Kashmir 3

I, an Indian, have read a part of the correspondence on the subject of Kashmir that is appearing in The Jakarta Post for some time (I was away for some time) and apologize if I am repeating the views of earlier contributors. Both the sides seem to be engaged in arguing, ad infinitum and ad nauseum, about who is right and who is wrong.

Personally I feel that the religion has a very small role in Kashmir dispute. Most of the Indians do not have any hang-ups about the religion of their leaders, idols, role models of friends. Abul Kalam Azad was once of our most revered leaders. We respect Zakir Hussein and Fakruddin Ahmad as much as we respect Zail Singh or Venkatraman. We are proud to have Azaruddin as our cricket captain and we idolize Imran Khan as much as we do Sunil Gavaskar (even though the former was responsible for many of our defeats on the cricket field). We celebrated the Pakistani victory in the World Cup of 1992 as emotionally and whole- heartedly as we celebrated ours in 1983. More story can be added to those already mentioned.

What are the arguments? Indian politicians say that 1) King Hari Singh decided to join India and therefore POK should be handed over to it. 2) Pakistan did not meet the precondition of vacating its armed forces from POK for conducting the plebiscite and so they have no case. Pakistani politicians say that Kashmir predominantly Moslem and given a chance to vote in a plebiscite, it will opt for joining Pakistan. What will the Kashmiris do? Will they opt for India, Pakistan or would like to follow a third course of action of becoming a sovereign state of their own? Who knows?

So what next? The only way out is to change our attitude. Do we accept, with a smiling face, certain realities and make peace so that our future generations are better off or keep bleeding each other to a slow (but sure) death? Do we spend our national resources to arm ourselves to teeth or do we spend these resources to improve our economic conditions, our infra- structure, our competitiveness.

We must pause and think. Will our children be ashamed of us on the basis of how we conducted ourselves during the 50-odd years after independence? In the enlightened era of tomorrow, this is very likely. I am not a constitutional pundit to know the intricacies of the issue. All I know is that we are similar people, get along famously with each other when we meet abroad, have close friends an each others' countries and at heart would like to bury this hatchet once and for all.

K.B. KALE

Jakarta Note: With the three letters on Kashmir issue, we should end the debate.

Editor