Kashmir: India’s white elephant

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Bad for business

 

It is nothing less than astounding that intelligent men who are charged with the responsibility of leading a country cannot comprehend that spending billions of dollars to maintain possession of a very small disputed territory to its north with millions of troops at the expense of their own national quality of life makes any sense at all. While millions of Indians don’t even have a toilet (as Prime Minister Modi said, “My real thought is to first have toilets and then temples”) and live in squalor in cardboard shelters, the government feeds off their meagre incomes in order to possess and control a nation that itself is kept in a dire state economically and cannot possibly pay any return on such an investment.

Moody’s has a Baa3 rating on India, the lowest investment-grade rating assigned by the company. India’s government debt-to-GDP ratio is the highest among BRICS nations and major developing countries at 67.9 in 2013, compared with 60.3 for Brazil, 42.9 for the Philippines, 24.5 for Indonesia and 34.4 for Turkey. The Indian financial system’s ability to absorb rising government debt has been diminished significantly as a result of low economic growth and high inflation.

Primarily due to energy needs, India is running an overall trade deficit of 7 per cent, yet at $8.2 billion expenditures annually, India insists upon being the world’s largest importer of arms, while 205 of its 640 districts are afflicted by political violence and unrest. This has been going on for years, and military solutions obviously offer no solutions.

Common corporate strategy is to cut production and services that are not profitable and maintain those that are, so that the company maintains its own health and vitality and has no red ink. The bottom line for India is that it needs to shrink rather than expand if it is going to be a profitable business.

Releasing the chains of bondage it holds on Kashmir would be a first logical step in that direction. Its first priority should be to develop quality of life for the people now within its borders so that they can become productive citizens and add to the wealth of the nation. Not only does it keep its own people barely hanging on to survival, it also ravages Kashmir with destructive measures and policies that serve no one. The desire to possess Kashmir is nothing but a fantasy, an extremely poor business decision, and an outrageous ego trip.

This not only humanitarian but sound business objective would involve nothing more than to allow Kashmir to hold the long-overdue referendum it was promised 67 years ago to decide whether it prefers sovereignty of India or Pakistan or else.

The example of how to do that has just been shown. The peaceful referendum held on September 18, 2104, in Scotland was a great inspiration to Kashmiris. Reuters reported that Syed Ali Geelani praised the United Kingdom for giving Scotland the vote, adding that ‘India should learn lessons from UK and honour its commitment of granting right to self-determination to people of Kashmir’. Yasin Malik echoed those sentiments by saying that the Scottish referendum is an eye opener for India. India should allow the people of Kashmir to exercise their right to self-determination. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq agreed when he said, “We hope India will also change its approach and realise the fact that people’s rights can’t be trampled upon.” Shabir Shah added what happened in Scotland should happen in Kashmir too, i.e., a free and transparent referendum to allow the people to choose.

After expressing horror at the prospect of Britain’s breakup, it is ironic that even Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj corrected herself by saying: “It is up to the people of Scotland to decide.” Really? No mention of Kashmir, of course. Good for the goose but not for the gander. Were India to allow a referendum in Kashmir, it would prove to the world that it too is a great democratic country.

Deborah Orr wrote in The Guardian on October 25, 2014, “As a Scot, I’ve found it hard not to compare the yearning for independence in Kashmir to the yearning for independence in Scotland.”

With 47.3 per cent YES votes and 55.3 per cent NO votes the referendum did not pass, but it laid down some basic principles for the freedom of expression, assembly and voting. The beauty of Scottish referendum was not that it was defeated but that the people were given the choice to have a referendum. The people of Kashmir do not want anything more than that. They want the same principle to be equally applicable to Kashmir. Let the people decide, whether they want to be the part of India or Pakistan or to remain independent.

The Scottish referendum was a transparent, free and fair one. The army was not involved. No shots were fired. No blood was shed. No arrests were made. No ban was imposed on election campaign. And there was no condition to take the oath on British constitution as is required in Kashmir.

All neutral reporters who have visited Kashmir say that the word referendum is common on the lips of Kashmiris and it stirs up excitement among them. Professor Richard Price, a well-known British historian, says, “If Kashmir somehow secured a vote for its independence, the people would probably vote to secede.” Yes, probably, but one thing should be clear: whatever the outcome of the referendum – be it India, Pakistan or independence — provided it is monitored and supervised by an internationally neutral agency, it must be binding and acceptable to all parties – India, Pakistan and Kashmiri leadership.

Undoubtedly, there is still great opportunity for peace in Kashmir, but it cannot materialise unless the people of Kashmir are permitted to have their own identity and chart their own course. The referendum in Scotland outlines the ideal path for that to take place.

8 COMMENTS

  1. yes you are right, I agree that India should not fund the army in Kashmir BUT can Pakistan confirm that it will not fund the terrorism in India.

    world knows that Pakistan is JANNAT for terrorists.

    There is no use of good education, food, toilets if someone is living in threat of terrorism and lass of life all day and night.

    It is easy to say that India should not by arms by living in America or similar places but we live with you(Pakistan) and know who are you!!!!

  2. ISLAM ABUSED MISUSED BY SOCALLED SELF STYLED ISLAMICS FOR POWER POLITICS —
    KASHMIRIS==CASH MIRS CASH MERES

    • ANIL GAURAV -NOT TO WORRY ABOUT PAKISTAN .. YOU HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH TRAITORS TERRORS TERRORISTS IN INDIA – LALUYADAVS CLANS AKILESH YADAV SC8MS MAMTA SONIA CON-GRESS RSS FOOLS KHALISTANIS NAXALS MAOISTS
      CRIME MAFIAS .. AND KASHMIR FUTURE SHALL ALWAYS BE DECIDED BY USA CIA PENTAGON WHENEVER ..
      ISI FLOODS INDIA WITH FAKE INDIAN CURRENCIES -ISI BUYS PEOPLES PLACES BOLLYWOOD IN INDIA ..
      HINDUS HAVE BEEN SLAVES FOR 2000YRS TO EVERY TERRORIST TYRANT – WHY ????? ASK LALUYADAV SC8MS ..MAYAWATI DIAMONDSWALI UNFIT TO BE TOILETS CLEANER .. TOILET CLEANERS MAKE HONEST LIVING BY HARDWORK ..

  3. I had to check I wasn't reading a satirical magazine when I read this article.

    Is Mr Fai also advising the Pakistan government ?

    Pakistan has a Moody's rating of Caa1. It also spends 50% more than India on defence as a percentage of gbp , this excludes military pensions and military businesses .

    I could go on, but seems silly to waste my time on such a poorly prepared article.

    Editor, were you short of articles, were the journalists on holiday. Ridiculous waste of space.

  4. pakistans obsession with Kashmir, has effected the natural growth of that nation.
    1. 1948: use of lashkars backed by PA, to ilegally occupy Kashmir.
    2. This backfired, as the Raja panicked and legally asked india for military help. Thanks to Pak's stupidity, otherwise today there may have been an independent and united Kashmir in our midst.
    3. this Kashmir obsession continued and terrorists / non state actors, were trained, financed, and provided logistics & weapons to create terror in India. All this with the wane hope of forcing india to hand over Kashmir to Pakistan.
    4. These terrorists, soon became so powerful, that they decided to take over Pakistan. So the killings started within Pakistan, these PA/ISI created monsters, target secular leaders, ahmedias, shias, hinhu, sikh and Christan. Even Sunnis who oppose them, including their old masters/ creators the ISI/PA.
    5. not to forget you lost E Pakistan due to your making India your enemy.
    The only way now forward for Pakistan is make peace with india, jointly destroy this monster ( terrorists) with india, accept the line of cotrol as the permanent borders, and move on.
    6. if the obsssion continues, Pakistan, could also lose Balochistan and POK. (as it will be in indias interests to cut their enemy down, till they become ineffective.)
    Think about it – lenne ke badle dena na parhe.

  5. Arrogance & short sightedness of Indians may sink India, she may be heading towards becoming another USSR, or Yugoslavia; but this is nothing to celebrate about, an already amputated Pakistan is also on the course of becoming a foot note in the history.

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