Indian Defence Review

Right from Pakistan’s Britain-sponsored invasion of India in J&K post the Partition, Pakistan has been suffering from the chronic case of colic of ‘plebiscite’. Even their mentor China has not been able to find a cure for it despite experimenting concoctions of bats, mice, cockroaches, lizards and reptiles. Periodically, these colic pangs become acute in some Pakistanis resulting in irrational rants and outbursts. A recent casualty is General Tariq Khan who had retired as Inspector General of the Frontier Corps overseeing the killings in South Waziristan. An ardent admirer of radical Islamist Hamid Gul, Tariq Khan is rumoured to be still in touch with him through occult practices which in turn explains the hallucinations he remains under.  

Tariq Khan has written a longish narrative recently calling the Kashmir issue the longest unresolved UN issue in history. He has quoted UNResolutions numbering 47, of which he says that the most important ones relate to plebiscite. He also writes that the matter is further validated by the Simla Agreement, in which “it is clearly stated that, resolution to the Kashmir conflict, when resolved, will not be in prejudice to the existing UN Resolutions.”

The Pakistani army knows full well that when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, better known as ‘Zulfi’, came to Simla in 1972, he was down on his knees for somehow securing the release of 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war (PsOW) who had surrendered to Indian armed forces in erstwhile East Pakistan. This was the highest number of PsOW taken by any country after World War II. But when told that the agreement should include the withdrawal of Pakistani forces from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (POK), Zulfi begged that his government will fall and he will be executed if this was put in writing. He gave a verbal assurance that he would work towards it on getting back but later backtracked on that promise which is typical of the Pakistani genre.  

Tariq Khan’s claim that the Simla Agreement clearly states that “resolution to the Kashmir conflict, when resolved, will not be in prejudice to the existing UN Resolutions” is concocted and a blatant lie. Most fiction writers like Tariq Khan hope none of the readers would have the time or inclination to read the text of the Simla Agreement of July 2, 1972 or for that matter any agreement. Nowhere in the Simla Agreement is any mention of the UN Resolutions that Tariq Khan writes of. Tariq in literal translation means ‘date’ in English but this Tariq (Tariq Khan) appears quite outdated in his knowledge of history and how events have manifested since 1947.  

The Simla Agreement categorically states: “That the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means mutually agreed upon between them”. Wonder if Tariq Khan understands the meaning of bilateral? For his benefit, it means no outside mediation, UN included. And that is why India had even refused offers by Donald Trump when he was the US President to mediate on the issue.

During his recent visit to Pakistan, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) President Volkan Bozkir had the temerity to say that Pakistan was duty bound to raise the J&K issue more strongly in the UN. There is speculation that either Bozkir is not aware of the Simla Agreement or his brain accidentally has been dislocated elsewhere. However, there is a third explanation which is most plausible. If Bozkir was not a Turkish Islamic radical, he would have been kicked out from his current post long time back by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who dreams of reviving the erstwhile Ottoman Empire with himself as its Caliph. The Turkey-Pakistan radical nexus is well known and Pakistan would have had no problem ‘buying’ Bozkir, same way China helped install Tedros AdhanomGhebreyesus from a radical Ethiopian party as the Director General of World Health Organization (WHO), who is now helping China avoid blame for bombing the world with the ‘Wuhan Virus’.

Bozkir’s remarks incidentally were at a joint press conference in Islamabad with Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi. Quereshi is another radical who was earlier part of Musharraf’s cabinet. Both Imran Khan and Qureshi also lose no opportunity to raise the Kashmir issue. Perhaps, the evening reception for Bozkir was presided over by Imran Khan, with Tarq Khan invited among the guests.

Coming to the colic of plebiscite, this issue was also been raised from the Pakistani side in a conference under aegis of the Government of Afghanistan immediately post the Afghanistan-India-Pakistan Trialogue held in Kabul during 2010. The Pakistani speaker played the same game as Tariq Khan; that India had not abided by the UN Resolution to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir; confident no one would have read the said UN Resolution. But he was dumbstruck when replied by the Indian side that the same UN Resolution had categorically stated that Pakistan must withdraw all its security forces from POK before any plebiscite can be held, and Pakistan instead of withdrawing its security forces beefed up their strength.

The issue of plebiscite anyway was killed by Pakistan years back when it changed the demography of POK by settling population from the plains in these areas – same way China settled millions of Han Chinese in Tibet to reduce the percentage of Tibetan population in the region. Pakistan went a step further by relocating terrorist training camps to Shia predominant Gilgit-Pakistan bringing the Shia population from 70 percent to below 50 percent. Tariq Khan was probably concentrating on mastering Mandarin and maybe unaware of all this.

Many would not be aware that Musharraf had actually organized a plebiscite both sides of the Line of Control (LOC) which was funded by Saifal-Islam Muammar Gaddafi, second son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The plebiscite was conducted by the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), UK in conjunction   King’s College during 2009-2010. The published result brought out that 98 percent of the people in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) do not wish to be part of Pakistan and 50 percent of the people in POK do not wish to remain with Pakistan. This was a shock to Musharraf & Co because this result was despite all the forcible demographic changes made in POK, the radicalization effort in J&K and Pakistani nationals pumped across into India.

Nevertheless, the colic of plebiscite will keep attacking Pakistan, as would be the issue of Kashmir in the likes of Imran Khan, Tariq Khan and Quereshi passing on the ailment to their progeny before joining Hamid Gul – or till the time independent nations of Balochistan, Sindhu Deshand Pashtunistan are formed.