The Wonderland

Because, not only there was no strong unifying factor to overcome the differences then felt among the various parts, but also it could not maintain an adequate defence of its long (about 1,500 miles) borders and protect its core areas from the incursions of tribesmen. The present state of J&K consists of the Kashmir division, the Jammu portion and the Ladakh area. Apart from India and Pakistan, the state has common borders with Afghanistan, China and Tadjikistan. Standing on the old Central Asian trade route, most of Kashmir is united with India, and part of it is associated with Pakistan, while it touches Afghanistan and borders Chinese Turkistan.

The ocean in the south, that bore the name of the country, occupied, however, a dominant position for India, which has a maritime boundary as large as (about 4,000miles) its land frontiers, in addition to a number of islands. Apart from several minerals and natural resources lying in the sea bed along the coast, the protection of the Andaman, Nicobar, Lakshwadeep and Minicoy Islands called for a strong navy. It was mainly on account of the Kashmir issue in the north that India neglected, for a time, to look southward where other interests were involved. India’s absorption in conflicts first and foremost with Pakistan and later with China, both in the north, forced the country’s leadership, largely recruited from the Indian heartland, to concentrate more on that region. Thus land-oriented, India allocated a larger share of the budget to the army and the air force, as if the extension of India was from Kashmir only to Kanya Kumari (formerly Cape Comorin) at the  very southern tip. It was only after the Anglo-U.S. Agreement on Diego Garcia(1969) which brought, not only the American Polaris A-3 missiles to the region, but also sharp Soviet response that India moved to declare a regional opinion that the Ocean should be a “Zone of Peace”.[9]

The Geopolitics of the Terrain

Concentrating mainly, until then, on the northern borders,[10] India endeavoured to undermine Pakistan’s advantages by improving its own communication lines into Kashmir, offered the help of its “complementary” industrial centers, established craft cooperatives to sell their products in the emporiums at advantageous prices, and sought the support of the non-Muslim majority areas such as Ladakh. The products of the cottage industries and most of the food surplus originated in the  Valley of Kashmir, where the overwhelming Muslim population congregated, and the markets of India was thought to be more appealing to them than the call to brotherhood in Islam.

The Hindu majority  in Jammu as well as the Buddhist people of Ladakh lent active support to India. The Hindu quest for better integration with New Delhi is understandable. While Ladakh, which saw the growth of Buddhism since A.D.400, enjoyed some spiritual relationship with its Tibetan neighbors, its monasteries retained their lands  precariously in the face of Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah’s egalitarian agrarian reforms.[11] In addition to these considerations, even the Moghul interest in Ladakh arose from the latter’s strategic position with respect to the defence of Kashmir. During the 1947-48 War, the Indian forces arrived just in time to save Leh, the capital, from the contingents that came from Paskistan. The cease-fire line, established by a United Nations Commission, left Ladakh  to India. The Indian defence system would be “gravely weakened” by the loss of Ladakh.[12] China claimed, however, that Ladakh was part of Tibet till the middle of the 19th century. China also laid claim virtually to the whole area of the present Arunachal Pradesh, north of the Brahmaputra River, involving 83,743 sq. km. Inhabited  by nearly 800,000 tribesmen.[13] The full extent of China’s views were disclosed(1960) at a conference between the officials of China and India. Chinese assertions were coupled with hints of mutual accommodation including the area of Aksai Chin at the north-western end of Tibet but a part of pre-partion India.

As may be easily envisaged, many Indian writers contend that Chinese claims are contradicted by the “facts of history”.[14] The Indian analysts in general judge a tenth century division of an independent kingdom there as the first known document which laid down a boundary between Ladakh and Guge in West Tibet.[15] It may be amplified that later agreements referred to this old, established or traditional frontier. The Indian interpretation conforms with these ancient chronicles, in so far as the main identifications are concerned.[16] Although Ladakh was independent for some centuries, it fell prey intermittently to foreign attacks and invasions, one of the, prompting the Ladakh is to bring the Moghul emperor into play. When Akbar (1556-1605) conquered(1586) Kashmir and the Ladakh king embraced Islam, striking all his coins in the name of the Delhi sultan, that country’s fate was well-knit with that of the Moghul Empire and Kashmir. Some European travelers, though not all, who have also visited Ladakh, seem to share the same view about the boundary.[17] The borders now defended by India do not seem to be different from what it apparently used to be some two hundred years ago. Further, the Treaty of Amritsar(1846) contained some significant clauses (Articles 2 and 4) that laid down, once more, the eastern frontier of the Kashmir state. Lieutenant Henry Strachey’s maps(1847-48), reproduced by the Government of India, confirm the evidence disclosed above.[18] In 1855, Lieutenant Montgomerie, to be aided by Colonel W.H. Johnson, Goodwin Austin and others, was put in charge of a survey to map the territories of Maharaja Gulab Singh. The completed survey, extensively collaborated by W.H. Johnson, included the northern and the north-eastern border regions, which showed that the Maharaja’s territories were found to extend up to the Kuenlum Mountains or the Chinese border. Frederic Drew, who traveled to every corner of Jammu and Kashmir and was also made  (1871) the Governor of Ladakh, not only found the Montgomerie-Johnson survey the foundation of every map of the region constructed since, but he himself attched to his own book a series of maps none of which support the Chinese claims.[19] Other official Indian maps of later dates show that Aksai Chin and the Lingzitang belong to Kashmir.[20] There is also the possibility that the Chinese, in the 1890s and now, may be confusing the Aksai Chin north of the Lingzitang plains with another Aksai Chin to the east of these plains, the latter apparently never included in Kashmir. British Indian strategic interests demanded that there should be some Chinese and Afghani (the Wakhan Corridor) territories between expanding Tsarist Russia and the northern frontier of India. There seems to be no convincing evidence supporting the contention that the frontier between Chinese Turkistan (Sinkiang) and Ladakh in Kashmir ran along the entire length of the Karakoram Range.

Sir Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, Pakistan’s distinguished former Foreign Minister, had said in the early 1950s that every factor on the basis of which the question of accession of Kashmir should be determined, namely, the geographical position, strategic considerations, population, religious bonds, communications, the economic situation, and the flow of trade, all pointed in the direction of its union with Pakistan.[21] Although geography seems more to necessitate a political and economic unit between Kashmir, on the one hand, and both the two neighbors in the south, on the other, it may be asserted to have more physical bonds with Pakistan if considered as the upper part of the Indus basin. The waters of the Valley of Kashmir, the country’s most densely settled area, join the Indus as its tributaries. The rivers Ravi, Chenab, jhelum and Shyok, the latter the main tributary of the Indus, all pour into Pakistan’s Punjab or the North-West Frontier Province. It may also be pointed out that there exist much less mountainous barriers between Kashmir and Pakistan compared to those connected with India. But the bulky territory of Ladakh, together with its Buddhist population, on the eastern edge opens towards India, instead. It is difficult to find a unifying factor between this territorially extensive part of Kashmir and Pakistan.

Although Pakistan has since partition, frequently brought up strategic reasons, stating that the country is militarily vulnerable without Kashmir and that India may invade its territory from south-western Jammu, reshaping and adapting the existing international borders in accordance with the security needs of one or the other party will only introduce more anarchy into this part of the world. Furthermore, an Indian invasion by way of Kashmir has not materialzed  in the last half century. Even Pakistan’s repeated assertions that India has been shutting off its neighbor's water supply is difficult to concede. India, which built major installations after partion on the Sutlej River with no Kashmir tributaries, cannot cope with canals or dams simply to wear out an adversary. Moreover, the long-term objectives of India’s irrigation projects reveal no concern to exhaust Pakistan. While a country’s irrigations problems might serve as tools for shaping an international opinion on an issue with much larger dimensions, Pakistan’s customary contention that control of Kashmir is vital for mere economic existence seems to be an exaggeration.

Although Pakistan was asked to shoulder responsibility for Kashmir’s communications during partition, India outdid much of the original advantages of its neighbor on account of the rivers and the 16-mile railroad between Jammu and  Sialkot by constructing new all-weather roads and tunnels based on detailed plans for improving the internal communication system. While the Jhelum River had traditionally served as the main artery of transport of Kashmir’s timber, the post-partition markets for major exports such as cottage industries, fruits and vegetables are now mainly India.[22] Pakistan’s earlier promises of land reforms in those Kashmiri areas under its control have not materialized. Popular support on the basis of religion may, at times, prove to be very scantly as the Bangladesh case expensively demonstrated. In respect to the distribution of population, one may emphasize that the overwhelming Muslim majority resides almost totally in the Valley of Kashmir which is about a tenth of the whole territory, and that various non-Muslim communities, although they constitute small minorities, live on vast patches of lands. The make-up of the people of Kashmir constitutes the theme of the next section.

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