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Kashmir

Geography:

    A mountainous region of approximately 86,000 square miles, bordering China, Afghanistan, Pakistan,and India. An estimated population of 13 million (Census of 1990).

Present Status:

    Kashmir is a disputed territory. Presently, the cease­fire line between the forces of India and Pakistan has divided Kashmir into two parts. One part is under Indian occupation: this comprises 63% of the whole territory and includes the Vale; it has a population 7.5 million. The other part, with approximately 3 million people, includes Azad Kashmir, and the northern region of Gilgit and Baltistan and is administered by Pakistan. About 1.5 million Kashmiris are refugees in Pakistan: some 400,000 live in Britain, and about 250,000 are scattered around the world. The present arbitrary bifurcation of Kashmir has resulted in the division of thousands of Kashmiri families.

Demand for plebiscite:

    Although India's occupation of Kashmir has thus far been left undisturbed by the international community, its validity has never been accepted. At no stage however, have the people of Kashmir shown themselves to be reconciled to it. There have been several uprisings, notably in 1953 and 1964, and even the relatively calmer interludes have witnessed continuous peaceful protest met with unrelenting force. Kashmiris' record of opposition to its annexation by India can by no standard be reckoned as less genuinely demonstrated than that of the countries of Eastern Europe under the dominance of the Soviet Union. But while the popular revolt in the countries of Eastern Europe was observed and reported by the international media, the Kashmir scenario remained largely hidden from the world's view. Some facts of the situation are:

    • By settling one million non­Kashmiris in the State, India has altered its demographic composition, thereby reducing the ratio of Kashmiris in the population.

    • India has subverted Kashmir's traditional autonomy by taking Kashmir's higher level judiciary and administrative services under the total control of the Government in New Delhi.

    • Over more than 50 years of occupation, India has so managed Kashmir's economy as to make it dependent on Indian subsidies and supplies on necessities as basic as food; excluding a southern pocket adjacent to India, not even a beginning has been made towards industrialisation; with the object of imposing severe economic penalty upon its release from Indian occupation, Kashmir was turned into a deficit area.

    • Compared to Azad Kashmir, which has a 56% literacy rate and a per capita income of $450, Indian Occupied Kashmir has a literacy level of 26% and a per capita income of $260. These figures exist as such even though it is the latter which traditionally contains the more settled and developed parts of the State.

    • To make the Kashmir dispute as unamendable to a rational solution as it can, India has taken advantage of the undemarcated frontier with China in the northeast, and militarily asserted claims which are challenged by China.

    • There are 16 Indian known secret service agencies which ubiquitously blanket every individual Kashmiri.

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