as enjoyed by the constituent parts of the Federation of Pakistan.

Article 257 of the Constitution of Pakistan states that “When the people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir decide to accede to Pakistan, the relationship between Pakistan and the State shall be determined in accordance with the wishes of the people of that State”. In pursuance of this provision, the Senate and National Assembly of Pakistan should meet in an extraordinary joint session to consider the request of the Azad Kashmir Assembly to make Azad Kashmir as well as IH Kashmir a new province in the Federation.

In pursuant of Article 257 of the Pakistan Constitution and to respond to the resolution of the Azad Kashmir Assembly expressing the combined wish of the people of Kashmir on both sides of the LOC to accede to Pakistan, the Senate and National Assembly of Pakistan should meet in an extraordinary joint session and declare that the whole of Kashmir on both sides of the LOC, as far as its territorial limits extend, is a new province in the Federation of Pakistan. Article 1 of the Constitution should also be accordingly amended by two-third majority and a provision should be added that Pakistan’s borders shall comprise, in addition to its present international boundaries, the area of the disputed Indian Held J&K as shown on the present world map, whenever it becomes free from Indian occupation.

Pakistan Constitution should be accordingly amended by two-third majority and a provision should be added that Pakistan’s borders shall comprise, in addition to its present international boundaries, the area of the disputed Indian Held J&K as shown on the present world map, whenever it becomes free from Indian occupation.

On the face of it, to some people it may appear that the suggestion to recognise Azad Kashmir as the 6th province of Pakistan is walking right into the BJP strategy where India would probably want Pakistan to do the same with Azad Kashmir and settle the long standing Kashmir dispute on the basis of the status quo on the Line of Actual Control. It is possible that when President Trump offered US mediation on Kashmir to Prime Minister Imran Khan last month, he was referring to settlement of the Kashmir dispute along the LOC. However, in the step-wise action plan outlined in this paper, which I call the Sharfuddin Formula, Pakistan will be officially claiming the entire Kashmir, both Azad Kashmir as well as the IHK as the territory of Pakistan without having to go to war with India. A constitutional claim by Pakistan would not have been possible in the absence of current Indian provocation and would have elicited serious retaliation by India. But ironically, the BJP government has presented Pakistan this opportunity on a platter. Having claimed the entire territory of Kashmir as the 6th Province of the Federation in the country’s Constitution through a constitutional amendment, Pakistan can go about doing its business as before but when in the future Pakistan’s economy and defence is strong, it can always get back to India with the dictating position that India’s occupation is not acceptable in Pakistani territory.

Pakistan’s response to India’s action along the above lines, also carries several tactical advantages:

1) It will give Pakistan a new boundary which will be extended beyond the LOC to include the entire territory of IH J&K leaving Ladakh to India. Even though Jammu may have Hindu majority, keeping it together with Kashmir Valley is important for negotiations because the two regions are intrinsically linked with each other.

2) By breaking the IHK into two administrative territories India has already acquiesced in the existence of a Muslim-majority Kashmir and a Buddhist-majority Ladakh. It will be easy for Pakistan to press its case for getting Kashmir back from India instead of playing the role of an interested party that supports the Kashmiri cause politically and morally.

3) The popular resistance in IH Kashmir will find a new ray hope under the present most depressing circumstances where some people are seeing this act by the Modi government as the last nail in the coffin of resistance. By declaring the entire IH J&K as part of Pakistan constitutionally and politically, the indigenous resistance will grow stronger and ruin the chances of India hoping to gulp it down as it did other princely states in the past, notably Hyderabad. It will also give encouragement to those pessimists in Pakistan who are saying it is too late to do anything because they think that India’s ‘master stroke’ is so good, it cannot elicit a befitting counter-response.

4) The people of Kashmir will have their representatives sit in Pakistan’s Executive and Parliament and take part in the political process as Pakistani citizens with equal rights and responsibilities. Pakistan’s foreign and security policy will include their voice and provide a fresh blood in the direction of the country in settling this long-standing dispute with India on its terms.

5) Outside powers, including Pakistan’s friends do not fully understand the administrative arrangements of Azad Kashmir. The voice of Azad Kashmir gets muted abroad when Pakistani diplomats representing Pakistan speak for Azad Kashmir. Azad Kashmir’s President and Ministers are not given meeting appointments because of the complex rules of international recognition of countries. The new province will make greater impact on third countries interested in international mediation or supporting bilateral negotiations for peace in the Subcontinent.

6) It will unite different political parties and interest groups on one cause and bring a huge improvement in the current governance structures by adding focus and purpose in the national and provincial agendas.

It is worth reviewing the contingency plan and response in the light of the fresh opportunity this action has provided Pakistan and given it an opening, which was closed to it in the last 70 years for reasons which have now been overtaken by events.

The time to act on a solid long term counter strategy is now. I am sure Pakistani policy makers must have thought of this Indian development long before it was materialised by the BJP government on 5 August 2019. I am also sure that a proper response and contingency plan exists as to how the government should move next in rolling out its counter strategy. But it is also worth reviewing the contingency plan and response in the light of the fresh opportunity this action has provided Pakistan and given it an opening, which was closed to it in the last 70 years for reasons which have now been overtaken by events.

London 5 August 2019

*Mr Syed Sharfuddin is a former diplomat and a former Special Adviser for Asia in the Political Affairs Division of Commonwealth Secretariat London (2000-2006).