Kashmir an explosive issue

Every sensible person will certainly call Kashmir an issue. In fact, it is the mother of all issues confronting India and Pakistan. It was the Kashmir issue that prompted India to become a nuclear power so that none of its neighbours could dare to challenge it. But this dragged Pakistan into the race, thus the world's one-fifth population was pushed into a sense of insecurity. It was this sense of insecurity which keeps the two key South Asian nations away from economic growth and prosperity.

India should know that it is ruling Kashmir with the deployment of 700,000 troops. Most of its human rights violations are committed in Kashmir. A democratic India cannot disallow the people of Kashmir from exercising their long overdue right of self-determination.

A secular India cannot keep its Muslim majority state against the wishes of its people. No democracy and secular definitions on earth allow anybody to commit such acts. For a wise, realistic and democratic Indian leader, the Kashmir issue is very simple. Just allow the Kashmiri people to participate in a United Nations-conducted plebiscite.

Any Indian leader who is not understanding Kashmir as an issue, is in fact deceiving himself, because the future of 1.5 billion people on the earth is linked with this issue. Prosperity and economic growth in the region cannot be achieved if India and Pakistan have strained relations.

Let us allow the unfinished agenda of the 1947 partition to be completed by letting the people of Kashmir exercise their right of self-determination. All the other issues between India and Pakistan can only be a dialogue table away if India shows sincerity on the question of Kashmir.

SURENDAR HEMAN VALASAI

Kaloi, Tharparker

http://www.dawn.com/2002/02/19/letted.htm