Staff Reporter Islamabad
London-based J&K Human Rights Council in its latest report on Kashmir dispute observes that engagement is the instrument that civilised communities have used to secure peace and settle disputes.
India and Pakistan are no exception to this rule. However, in this or any other engagement the dividends should be shared in equity and no party should be dispossessed or traded into a quid pro quo.
Reports says: People of Jammu and Kashmir do not have a dispute with India and Pakistan.
Unfortunately, their right to self-determination, which involves the question of accession as well, has resulted into the fracture of the State, division of the people and a life under five Governments and five constitutions.
For some time we see that life in the Indian administered part of Jammu and Kashmir has degenerated into an occupation. Life is lived as a process and not as a quality.
People are waiting for a UN supervised vote to determine their future. India and Pakistan are committed to a UN template for the last 73 years.
In the meanwhile, Government of India used around 900000 military personnel and committed an aggression against these people on 5 August 2019.
Indian action has savaged all hopes and efforts to see through a Plebiscite in Kashmir.
“Under these circumstances when India has wronged the people and the habitat of Jammu and Kashmir, there is a question as to how would India and Pakistan adjust their efforts for peace, without being iniquitous to the rights movement of the people of Kashmir.
This report examines the merits of the 5 August 2019 Indian action and the efforts afoot to engage each other.
Any effort that remains unfair and injurious to the interests of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, has no future.
Let us examine the situation from the point of view of a Kashmiri and make an outside input for the two countries to consider.
“On 5 August 2019 Government of India has conferred upon itself power and rights in regards to the part of the State of Jammu and Kashmir mandated to its ‘sacred trust’, to which it is not entitled and at the same time has deprived people of the territory of rights which they have been guaranteed.
The provisional instrument of accession of 26 October 1947 and the UN template on Kashmir first created on 6 January 1948 (S/636) do not entitle India to decide the destiny of the people of Jammu and Kashmir at its discretion”.
