Between the Great Divide

by Anam Zakaria

  ‘Azad’ Kashmiris also realize that until the Kashmir issue is resolved and peace comes to Indian-administered Kashmir, they will continue to suffer on this side. The LoC will remain active, mortar shelling returning to the region each time tensions escalate between India and Pakistan or between Kashmiris from Indian-administered Kashmir and the Indian state. The killing of Hizbul Mujahideen’s commander, Burhan Wani, in 2016, and the resulting ceasefire violations across the LoC are a case in point. Militant outfits at times take advantage of unrest in Indian-administrated Kashmir, attempting to infiltrate the LoC, I am told. It is the locals living by the LoC who face the repercussions. They realize that unless Kashmir’s future is decided and a framework is implemented to govern the region as per the wishes of its people, both sides will remain vulnerable to bloodshed.

  Moreover, until a resolution is reached, ‘Azad’ Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan will remain disputed territories. This means that they will never be able to reap the benefits that other provinces enjoy. They will remain a marginalized space, neither a province nor fully autonomous. The only solution, they say, is self-determination and that can only be achieved when Kashmiris are counted as a legitimate party to all negotiations on the issue. The Simla Agreement is a contradiction to this.

  Unfortunately, Amanullah Khan passed away in Pakistan in early 2016 and I was unable to speak to him. Instead, I was able to converse with Dr Toqeer Gilani, the president of JKLF’s chapter in AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan. He echoed the same sentiments as the others I had spoken to, criticizing the Simla Agreement. ‘By agreeing to respect the LoC, Pakistan basically gave up the fight for Kashmir. You can say that Pakistan ne humein bech diya (sold us) for the exchange of 90,000 prisoners of war. And then, the 1974 Act, which was passed for greater autonomy, made things only worse. Every important function of the state is now in Islamabad’s hands and we are left with no control over our own destiny. Aap keh lein ke bahut galat hua, bahut galat hua (you can say that we were wronged… we were wronged).’

  The 1990s: A Morning with a Former Chief of Army Staff

  General Jehangir Karamat, who served as the chief of army staff (COAS) between 1996 and 1998, the most important military assignment in the country, invites me into his office in Lahore one April morning in 2016. A four-star army general, General Karamat served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US and currently serves as a director at a research and analysis institute called Spearhead Research.

  I have travelled from Islamabad especially to speak to him, and look forward to recording his take on Kashmir, particularly because he served as the COAS in a decade during which India accused Pakistan of training of and infiltration by militants. Furthermore, soon after he resigned from his position,67 the Kargil conflict ensued, threatening to snowball into the fourth Indo-Pak war. Pakistan claimed that it was freedom fighters fighting against the Indian state in Kashmir while India claimed that Pakistan-backed forces had infiltrated Indian-administered Kashmir in 1999.68 The Indian Army responded with air strikes, a first in nearly thirty years, and the two countries clashed, with thousands of shells fired daily.69

  I want to ask General Karamat what the feeling was like in the Pakistan Army at this time, what spurred allegations of training of militants in the 1990s and what factors led to the Kargil conflict. I am, however, also nervous to conduct an interview with such a seasoned personality, even more so because I have prepared questions about militancy that may be seen as controversial. Deciding not to jump straight to the 1990s, I opt to warm up with a brief discussion of the 1965 and 1971 wars.

  He tells me that though he was active in the army, he was not posted in Kashmir in either war. ‘But I can tell you that the general idea behind Operation Gibraltar (the 1965 war) was to help the freedom fighters, to encourage them and create a situation that would be favourable for us in Kashmir and help the indigenous struggle… it would have at least put sufficient international spotlight on the issue to allow for a refocus on the UN resolutions, asking for a plebiscite and all that… that I think was the basic thing. And Gibraltar itself involved the actual presence of Pakistani troops in the area to help the cause.’ His comments are succinct, to the point.

  He looks at me and asks what I want to know about the 1971 war. I decide to ask about the Simla Agreement and if he thinks it had an impact on the Kashmir conflict. ‘Yes, of course,’ he shrugs in a matter-of-fact way. ‘Mr Bhutto was negotiating from a difficult position. We had a very high number of Pakistani personnel and civilians held in Indian prisoners-of-war camps. So he was negotiating to a) bring them back, and b) do the best he could on the Line of Control. So I think that should be the backdrop of looking at what he did. He did manage to get the people back but yes, one of the factors, one of the points he agreed upon in the process was that there would be, in the future, bilateral negotiations between India and Pakistan… but you know, I don’t think that was such a bad idea. The international aspect was still there because the UN Security Council resolution, which mandated the plebiscite in Kashmir, was still valid. The factor he agreed to was that Pakistan would bilaterally negotiate (the Kashmir issue) with India, which hasn’t worked so far… even though both India and Pakistan have tried.’

  Though I would like to ask him more questions about this, about why India-Pakistan bilateral negotiations have largely failed, I know we do not have too much time together. I thus decide to dive straight into the topic I have come to discuss. ‘Pakistan has publicly stated that the only support it has lent the Kashmir movement is of a political and diplomatic nature. Can you tell me what that entailed in the 1990s, during the period of heightened insurgency in Kashmir?’ I am wary of how much he will share, how openly he will talk. But he only deliberates for a moment before responding.

  ‘In that period, as I see it, we didn’t shift from our stance of providing diplomatic and other support to the freedom struggle… we also saw an upsurge in the indigenous movement (for separation from India) in the Kashmiri public due to rigged elections in the 1980s (in Indian-administered Kashmir). So we saw that as an opportunity. India had been through a disastrous intervention in Sri Lanka by this time, it had done what it did in East Pakistan, it had been through a Sikh insurgency in Punjab, and it had launched an aggression in Siachen in 1984 and captured an area. Against this whole backdrop, the uprising in Kashmir was an important process, which needed to be encouraged and supported because such opportunities rarely come. So I think whatever diplomatic and other support that was going on was certainly stepped up in that period.’

  Though Pakistan has termed the civilian unrest in Indian-administered Kashmir as a ‘legitimate freedom struggle’, the Pakistani state has denied allegations of state-backed militancy movements in the Valley. However, other military personnel claim otherwise. A brigadier I met in Islamabad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told me that he had served in ‘Azad’ Kashmir as a young major during the 1990s. When I asked him what he could tell me about the insurgency, he lowered his voice, leaned forward and said, ‘You can call it what you want but for us it was a freedom struggle… I wouldn’t call it anything else. I have always believed that Kashmir should be a part of Pakistan. I have served on the LoC multiple times and I can tell you that Kashmiris (referring to those living in Indian-administered Kashmir) were fighting for a genuine cause. Kashmiris instigated the movement; Pakistan played no part in that. But after the rigged elections of 1987 in makbooza Kashmir—and certainly, after facing atrocities committed by the Indian forces—when men, women and children started to cross the LoC and enter Azad Kashmir in large numbers, we were shocked, heartbroken to see them. The jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan had just come to an end and we thought we could use those jihadis in Kashmir. I don’t think there is anything to apologize for. Any nation would have done the same. In 1991, we started launching people across the LoC, fully equipped with arms. What else were these people supposed to do (referring to the refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir who crossed over in the 19
90s)? They had lost everything in makbooza Kashmir; this was a way to get engaged in a meaningful activity, earn money, do something with their lives. We set up camps for them, logistically supported them, helped relaunch them across the LoC. We gave them income, shelter, a purpose in life.’

  But the brigadier I met with wasn’t all praise for Pakistan’s policies in Kashmir. After much probing he had opened up and told me, ‘One mistake we made was sidelining legitimate groups like the JKLF (Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front), which spoke about the third option—independence from India and Pakistan. The Afghan jihad against Soviet forces had stirred religious sentiments in the nation; we thought we could take on anyone in the name of Islam. After all, we had just defeated a superpower, what was India? We believed that groups like Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba would be able to achieve our goals better than the JKLF, because the latter was more secular in nature. And so we supported these Islamist groups to sideline nationalist outfits like the JKLF, which wanted separation from both countries. I personally don’t think we should have done that. We ended up hurting an indigenous movement for freedom.’ A Newsweek report from April 2016 seconds this. It reads, ‘Pakistan first supported the JKLF but soon grasped the implications of doing so…The JKLF’s armed struggle against Indian atrocities was therefore first ignored in favour of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, and finally Lashkar-e-Taiba, that introduced hard Islam to the Valley and escalated the Indo-Pakistan proxy war.’70

  When the Kashmiris I spoke to in ‘Azad’ Kashmir warmed up to me, at times they would give voice to the mistakes they thought Pakistan had made. ‘By linking Islam with the Kashmir cause, Pakistan cost us azadi,’ they said. A legitimate movement had been linked to global jihad, and ultimately dismissed as terrorism. They felt that Pakistan did not have Kashmir’s best interest at heart and only supported the cause so long as it was pro-Pakistan. Certainly, there was a strong pro-Pakistan fervour in the community, even when we broke through the façade of having to please me as a Pakistani researcher, having to provide me with what they deemed to be the correct ‘patriotic’ answers. Yet, others complained that by taking away the third option of independence, Azad Kashmir became an oxymoron. Moreover, by engaging groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which had a much wider agenda than the freedom struggle in Kashmir, genuine indigenous movements came to be tarnished as extremist activities. Accused of the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament as well as the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the Lashkar-e-Taiba has come under heavy censure internationally, eventually being banned in Pakistan as well, only to be apparently reorganized under the banner of Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The Kashmiris I conversed with felt strongly about such actions, believing that they hurt the Kashmiri cause rather than aided it. I decide to ask General Karamat what he feels about this, trying to form my words carefully.

  ‘A lot of the indigenous groups have claimed that the alleged Pakistani backing of militant groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad have hurt the cause. A genuine freedom movement became synonymous with Islamic fundamentalism. Would you agree?’ General Karamat seems to ponder this a moment before responding. ‘I think that has to do with some basic issues and a thought process that has evolved over a period of time. The freedom struggles, not only here but everywhere in the world, were recognized as legitimate struggles of the people for their rights. Then you had this whole phenomenon of terrorism coming in, and then this terrorism getting linked to religious extremism. The line between terrorism and freedom struggles got blurred; the various activities during a freedom struggle, and what the terrorists were doing, got blurred… and it got more and more blurred over a period of time. India took great advantage of that by projecting the religious groupings which were supporting the movement in Kashmir, the ones you’ve mentioned (like the LeT), and maybe other ones too, as terrorist organizations. And then the impact of some incidents that happened outside Kashmir, acts spilling over into the urban areas of India—events such as the Mumbai attacks, the attack on the Parliament in Delhi. Those kinds of incidents gave India the opportunity to move internationally and get these groups labelled as terrorist organizations. That’s how the whole thing started: questions about where their funding is coming from, who is supporting them, why are they being given sanctuary.’

  ‘In a way, the Kashmiris feel like this has hurt their cause…’ I say.

  ‘Yes, I think it has hurt their cause. The line between terrorism and the freedom struggle getting blurred is an enormous blow to the Kashmiris.’ General Karamat is guarded but honest in his responses.

  I have several more questions for him and hope that he will be as candid. I decide this may be the right time to ask him about the Kargil conflict. It is believed that the Pakistan Army launched the Kargil operation in 1999 in an attempt to pressure India to free Kashmir. The operation brought the two countries, by then both nuclear powers, to the brink of war and also resulted in an overhaul of the fragile democratic system in Pakistan, with General Pervez Musharraf, General Karamat’s successor, seizing power through a military coup. The tussle between the democratic government and the military establishment had been on for a while by then. Though Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had appointed General Musharraf as the COAS, believing that he would be loyal and would back him in his political endeavours which, at that time, were geared towards building peaceful relations with India, General Musharraf had other plans. According to author Ayesha Siddiqa, ‘one of the causes of the rift between Sharif and Musharraf (and a reason for the army’s support of the latter) was that the army chief appeared to have thwarted the prime minister’s efforts at negotiating peace with the traditional arch-rival, India, without bringing the military on board’.71 Musharraf decided to launch an aggressive military operation against Indian forces at a time when the two civilian governments were engaging in peace talks. Siddiqa writes, ‘There is still no definitive and acceptable explanation from the Pakistani side of why Musharraf embarked on a war path at a time when peace was being negotiated via the Lahore Declaration, but it is undoubtedly true that the Kargil crisis demonstrated the underlying tension between the civilian and military authorities in the country.’72 It is said that Nawaz Sharif was kept in the dark about this operation—a claim rejected by Musharraf—73 under which Pakistan-backed forces are believed to have infiltrated Indian-administered Kashmir to capture Indian posts. When Sharif found out, he reportedly not only told the troops to back off but also tried to depose General Musharraf while the latter was out of the country.74 The prime minister even asked the civil aviation team to not let Musharraf’s plane land anywhere in Pakistan. The result was the 1999 coup d’état, which kept Musharraf in power till 2008. I ask General Karamat to introduce me to the thought process in the military behind the Kargil operation, which marked a defining moment in Pakistan’s political history as well as Indo-Pak relations and the Kashmir dispute.

  ‘I had retired by the time the operation took place but Kargil was something that was discussed many times in the army circles… just as India must have been discussing things on the Pakistani side,’ he lets out a curt laugh. ‘So over a period of time, we looked at Kargil several times because it was a strategically important location for India and if we got hold of it, we would have the upper hand. It was an attractive place for the military to dominate… to sort of isolate Kargil and help the Kashmiri cause. But then we were aware of the downside… that there were several similar places in Pakistan where the Indians could retaliate. For instance, the Neelum Valley could have been brought under fire… it was in fact brought under fire at times when we didn’t have a ceasefire there. So these considerations were always present.’

  I find it significant that General Karamat mentions Neelum Valley as if it was an accepted part of Pakistan. I find it even more poignant that he mentions the firing in Neelum Valley so passingly. In an army career spanning four decades, the fourteen-year-long mortar shelling in Neelum Valley perhaps does not hold much importance. For an ordinary Pakistani, it would not, either. Had
I not been to Neelum Valley and spoken to so many men, women and children about how much they had lost, the mention of the valley would not grasp my attention for long. Yet I think of those homes, those bunkers that I visited, the psychological scars among the people, the widowed mothers who I sat with, and my heart stops for a moment. I am reminded of how important it is to share their stories, to not just let them be a footnote in Indo-Pak history. I lose track of our conversation for a few seconds before noticing that General Karamat is still speaking, telling me about the events that led up to the Kargil operation. I have to consciously bring myself back into the room, becoming attentive once more.

  ‘I think when they decided to go for the Kargil operation, they found there were areas which the Indians would occupy and then leave for periods of time. They saw that as an opportunity to go and occupy those areas, sort of what India had done in Siachen in 1984, when they captured the glacier. Earlier, the Siachen area used to be open for international expeditions from both sides,’ he explains to me, ‘and the glacier was unoccupied. One day, one of our officers, who happened to be flying in a helicopter, reported movement on the glacier area from the Indian side75—ahem, just the glacier area actually, it wasn’t the Indian side then—,’ he corrects himself quickly. ‘Pakistan was not prepared for that kind of snow and high-altitude warfare… we hoped to do the same in Kargil. Once we captured the area, we would be in a superior position. We would be able to say: Here we are, sitting on these heights, now negotiate. The motive, as I heard it being said, was to internationalize the issue and bring the spotlight on Kashmir again and say, this is an unresolved problem that we need to deal with…