What holds back India from belligerent retaliation is the irresolvable question of legitimacy of its sovereignty over Kashmir in the eyes of the world. It gets raked up all the time when either a conflagration like Kargil or a tragedy like Pahalgam happens.
How to permanently establish such legitimacy?
I’m going to suggest here a controversial , out-of-box thought process buzzing inside my head on the matter ever since I saw the horrific footage of Pahalgam atrocity :
- Pakistan will never give up meddling in Kashmir because keeping the pot boiling is part of the very raison d’être for the Pakistani State and the Pakistani Army and not to mention that it serves China’s geostrategic plans in the region.
- No matter how much India insists that Kashmir is “bilateral issue” with Pakistan, and has over the decades repeatedly and stubbornly refused mediation from all international quarters … America and the UN included … India has never succeeded in keeping at bay covert diplomatic interference into Kashmir by the US , UK, China and the Organisation of Islamic Countries. Everytime there is a flare-up big or small in Kashmir, these countries (so-called “friends of India”) rush to offer their pious assistance and nostrums to resolve the “long standing problem of Kashmir”.
- What is this “long standing Kashmir problem” that these sly and mendacious international “friends of India” keep harping upon endlessly ?
- In my view , it’s that “Kashmir plebiscite” that our country’s first PM Nehru in 1948 rashly and feckless undertook to hold in Kashmir . That undertaking as we all know got registered as a UN Resolution … and from then and until today , it is the single most insistent reason why the international “friends of India” keep meddling into India’s Kashmir affairs .
- That “Kashmir Plebiscite” if held today will decisively show that the people of the State will unanimously vote to ratify their 1948 accession to the state of India and not to Pakistan . That’s the mood today in Kashmir and even amongst Muslims.
- So, why not India hold a referendum on the matter and finish it once and for all? Why not take the wind out of the sail of these malicious “friends of India” from abroad who will not stop meddling ?
- Once armed with a clear vote from the popular referendum, India in my view will gain greater and indisputable legitimacy over the whole of Kashmir , including PoK. Thereafter, both Pakistan and the world will have to shut shop. And India’s sovereignty will extend over all Kashmir.
- If Pakistan incited by China continues to however foment trouble on the borders in Kashmir, even after the plebiscite result, at least India will not have the problem of legitimacy in the international diplomatic arena … something which today it continues to be hobbled by and which is what holds it back from bold and decisive military strikes against Pakistan.
Jai Hind!
Sudarshan Madabushi